New Year's Resolution

I've been seriously slacking on this blog. I know.
For the longest time, I just didn't have the passion to write here but I didn't know what was going on. Well, I figured it out about a week ago.
This blog has been sucking because I was focusing too much on myself and not enough on helping other people. I'm ready to change that.
I've finished my book and I've got a HUGE list of topics that I want to write about for this blog.
I'll probably go through sometime today and delete all the posts that are completely irrelevant.
And from next year, I'm going to be posting relevant, helpful content.
Happy New Year!

Some Thoughts on The Secret

I just re-watched The Secret the other night because I felt like a needed a reminder. In general, I believe in the Law of Attraction and have worked it successfully throughout my life--even before I had a name for it.
It always makes me think about this time when my friend said...and I can't remember why she said it..."It's just...I mean...WHY DOES SHANNON GET EVERYTHING SHE WANTS?!?!" And this was post-college, not a 6 year old throwing a temper tantrum. I giggled. I always did get what I wanted. And it's cuz of The Secret.
But anyway, this time watching The Secret, I was struck by something they said which I think could be taken in very wrong ways. In the sections where they were talking about money and material things, then mentioned how you need to act like you already have it. Then it (whatever "it" is that you want) will come to you.
Now, to me, that seems like an excuse to go out and buy a bunch of fancy toys just so that you can "feel rich" and in turn money will come to you. That's what it *seems* like they are telling you. But I think that the truth is that you will start worrying about your debt which will bring about more debt. I don't know.
The whole money aspect of The Secret might be a bit off. Maybe tomorrow I can be more organized in my thoughts about it.
But on a side note, I started repeating the mantra mentioned in the movie..."Money comes easily and frequently" and it has. Haha.

8 Hour Days--What I Learned About Myself

So it's been two weeks of my "work 8 hour days" goal and so far it's been going pretty good. I'm going to continue it this week, which should mean that it becomes a habit. We'll see. I do like being productive, but somehow eight hours does seem a bit much.
I mean...OK when I was a teacher, I would put in a good 8 hours of work. It was hard. But there was a bit of down-time. A bit of playing with the kids, a bit of after school chatting with teachers and so on. That makes actual work time a bit less...maybe 6-7 hours (and on Wednesdays I got to go home at 2.). Before that, I worked in technical support and my actual working time was almost zero. I'm not even joking when I say that I might have worked about one hour out of the nine hours that I was there (Alas, this company was acquired and eventually everyone was laid off, so don't ask for a job there...). Somehow, despite this, I was able to pull off the image that I was one of their best employees. Those were the days...
So it's actually quite hard for me to literally work a full 8 hours. Anyway, here are a few things I've learned about myself:

• I work better by using time limits blocked out for different activities than I do by setting activity goals.
  
• I can get a lot of work done in just an hour if I actually put my mind to it.
  
• Brainstorming is quite effective. A few times, I've set aside some time for brainstorming and it makes the rest of the task much easier.
  
• If I don't get an early start, it won't get done. It's funny how eight hours is eight hours whether you're talking 9-5 or 1-9. But there's just something about getting half the day's work done before noon that makes ya feel good. Two days I woke up unexpectedly late and by the time I had my breakfast and checked email and so on, it was past noon. These days were horribly unproductive for me.
  
• Exercise at home is a great solution. I've had problems in the past where I can either focus on a serious exercise program and then the rest of my life falls out of whack and I become seriously unproductive. Or I can kick ass in the productivity department, and not at all feel like exercising. This past week I was able to balance by doing exercising at home. My husband and I are doing Power 90x. It's strange because the actual time spent working out is sometimes longer than if I went out for a jog and came home. But the feeling is somehow much different.
  

Well, those are the things I can think of so far. I'm going to try to keep it up because I do like feeling productive....

Being in Love -- Frugal or Expensive?

I believe that being in love is one of the most frugal things that you can do.
I'm sure that there's a fair amount of guys grumbling right now about the costs of dating and flowers and gifts and all the extras that they end up footing the bill for. But those things are generally a part of the process of wooing--not the actual act of being in love.
Of course, back in my single days I was pretty easy and could have been had for the price of a 6 pack and a large pizza. But I understand other girls might cost a bit more money. Which could be frustrating for guys.
But once you actually are in love, you'll start spending a lot less money:
1. You want nothing more than to gaze into each other's eyes, so you don't need to spend any money on entertainment.
2. You won't leave the bed unless you are absolutely starving, which means food costs start coming down.
3. Since you're in love, you don't need to go to bars to meet someone, which saves a whole lot of money.
4. Also "having somebody" means that you can cancel your membership to match.com.
5. Finally, "staying at home with each other" becomes a date, and is significantly less expensive than a "real date".
So go out an fall in love!

The Japanese Work Ethic

Occasionally my husband and I clash over the Japanese work ethic.
For example, I personally believe that life's goal should really be to work hard to get enough money so that your money starts working for you. I don't care if that means getting a lot of actual money and investing it (though investing kind of scares me), or writing a book that ears residual income, or creating a website that earns money on its own. Eventually, you don't want to "work" to get your money.
Hubby can't seem to comprehend this. To him, one must actually be physically doing something to get paid. But often, his "working" isn't quite productive. I don't want to be really down on him or anything like that, but it was incredibly frustrating for me to see how long it was taking for him to make our website when I knew damn well that the "work" he was doing on it wasn't really necessary (e.g. changing all of the pictures so that the file size is slightly lower). I really feel that it's more important for him to "look busy" than to actually be doing work.
He tends to think that my working on my websites is "just playing" and he'll give me disparaging looks over his computer. And then I roll my eyes at him when he asks me some nit-picky unimportant question about "the business".
I've tried to get him interested in internet marketing or affiliate marketing or website building or *something*, but it just doesn't work. Or if he doesn't see immediate results, then he thinks it's a failure. I think that if he could just get interested in it, he could make a huge killing because the market in Japan just isn't as saturated as it is in the US.
Sometimes it's just so frustrating.