Quitting Cable - The Deed Is Done

Posted on December 11, 2007

After some months of deliberation, I finally canceled cable. For those that don’t know the background, I put out a request for some support while I was considering dropping the tube in July. Then I posted some reasons why I should cancel cable backed by studies, and then finally provided a small blogosphere roundup on the issue.

The support was tremendous, and in August I got the nerve to cancel cable and buy an AppleTV. I still wanted to catch a handful of my favorite shows. To my dismay, my TV does not have component video jacks to support AppleTV! I searched for a solution and found a converter that would allow AppleTV to work with RCA jacks, but that added another $150 to the solution. Needless to say, the solution died.

In late November, the issue finally surfaced again and I was ready to cancel the cable again. This time I was ready to pull plug and even forgo the few shows that I watched. With the support of The Happy Rockette, I called Comcast. I held firm and canceled cable while saving a $100 across our phone, cable, and internet bills. We still have basic channels for reception sake, but hopefully the TV will be off mostdays. I will report back on how things have changes in a few weeks.

If you want to know what finally caused us to cut the cable, it wasn’t just one thing. It was the sum total of multiple inputs that lead to the courage to finish the job. Here is what I think contributed:

Discussing the issue and attempting to quit in July. Without that, I don’t know if would have been able to follow through. It is so easy to find a reason to keep the cable on. I mean, we have to watch that next episode of Heroes.
Having full support and encouragement of your spouse really goes a long way.
The responsibility for protecting and raising our son. Even at 27 months, he still doesn’t watch TV for more than 5 minutes at a time, but we did. Now the TV won’t be on, and I will teach and play with my son more.
A healthy respect for the amount of money spent over the years and in the future. Thousands!!!!
Filling my life with more important tasks. I found that I often would watch TV for an hour or so which caused me to go to bed without something I wanted accomplish undone. Ultimately, I want accomplish the other tasks more than I wanted to watch TV. The addiction often clouds that judgment though.
The Hollywood writer’s strike. It really did provide perspective on how much our culture is wrapped up in TV.
I knew that once I broke the addiction, I won’t miss it.

If anyone else is considering the same thing, feel free to post a comment and get some support.

» Filed Under About Me, Chasing Dreams, Productivity

My Sitemeter and pMetrics Addiction And Other Things We Do Too Much

Posted on August 15, 2007

Hi, my name is Frank and I have a problem! I am addicted to Sitemeter and any other web site tracking package. My new love is pMetrics. The statistics are tailored for blogs and it lets you easily track your visitor’s movement within your site. It combines my favorite reports from other sites into one visitor overview page. Plus it is much faster than loading than everything else I have tried. I haven’t needed to visit SiteMeter or anything else since I signed up. I know The Happy Rock is a small site, but that just means that there is more chance I haven’t received a new hit since I last checked. It is a shame that doesn’t stop me from checking.

Every blogger can probably relate to this type of stat fascination. The real problem is that incessantly checking these stats adds no value. I would even go so far as to say that it probably hurts my overall productivity in life and for The Happy Rock. Here is how:

Wasted Time - Time spent doing something that I could easy do just a few times, rather then a few times an hour is a real waste. I really don’t have time to waste either.
Lost Focus - The preoccupation with stats and interruptions that the addiction causes probably has the biggest impact on my daily life.
Lost Perspective - Constantly focusing on one task can shape our strategy to revolve around only small piece of the puzzle. The usually translates into bad decisions.

For the blogger and non-blogger, the bigger question is what do we do when we can’t stop ourselves from getting too much of a good thing or too much of things that provide little or no value? We all have plenty of these things in their life.

The start of the process is getting the problem out in the open, like I am doing here. It has been a day since I have written this, and just by sharing and listing the negative consequences the lure of stat checking has already lost some of its power.

What things do you know in the back of your mind you should avoid altogether or drastically cut back? J.D @ Get Rich Slowly shared yesterday that he recently got bitten by an old Magic The Gathering addiction to the tune of $161. Let’s start by getting the problem out in the open and listing the negative ways that it affects our lives and our money in the comments section. In a future post I will post reader tips and some concrete ways that I am going to deal with my pMetrics addiction.

Disclosure: pMetrics is an affiliate link, although that doesn’t change how good it is!

» Filed Under Accountability, Bloggers, Productivity

Do Cable and TV Cost More Than We Think?

Posted on July 17, 2007

Here are the highlights of some research to add some discussion to the cable canceling experiment.

