Blog

Naturally, my life is as organized as an elementary school recess: lots of frantic running around, falling down, and then calling it quits once the bell rings for the day. Since I have a tendency to forget and lose things, I’ve had to train myself to spend my time more wisely. I have by no means mastered it. Time is a wild beast that can’t ever be perfectly tamed. I’ve come up with a system to hack myself a bit and make sure I’m accomplishing the most important things, which is ultimately the goal of time management. 1. Do the most important thing first, every day. Each morning I commit to reading the Bible before anything else. I’m trying to kick the habit of catching up on 100+ tweets when I wake up since I’m 6 hours ahead of most of the people I follow. I get distracted, start reading articles, and start thinking and reading and favoriting and linking and then my morning is blown. So, I’ve started jumping out of bed, throwing a pot of coffee on and cracking open the Word. ...

Unless you’re a caveman, you probably put your money in some type of bank. You may stash your money with a mega-corporate bank (aka The Man). In that case you likely pay fees for your bank to hold onto and _use_your money or you jump through hoops to make sure you avoid stupid fees from said institution. I consider myself a bit of a bank connoisseur. Currently, we have five financial institutions at our disposal, and yes, that is too many. If it wasn’t for my rational wife, we’d have even more because I’m a bank addict (further confirming I’m an absolute nerd). From purely anecdotal evidence, lots of people have banks they are moderately happy or even unhappy with, but they don’t know what their other options are or don’t have time to research new options. Friends, your banking problem is about to get solved. Things I commonly hear from people with subpar banking experiences or from those rationalizing paying fees to bank: “My faceless, gimmicky, corporate, bloodsucking bank is everywhere, so I can always find an ATM.” “I’ve always had an account there, so it’s easier to stick with them.” “They have good technology.” “I have a credit card with them, so I might as well have my bank with them.” ...

I was recently reminded what a blessing it is when you take an opportunity to change lives. In 2010, I traded my birthday for a chance to build a clean-water well. I created a charity: water campaign to raise $5,000 and thanks to the generosity of many, over $5,000 was raised and a total of 3 wells were built with funds from my campaign and a few others. Here are a few exciting facts about the projects: Location: two wells in Malawi and one in Ethiopia People: 546 people served in Africa Raised: $5,004 from my project. Funding Breakdown: $2,828.17 went to the Adi Arbea Village in northern Ethiopia helping 350 people. $2,063.24 with an additional $852.21 coming from the Causing Life by Catherine Holloway campaign went to the Kamputeni Village in western Malawi serving 39 people as a hand-dug well. $112.59 went to the Kamtambo Village, also a hand-dug well in western Malawi, with $470.50 from Dirk Maas’ campaign and $2,332.36 from Tim & Maureen’s 30th birthday party campaign. ...

Imagine a junk drawer that had a search bar. You throw everything you’ll ever need into it, but when it comes time to dig out the scissors, rubberbands, or a half used q-tip, you’ll find what you’re looking for in no time. Meet your digital junk drawer: Evernote. I tried to use Evernote a few years ago and I gave up on it fairly quickly. I was using it all wrong. I found if you aren’t using it for everything it’s more of a hassle than a help. It should become your go-to app for absolutely everything that you’re writing, archiving, and referencing digitally. To get started with Evernote, head to Evernote.com and click on the Get Started link near the middle of the page. They also have an app for practically every kind of smartphone. Here are a couple quick pointers: ...

I can’t help but tell everyone I know about things I love. It makes being a missionary easier, to be sure. There are also some great, relatively inexpensive things I own that I want the world to know about. These items are so well designed they can’t help but bring a smile to your face when they actually do what they’re supposed to do. Contigo Water Bottle – ~$11 I’ve gone through a plethora of different water bottles (mostly because I lose them). I drink a ton of water, I’d guess nearly 100 oz a day (so yes, I pee constantly). So since I go to the well so often, I want to have a good canister. ...

I gave up on major news outlets a long time ago. I haven’t had cable in years. I am not a neanderthal. I don’t need news from traditional sources. I heard that Osama Bin Laden had been killed, about the tragedy at Sandy Hook, and that Ohio University beat Michigan in the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament in 2012–all from Twitter. I think most people give up on Twitter or dismiss it all together because they think it’s best used to find out when your friends have to take a leak or to tweet pictures of omelets. I think if you use Twitter as an information gathering tool as I suggest below you’ll find it will quickly become your favorite news and resource tool. Don’t follow your “friends”. They’re the reason you hate Facebook. “Friends” online are not your friends in real life. They are acquaintances you’ve met once who post pictures of kissy faces in the mirror and complain about how school/work/their life sucks. Remember, Twitter isn’t reciprocal like Facebook is. Just because someone follows you doesn’t mean you should follow them. In fact, don’t. ...

Sometimes the Internet features pretty neat things. I sift through all the junk and leave you with the weekly gold, right here. Enjoy. charity: water Project Photos and Stories In November 2010, I started a charity: water project in the hopes of raising $5,000 for clean water. Thanks to the generosity of people who care, (just) over $5,000 was raised. This week I (and many of you) received a report detailing the three projects between Ethiopia and Malawi. 116 donations changed the lives of 534 people. Here’s a great shot of the plaque on the well in Ethiopia, lest we forget how it all happened. ...

Reading is one of my favorite ways to spend my free time. One of my least favorite things is making it partially through a book not worth finishing. Here are two handfuls of books worth finishing in 2013. 10. [More Than Enough by Dave Ramsey ][1] I’m a self-diagnosed Dave-oholic. The principles Dave teaches in his courses, books and radio program are spot on. This is one of his shorter books, but it’s still chock full of lots of solid principles on money management. His philosophy, managing money God’s way, will flip your financial world right-side up. ...

Finger fatigue. It’s what you develop after answering a crap ton (more than a normal ton, for those of you who aren’t up on your international measurements) of emails after the holidays. Well, prepare your fingers to do a little happy dance of relief after this delightful world of text expansion is revealed to you. There are certain things that you write frequently that are just a pain to keep typing out on your computer or smartphone. Things I’m always typing: my email for website logins, my address, bill payment information*, certain phrases at the end of emails i.e. “If you have any questions, please let me know”, etc. ...

Delayed gratification isn’t something we excel at in America, and my generation is particularly bad at waiting. We want to live in the homes our parents saved up for decades to buy as soon as we graduate college. We want the latest Apple product, a big house, five cars, and we want it all right now. I think the hard part of delayed gratification is (wait for it, brilliance coming in 3…2…1…) that the whole gratification process is delayed, as in not instant, not right away, not right this moment. ...