hey tech light here and welcome back to
another episode today we're drinking
real coffee it's real because my mom
made it for me
oh you think that's funny now you're
just jealous because I have a good
relationship with my parents and you
don't happy new years by the way if you
didn't realize it yet it's 2019 hope you
notice this strategically placed flower
it's a new year and it's a good time to
just stop and think about your life and
reflect on it a little bit and take a
look at yourself what I'd like to do is
just look at myself my day-to-day
activities from an outsider's point of
view like you know just step out of my
shoes for a moment and take a look at
the activities I'm doing and think about
if I truly approve of everything that
I'm doing are you living the life that
you want to live are your actions
consistent with what you want to be are
you being healthy are you staying safe
you know are your activities reflecting
that do you exercise or you didn't
healthy are you eating salad are you
taking care of yourself are you getting
proper sleep making time for yourself to
achieve the goals you want to achieve
making time to exercise read learn upon
things that you want to learn up on and
one thing I know is that a lot of people
are probably engaging in highly
dangerous activities and just stop that
just give up that hobby right now say to
yourself you know it's a new year and
it's time to just play it safe and give
up these dangerous risky hobbies I'm
talking about hobbies that you were just
randomly dragged into by a friend and
then you over committed into it and now
you can't get out and you need some
impetus to get yourself out of that and
back onto the right track and this is
your impetus this is your trigger a few
years ago I have been doing some pretty
dangerous activities like motorcycling
scuba diving I gave those up and it was
not really easy for me to give those up
I'm sure other people out there are
probably doing things like rock climbing
you know these sports they begin simple
they begin fun you just go to your local
gym or something you eventually get
caught up into it into the hype your
friends drag you into it you start
paying money
you start buying the equipment and then
over time you find that eventually
people want you to go rock climbing on
Mount Everest or something that's just
going to get you killed and what you
might wanna think about doing is just
changing course on certain actions it's
a new chapter find a new thing to do so
whatever you're doing just just stop it
okay it's stupid so stop doing that
whatever it is as far as New Year's
resolutions go I know a lot of people
are trying to exercise stay healthy and
that's a great goal it's something I'm
going to be getting more into myself as
well now I'll tell you how I plan to do
it I think I'm gonna try to start
skipping lunches more often like not
entirely skip it maybe I have a banana
or something light like that but I'm
going to be using my lunch break to hit
the gym and make sure I get my exercise
in daily would be great but for now I'm
going to commit to at least 3 days a
week which means that if it's Friday and
I happen to have not done my 3 days of
exercise that week I'm going to just get
a really light lunch that day and then
hit the gym for that lunch period you
can take a jog if there's not a gym
nearby and I'm also going to be trying
to eat salad at least once a week and
the reason I'm doing all this is because
I would like to end 2019 at least as
healthy if not healthier than I am today
it would be such a shame if at the end
of 2019 I was in even worse health and
it was my own fault my own doing and you
know I'm just fatter lazier less
energetic my cholesterol is higher and I
just can't move as much and my body is
just deteriorating I used to exercise
more often nearly daily but recently I
just been busy with my job and my kid
and I just let all that slip so I'm
gonna be retaking that back in terms of
money there's one thing that you can do
to really get things in order and that's
to track every single expense and make
sure that you're paying attention to
each one one easy way to do that is to
set credit card notification alerts on
your phone such that you get buzzed at
any time that there's a charge this will
let you know about when there are things
like monthly subscriptions that you
didn't know you subscribe to being
trashed to your account and you just
want to be watching each expense and
make sure that you know what's going on
with that
you want to review your treasures every
month and just cancel anything that you
don't really need now in all seriousness
none of this is really going to save you
that much money it's going to pale in
comparison to the price of you know a
house or a car or just random things
that you can do to waste money and
earning money is going to be a better
usage of your time but you're going to
find what this really would help you do
is just help you get your finances in
order help you develop a better sense of
where money is going where money is
coming in I think that would help shape
your overall usage of it your attitude