I found a great website called Trash Your TV. It is your one stop shopping experience for anyone thinking of canceling cable or getting rid of their TV. TV viewing stats, success stories, effects of TV articles, and much more.

Let’s start with some eye opening stats about the about some real costs of watching TV:

Nielsen Media Research Inc. reports that the ‘average person’ watches TV for 4 hours and 35 minutes every day. Furthermore, the average household has a TV playing for 8 hours 14 minutes every day.
That 5 1/2 days a month watching TV, 69 days a year, and about 13 or so years for an average life span. Even if I watch half that amount in a week, WOW!
Exposing children to all that TV can affect the wallet by the Nag Factor. Marketers seek to brand your children and make them discontented. All that TV time could result in viewing as much as 30,000 commercials a year, which in turn influenced an estimated $300 billion in sales or $4,000 per pestering child a year in 2001.
Number of hours of TV watched yearly by Americans: ~250 billion
Assuming an average US wage of $7/hour that equates to S1.75 trillion dollars
Average US cable bill in 2005 was $43.04. $783 for the primary TV in their home, and $176 on accessories. $22 billion total on TVs in 2006. Source
A multitude of studies that link TV watching to obesity and weight gain. Cut out some TV and lose weight.
Television viewing has been linked to ADHD.
The American parent spends 38 minutes per week in meaningful conversation with their children.
Children view on average 16,000 television murders before age 18.

These facts don’t even include other factors like opportunity cost, decreased energy, decreased brain activity, and peer pressure. Some of those time and money statistics are staggering.

Mike @ Prosperous Land left a good comment in the cancel cable and save post that linked to a recent article on The Street : How to Earn $1 Million by Not Watching TV.

One thing I found interesting was a recent study found that it would take $1,000,000 for white people to not watch TV for the rest of their lives. Second, although I am not sure I can vouch for the reality of his numbers, he argues that if you ditch the TV at age 25 and “instead invested this money and received a return of 8% compounded annually over 45 years until you’re 70 years old, you would have more than $3.7 million in your account.”

I think that little fact sheet may be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the drawbacks of cable and TV. Sure those numbers look a little high, but even if they are half or a quarter that much, isn’t that a lot? I’m not saying that there aren’t any benefits, but I am becoming hard pressed to find them at this point in my life. The more I think about it, the truth is I really don’t want to look back in 20 years and realize how much TV and cable really cost me. How much is it costing you?

» Filed Under Living with Purpose, Motivation, Productivity

I Need Help Canceling Cable - Save Time And Money

Posted on July 16, 2007

My wife and I are struggling to cancel the cable once again. We talk about it every time our Comcast bill goes back to normal price. We have internet + digital cable + DVR for about $122 a month. I usually call and tell them I am going to cancel, and they start offering some deals. I never take the first deal or two, and usually end up negotiating to a price to around $85/month for about a year. I have actually been paying full price for way too long now. Why?, because I really want to cancel cable. I am scared that I will call and renegotiate rather than actually canceling. Once that is done I will probably settle in for another year. So instead, I am ‘wasting’ $40 dollars a month, because I can’t pull the trigger(but want to). I need help. My wife and I both are willing to go for it, but neither of us has been motivated to action. If we wait until fall, when new episodes of Lost, Heroes, and the Office come back on, we will be sunk. With that said, here is the plan…

First, I did a little research for ammunition and motivation. I will share the highlights of that research in an upcoming post.

Step two is where you, the reader, come in. I hope to use The Happy Rock to get some feedback, success and failure stories, advice, and motivation. Here is what I am looking for :

I know most of us cringe or rebel when we entertain the thought of ditching cable, so let me know why I should keep it.
For those that were bolder them I am, let me know how getting rid of cable has worked, or not worked.
Possible alternatives. The family would only really miss a few shows, no more then ten : The Office, Lost, Heroes, So You Think You Can Dance, etc… I was thinking about Apple TV as a replacement for cable. A half dozen series passes would be much cheaper than the $700 plus it costs for cable. Any other options?
Kick in the butt, slap in the face. Tell me I am a wimp, wasting money, time, whatever.
Anything else I am missing?

Step Three : Cancel the cable, or keep cable and negotiate a deal again. My research shows canceling cable will save us a lot more than just money.

Share that wisdom! PLEASE.

