For over last half a year I was trying to find the best way to organize my small and average tasks. During that period of time, I was testing plenty of both on-line and stand-alone applications, very often having average benefits from using them. In the end, I didn’t find any application that was really satisfying me.

Most of available solutions offered a lot of nice features. But a lot of them weren’t so useful for me and they made things only complicated. I found out that I don’t need to organize my common tasks into any groups, subtasks, projects etc. I don’t need any steps, phases and milestones, dependencies or relations between tasks and other functionalities that might be useful for huge projects.

What worked best for me was the simple list in Office document.

I was writing new task one under each other and I was removing those, that I finished. Nice and simple. It was working for me very well. For a long time I even didn’t think about improving it.

The next step was moving my TO-DO list to the piece of paper. This way I didn’t have to turn on my computer, each time I had to access to my TO-DO list. That helped a lot. Early in the morning, before leaving home, I am able to quickly go through my list and plan tasks that I want to do, today. In the evening I enjoy taking my list and review it while sitting on sofa. Having my list on paper I was more eager to experiment with it.

Currently, everyday in the morning I add one vertical dash near each task on my TO-DO list. That helps me to see, which tasks are way too long on my list. If one task has a lot of dashes, it indicates me that I probably have problems with finishing it and I postpone it all the time. So I spend few minutes on thinking about reasons for that situation. Then I usually visualize how I solve this task. I create in my mind multiple paths to reach this goal. Both possible and impossible paths. It helps me to get the strong feeling of doing this. I am trying to find myself very confident performing this task. Later, when you would be in the middle of this task, bring your positive feelings from the visualization. Awareness, confidence, safety. It really helps.

Another advantage of my TO-DO list is a satisfaction I have, while removing done tasks by crossing them out. Seeing list full of finished task is a nice source of motivation to do more and more. You simply want to finish all your tasks. This is very good feeling and strong force increasing productivity.

On the other hand, seeing tasks with multiple dashes is very, very annoying. I don’t want to have such tasks on my list. I need to take them out, by completing them, of course. This is also very smart effect brought by my TO-DO list.

Of course I don’t claim that my way of tasks organizing is the best one. It works well for me. It may also work nice for you. Maybe you find it useful or inspiring. Just try it or any of my ideas. Each one of us has different needs, so there is no possibility to develop universal TO-DO list. You have to experiment a little, try different approaches and techniques. Eventually, you will find something that fits to you. Or maybe you even don’t need such a list at all.

If you have your own TO-DO list or you are a happy user of such an application - post about it in comments. I will be very grateful for any ideas and feedback.

 This post was published in past on MindEssential.com, my previous blog that is currently off-line.

Investing is my passion and one of my sources of income. It’s great to make money on things you like to do, it’s also nice to have possibility to write about it and share my knowledge and experiences with you.

In general, investing is making your money work for you. It is very important point. As I stated in one of my previous post, probably most of us trade hours for money at a regular job. If you want more money, you have to work more time. One disadvantage is that you are limited by 24h/day, another one – more time you work, less time you can enjoy the money. While investing, can you earn all the time, no matter what you are doing at the moment.

I love the market, it is my work, my play and my life.
Rene Rivkin

Among most popular investments are stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estates and Forex. Currently, I put most of my money into stocks. Why? First of all, it gives me possibility to get satisfying rate of return. It is also very challenging, which keeps me motivated all the time to learn more. The stock market is quite dynamic. On one side it makes the whole fun very interesting, on another I can’t stop watching the market for the moment and no one can take me away from this. I’ve already met a lot of interesting people through stock market community. We help each other, exchange thoughts, discuss the market and share data. Among many others there is also financial security. Knowing a few basic rules I can significantly limit risk of loss to acceptable level.

Remember, that investing is not a gambling. You don’t risk your money to random output. There is always analysis, before you put money on market. You estimate expected profit, you set your acceptable loss. Of course, there is always risk, but it is not based on blind fate.

If you want to win 500$, there is a nice contest at JimKarter.com. There are two possibilities to take a part in it. You can subscribe vie email to RSS or write a post about this contest on your blog. I did both, so I’ve got two entries in the contest. Winner will be selected randomly from all entries on 6th of March. The second prize is one month of 125×125 banner listing on jimkarter.com.

Good luck.

According to the three ideas that are fundamental for my personal finances, I earn money from different sources.

Currently, my primary and main source of income is regular job. I work as a software developer and data analyst in one of European company serving marketing solutions. I’m pretty happy with it; I have already gained a lot of experience during work at the company, met a lot of interesting people and had a lot of fun. The main disadvantage is obvious, regular job takes a lot of time. Therefore, in future I would like to quit 9 till 5 work style at all. Of course to do so, I have to develop my other sources of income to the level, when they will fully cover my expenses.

Trading at stock market is both my passion and source of income. Actually, it had been my passion for a very long time and it has become source of income since December 2007. Earlier I usually had poor results which mean I was losing money. Those were due to my high degree of greed and almost complete lack of knowledge about investing. Currently, I’m quite happy with my results.

Deposits are my third source. It is very safe way to generate income, but of course it is very slow and you have to put a lot of money in order to get satisfying profit. My bank offers deposits with 5% – 5,50 % rate of return, which with my current equities covers my outgoings to the cinema. Anyway I find it as an interesting option for my finances.

In past, I was freelancing to a limited extend. I did some PowerPoint presentations, small websites or some scripting. Nowadays, I find it less interesting as my heart push me to focus on investments and writing.

Last, but not least is my personal blog. Of course, I have just started it and I am not focused on monetizating it so strong, but I expect that it will generate some income. I checked Google Adsense Center and it indicates that visitors clicked 6 times into Adsense unit. Great success for the very beginning.