towards it and over the long term that
could be valuable you can also look at
your life in terms of time how are you
using time are you using your time
wisely and one thing I've been trying to
do is find more time to read books I
know they're highly valuable one of my
resolutions this year is to cut out at
least 30 minutes every day for reading
reading books are very valuable you
absorb information from other people
that they have condensed into just a
small amount of text for you to read to
understand the rate at which you're
absorbing wisdom is just very fast in
order to make this time what I plan to
be doing is examining my life the
activities I do from the perspective of
how much time it is taking and
evaluating whether I can cut things out
or make parts of my day more effective
more efficient such that I can cut out
some time to add in additional
activities like reading one thing I've
already started doing is listening to
audiobooks when I Drive that can help me
be a little bit more productive on my
commute I imagine that you - and most
people are very short on time these days
it's the age of the internet where
everyone always has something to check
on their phone whether it be reading
blogs news social media maybe watching a
video and what you can be doing is
taking a look at how much time you're
dedicating to activities like this and
try to make things more efficient if you
can make your life that much more
efficient it's going to pay off big over
the long run because this will add up
over every single day over the course of
year it's going to add up to a lot of
time if you can save say 30 minutes a
day put that into reading a book it's
going to be great now is also a good
time to evaluate your overall quality of
life one thing I plan to do is promote
better mental health and I plan to be
doing that by holding my tongue a little
bit more sometimes I
say things and then I want to undo send
on that but in reality there's no
understand once I say something it
cannot be unsaid and it could open the
whole jar of worms think before you
speak and I think about if what you're
saying is really going to be helpful or
it's going to be harmful and if you can
rephrase it in a way that can be helpful
for people by doing that you're going to
be promoting better mental health for
everybody for yourself as well
the other great thing to do this time of
year is to actually think about trips
that you may plan to do this year now I
know I did the video in the past where I
said I'm not traveling it I don't mean
I'm not traveling at all it just means
I'm not doing big long extended
backpacking trips but you know one
two-week vacations I think those are
absolutely fantastic spring is a
fantastic time to travel and summer to
in general even autumn once it gets into
winter like it is now most of the
northern hemisphere which includes a lot
of the civilized areas of the world that
are safe to visit they don't become very
fun anymore because it's too chilly to
travel think about you know by the end
of 2019 what do you want to have
accomplished in terms of say trips with
your family trips for yourself trips for
people around you and you can start
getting those plans out I can tell you
one thing now is that a lot of these big
trips they require planning somebody has
to take the time to put that into motion
and to set a plan and to say you know
this year this is going to happen this
spring this will happen this summer this
will happen and we're not going to wait
another year for the next cycle you know
it's going to happen this year and set
that into motion and then my last set of
tips has to do with organizing this is
also the time of year where I might
evaluate my hit by a bus plan where I
imagine if I were suddenly hit by a bus
and died what would happen with
everything be set in order this is about
making sure that assets have been the
Fisher is properly listed if you want a
living trust or a world that you have
that set up such that assets go
correctly to the right people without
having to go through things like probate
these are the accounts social media
passwords someone should have access to
that in case you suddenly get hit
data backups as well you know it's a
good time to make sure that your backup
plan is working and it's a good time to
imagine if suddenly you were to lose
your laptop or your phone with all of
your data be safe or even if your
primary backup plan were to fail do you
have a fallback plan well make sure that
all of that is set up properly and then
other miscellaneous things like what
else is there you want to make sure that
your car's in working proper order
get your annual health exam make sure
you have enough cereal for the rest of
the year you know just overall things
like that so that's how I'm celebrating
the new year
I have a checklist of ten different
things or so that I do at the beginning
of every year and just get through all
of that helps me stay organized and
prepared happy new year and hope we'll
have this conversation again next year
where we'll be healthier richer with
more time and more energy see you next
time