» Filed Under About Me, Money Savers, Productivity, Time Management

Take A Break And Give Yourself Credit

Posted on June 25, 2007

As The Rockette, The Pebble, and myself traveled down to the New Jersey shore for a weekend of camping at the Frontier Campground, I was thinking about a few articles I had planned. I didn’t bring the laptop, but I was all set to outline a few articles. I made an off-hand comment to my wife about how I haven’t been able to get to anything done on my ‘in between MBA classes to-do list”. At Drexel University I get about a 1.5 - 2 weeks off in between quarters. Since two classes takes about 9-15 hours a week for classes, assignments, and reading, there are a lot of tasks that get prioritized out. Class starts again tomorrow(only 6 classes left), and I haven’t been able to get anything off of my list. To that, my wife replied with this gem, “sometimes you just need a break”.

Simple, direct, and to the point. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in plugging away and just dealing, that I needed my wife to remind me that I could give myself permission to take a break. Without that little exchange, I would have potentially ruined a beautiful weekend by carrying my to-do list baggage around. From that point on, I decided to leave ‘life’ at home, and enjoy the moment of the vacation. The simplicity of tent camping provided a nice get away. Without the to-do list encroaching on my personal space I was able to find space for reflection. Here are a few take away insights :

Take a Break - For those of us who put constant pressure on ourselves to perform and grow, take some time to refresh yourself. Even though it is tough to pull ourselves away, it is important. We can even hinder our growth and performance, because of sub-par energy and our to-do list baggage.

Give Yourself Credit - I am constantly looking forward, so much so that I don’t take the time to look back. I was able to find some time to reflect over the weekend. These past two years have been amazing. New father, amazing son, nearing the end of an MBA, finished getting out of 70k in debt, changed my energy and productivity habits, and gave some tangible shape to my life’s dream. That kind of perspective can’t be beat. Seeing what the last two years has brought, I am even more energized for the future.

This is part of the reason the Dave Ramsey method works well. The baby steps method provides built in moments to reflect and see how far you have come. Each time a debt get crossed off, we are forced to deal with the positive changes. The process happens more often in the early stages of debt reduction, which is generally the time we need the most encouragement. This reflection gives us passion for the future and our bigger debts.

Reevaluate - Take some time to think about your routine and your tasks…how does it align with your goals? Often stepping back to view your life from a distance, can help see new areas for improvement. Being stuck in the trenches allows only a limited view of the landscape. For example, people trying to get out of debt often get focused on small value tasks like selling clutter on eBay, when they need to focus on dumping the 20,000$ car or changing jobs for more income.

Plan Some Space For Reflection - The time was so needed and useful, that I need to consciously plan space for reflection on a regular basis. The idea of taking a few hours alone once a month with the sole purpose of reflection will be a good place to start. A reflection day.

» Filed Under About Me, Motivation, Productivity, Psychology of Debt

Friends Matter: Support And Education Through Friendships

Posted on June 19, 2007

In the previous post on how friends can shape our perception of reality, I ended with an example about my goal to become an entrepreneur. I came to the conclusion that there is not anyone in my life that can really understand and support that quest; they are all 9-5′ers. Some may even provide resistance. The truth of the matter is that we need some friends in our lives that will be able to challenge us, teach us, and relate to our unique struggles.

I think most of us know this instinctively, but the real work comes when we have to overcome our social awkwardness to seek out these types of relationships. Sometimes we are blessed with friends in our proximity that align with our goals. Often though, this is not the case. These are the times that we need to search out our needs and pursue relationships that will encourage success. This is one of the reasons the blogging community is thriving. It offers easy access to these types of relationship. If I decide to get out of debt, I can easily connect with real people who have gone through or are going through the same journey. They will teach us, support us, and even learn from us. In that vain I have added some entrepreneurship blogs to my reader, but I also plan to try and connect with a person or two in my area. Websites like Meetup can be a valuable tool in forming these types of relationships. Even going to church or community events can be a great place to start your search.

I won’t lie, this will be a goal that stretches me. I am working hard to become more outgoing, but I am far from extroverted. The reason I will succeed is because I realize these types of relationships will be an integral part of achieving my dreams. The passion for the dreams is what will drive me to step out of my comfort zone.

Let us end with an example. My friend Double Eagle over at Life In The Rough has a dream to be a golf pro. An awesome dream, but a dream that will require friends for support an learning. A dream like this will only happen if him to step outside his ‘normal’ circle of friends. Creating opportunities to train under professional golf pros, creating relationships with other aspiring golf pros, and interviewing pros that have been through a similar journey will be invaluable to chasing his dream.

» Filed Under Chasing Dreams, Friends, Living with Purpose, Productivity

Having Goals Is Great, But Having Purpose Is Better

Posted on June 10, 2007

Consider two similar working mothers: one who wants to get out of debt because a few of her friends starting getting our of debt. The other woman decides to get out of debt, so that she can provide a more secure environment for her children by quitting her job to pursue a life goal of staying at home full time. If you had to bet on which one will succeed at becoming debt free, which one would it be?

Maybe the example is too simplistic, but I hope the point is clear. Having goals is very helpful, but having purpose will change your life. The woman who feels called to be at home with her children will be motivated far beyond that of the first woman. If we can begin to define answers to the questions ‘who are we?’ and ‘what are we meant to do in life?’, our lives will begin to reorient themselves around these answers. Purpose fuels our passion, which in turn should lead to making measurable goals. The goal becomes important, not because it is a ‘good’ goal, but because it is a step towards achieving your deep fulfilling purpose in life. When the goal is the end in and of itself, there is nothing to motivate us. We are limited to the extent that our self discipline will keep us on track. I know for most that this isn’t a promising picture.

“Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for” -Victor Frankl(concetration camp survivor)

If you connect with these words, then there is no better time to start trying to find the deeper meaning in your lives. It may take us years, even a lifetime, but our lives will never again be the same.

» Filed Under Energy, Favorites, Living with Purpose, Motivation, Productivity

Overwhelmed? Here are a few steps to walk your way out

Posted on May 22, 2007

My todo list has been overflowing lately. How did I know?….I was subconsciously avoiding adding any tasks to it. I was barely finding time to get the basics done, let alone attack anything on my list. Like a deer in headlights, I wasn’t even getting things done when I had time. My so called productivity system left me wasting valuable time searching Steve Pavlina’s sleep experiments for more time. For days and maybe weeks I was making feeble attempts to drag myself out of the hole I was digging. Nothing was working. I wrote these steps while having too much on my todo list in mind, but I think they are applicable to creating freedom in other areas like debt and finances.

The breakthrough came when I asked myself “What would I say to a reader who asked for advice?”. Here is what I came up with and what I have been personally working through :

Realize You Are Overwhelmed - The first part is realizing that you are overwhelmed and not just procrastinating on a few tasks. If you are just procrastinating, look here for some tips. It may sound stupid, but I often find myself wandering frustrated for days until I recognize my patterns that point to deeper problems. My signs were the not using my PDA for processing and recording tasks, needlessly unproductive in ‘free’ time(avoidance), looking for quick fixes, and devouring of some junk food.

Accept Reality - Again, this sounds easy, but it really isn’t. For me, it took the form of admitting to others that the ship is sinking. I mean an author of a productivity blog, can’t admit this sort of stuff, right? Father and husband of the year(sarcasm), can’t admit to his family that he is struggling. Well, I did. I resigned to write a post addressing the exact issue. Then, the next morning I shared with my wife how I was feeling. In a world that tells you not to show weakness or rely on others, it sure feels cathartic to let those false pretenses go despite the uncomfortableness. It paves the way for true change.

Get Perspective – This took two forms :

Step Outside Yourself – First, I started thinking through my blog post. What would I tell someone who asked me how to deal with a similar situation? The answers become a lot more clear, manageable, and practical when not trying to deal with my own baggage. Stepping outside myself on my journey also leads me into prayer.

Life Is A Journey – Again a productivity blogger has to have it all together, right? Nope, that is why we call it a journey. Epiphany moments are rare, so most of life is filled with gradual up and downs. Some months are better, some are worse. Remember, we are steering a boat through this journey. You don’t automatically turn a boat around 180 degrees, it takes time to navigate that big boat from the valleys to the peaks. This type of perspective helps us to accept our reality without the self-pity and frustration that helps keep us trapped in the mud.

Priorities – At this point we can begin to look at the overwhelming list of things to accomplish. I like to keep these rules in mind when sorting through which tasks are the most important, which can be put off, and which can be outsourced/delegated or deleted:

People are more important than things – For me family comes first
Bills before thrills, or more clearly needs before wants

This time around there wasn’t anything that I removed from my list, but I did realize that there were a at least dozen tasks that would probably take less then fifteen minutes each.

Seek Simplicity – Focus on removing clutter from your life, your time, your systems, and your mind. It is amazing how quickly ‘stuff’ builds up as time goes on. I will let Leo over at Zen Habits who is a master at writing about simplicity guide you through some of that process.

Focus and Do – Finally, comes the DOING! After I told my wife about how I was feeling, she let a gentle pearl of wisdom fly. You just need to “reorganize and tackle one thing at a time”. Yeah, great pearl of wisdom, right? Well maybe it was more of a motivational boost, but it did help me remember that this is how I should be tackling things. It gave me some control back. Even with a trip to Longwood Gardens for Mother’s day, I was able to take a few hours on Saturday to focus and tackle one thing at a time with the help of The Happy Rockette. There were a bunch of small tasks that I knocked out, and even a larger one or two that I got through. It has been much better sailing the last few days, and it will continue. Hope this helps, I know it helped me. I’ll leave with a Thoreau quote :

Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify, simplify! … Simplicity of life and elevation of purpose.

- Henry David Thoreau (”Where I Lived and What I Lived For” Walden)

» Filed Under Motivation, Procrastination, Productivity

The Happy Rock’s Addendum to the Unmanaged Time Laws

Posted on May 7, 2007

So you thought we were done talking about the tip offs that our time is probably not being used as wisely as possible……………not so fast.

Here are the Happy Rock’s additions :

Unmanaged Time Flows Towards Immediate Gratification

This one isn’t as ugly as it sounds. I noticed that in those times when life was piling up and I had a multiple stressful tasks that needed to be done, I would often gravitate towards inane tasks. If I had a 10 page paper, a test to study for, and a big life decision to make, I would feel compelled to reorganize my bookshelf(something I might do every few years). I suspect that part of it was avoiding the stress and hard work, but deep done I think I wanted to ‘excel’ and complete in something I had complete control over. The darker side of this one is watching yourself fall into the same habits over and over again when there are lots of things that needs to be done. For me it was withdrawal from people, and video games. They could be even more destructive than that, but hopefully we each know what our struggles are.

Unmanaged Time Flows Through The Path Of Least Resistance

Just hikers tend towards the easiest path around a mountain, our use of time will flow towards the easiest path. I would often find myself with free time, but unable to think of something worthwhile to do. I would then waste a few hours watching the TV or surfing the net until bedtime. As I close my eyes to enter dreamland, I would be flooded with the bills I could have paid, or the person I wanted to call, or the wash(Yes, I said wash not laundry. I think it is a Philly thing) I wanted to do. I had no plan for what tasks were important to me and how I would accomplish them. My mind was quite eager to aid and abet by conveniently forgetting any tasks of real value. I think the appropriate example would be when we forget to give dinner the proper forethought. Instead taking just a few minutes each day toensure we can eat a healthy balanced meal, we peruse the cabinets, each some potato chips, grab a soda, and then order a cheese steak from the local pizza shop.

The point is that is if we see any of these six behaviors patterns then we are probably in need of a tweak or overhaul to our time management system. We need to reevaluate how we record, process, prioritize, and plan our time. Ultimately we want to be making decisions that get us closer to the most important goals in life.

-The Happy Rock

» Filed Under Productivity, Time Management

Who really wants to be a fire fighter anyway?

Posted on May 5, 2007

Law three : Unmanaged Time Surrenders to the Demands of all Emergencies

This law is similar in principle to Law 2. If our time is not budgeted for the things that we want and need to accomplish, the last thing that demands our attention will often win out. In the computer programming world, we call that a LIFO system. Last in first out, or fire fighter mode. The structures in our lives only realistically lets us deal with the emergencies of our lives. Surprisingly there are even many work environments that operate like this. This type of environment often leads to burn out and high stress.

Picture someone walking to the mail box and grabbing the mail. As she flips through the stack of letters, she notices a Old Navy credit card bill. Just to be safe, she checks the statement and pays the bill. It isn’t until a month later when she receives a late payment notice(with exorbitant fees and interest) from the Mastercard that she remembered that there was another bill that was stashed away earlier in the week when she was in a rush. If an hour on Sundays was budgeted for finances, the bill could have been filed and processed at an appropriate time. The proper focus and attention to detail would have been given to such an important task. What happens is our focus, energy, and memory are spread thin over multiple short encounters, robbing us of efficiency and productivity with all tasks. With finance time budgeted there would be no need to worry that bills aren’t getting paid, because the system and the budgeted time provide piece of mind.

Planning your time for the days, weeks, and months to come, can rescue us out the frantic ‘fire fighting mode’. It is also worth noting that if we are in the habit of making conscious decisions about how we will spend our time up front, many emergencies in life can be avoided.

-The Happy Rock

» Filed Under Productivity, Time Management

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