It's been quiet around here for the past few months. Generally when things go dormant at Get Rich Slowly, that's not a good sign. It usually means that I've sunk into the depths of depression, the pit of despair.

I'm pleased to report that in this case, that's not the issue. In this case, the opposite has happened. Lately, life is grand. During the past three months, I've been diligently working to eliminate the net negatives from my life while also emphasizing those things that are essential. To that end, I've:

• Recorded, edited, and published nearly 50 YouTube videos. These are rough, and I know it, but I'm learning from them — and having fun.
• Given up alcohol. And recently, I've given up pot. I'm experimenting with complete sobriety for a while.
• Lost nearly twenty pounds through simple, sensible eating (and calorie counting). This morning, I weighed in at 186.8, down 17.4 pounds since I started on July 28th.
• Cleaned and organized nearly every space in my life, "editing" my belongings in an attempt to cut back to the essentials.
• Worked hard in the yard. I've built a fence with one neighbor and am starting another fence with a second neighbor. Plus, I've continued our landscaping projects.
• Begun reading again for pleasure. Yay!
• And much, much more.

I've had a busy three months. And while, yes, I've had a few bouts of depression, they've been minor and brief. Mostly, I've been happy and productive. Continue reading...

I used to be the sort of guy who loved to have a list of goals. At least once a year -- usually around New Year -- I'd sit down and make a list of all the things that were wrong with me, all of the things I wanted to change.

In 2007, for instance, I made a list of 101 things I wanted to accomplish in 1001 days. (It took me longer than three years to finish that list, by the way. In fact, I still haven't done everything on it because my priorities have changed. But now, ten years later, I see that I have completed nearly all of the ones that still matter.)

Eventually I realized that making a long lists of resolutions is a sure path to disappointment -- at least for me. There's a reason you see newspaper and TV stories every spring about how most people aren't able to maintain the resolutions they set at the first of the year. It's because most of us try to do too much. (And, I think, because we try to set goals that aren't truly aligned with our primary purpose in life.)

Long-time readers are familiar with my decade-long war on Stuff. I was raised in a cluttered home. From a young age, I was a collector. (Some might even say a hoarder!) After Kris and I got married, I began to acquire adult-level quantities of Stuff. When we moved to a larger house, I found ways to acquire even more Stuff. I owned thousands of books, thousands of comic books, hundreds of compact discs, and scads of other crap.

Eventually, I'd had enough. A decade ago, I began the s-l-o-w process of de-cluttering.

While I still bring new Stuff into the house -- Kim would tell you I bring too much Stuff home -- I'm not nearly so acquisitive as I used to be. In fact, for the past decade I've purged far more than I've acquired. And that process continues, week by week, month by month, year by year.

Earlier this week, I encouraged readers to become proactive by developing an internal locus of control. In that article, I wrote:

You are the boss of you. You don’t need anybody’s permission to get out of debt or to buy a house or to ask for a raise. And nobody’s going to come to you out of the blue to explain investing or health insurance or your credit card contract. Take charge yourself.

"I get it," you might be thinking. "Self-reliance is great. But how do I change? How do I get from where I am to becoming a more self-reliant person?"

Once again, my finely-honed procrastination abilities have cost me cold, hard cash. I seem to be an expert at putting things off...and paying for it.

My passport expires next April. But because many (most?) countries require that you have six months left on your passport before you enter their country, I need to renew it before traveling to Ecuador in November. I've known that I need to renew my passport since February but keep finding reasons not to.

• First it was because we were still in Savannah, and I didn't want to do the transaction from there. What if it was mailed back to me after we resumed our RV trip back to Portland?
• Then, of course, I couldn't do the renewal because we were on the road. There was a chance we'd be going to Mexico, so I needed to keep my passport with me.
• I started the paperwork when we got back to Portland. I printed everything out, then signed and dated the renewal application in mid-July. But I didn't mail it in. I know I have some spare passport photos around here somewhere and I wanted to use them. But I could never find them.
• Finally, life got in the way. I got busy with the dog and the blog. I did a workshop at World Domination Summit. Then there was Fincon.

Bottom line? When I found the paperwork on my desk yesterday, I realized I only had five weeks to get my passport renewed. That meant I had to request expedited service, which costs $170 instead of $110. My chronic procrastination cost me sixty bucks.

Note: On July 8th, I gave the closing keynote at World Domination Summit 2012. After listening to Brené Brown talk about vulnerability, Susan Cain talk about introversion, Scott Harrison talk about building wells in Africa, and Chris Brogan talk about bravery — after listening to all of these professional speakers, I took the stage. I'm just an average guy. I shared what I've learned about how to change your life. This is the text of that talk.

My name is J.D. and I am an introvert. Or at least I used to be. As a boy, my introversion created problems. I was awkward physically and I was awkward socially. I was strange.

My awkwardness only increased as I grew older. I hung around with the other strange kids. We were nerds. There was a band of us, about six boys, and as we progressed through the grades, we gravitated toward each other. In our free time, we'd hang out to read comic books or play Dungeons and Dragons. Continue reading...

One advantage of bringing back the short afternoon posts here at Get Rich Slowly is it'll give me a chance to carry on more of a dialogue with you, the readers.

For instance, there was a good conversation over Friday's post about how I've become a magician of time. One reader, Alex, is a college student, and he wants to know how to tell is something is a waste of time.

He wrote:

It's strange sometimes to see yourself through other people's eyes. Others see things — both good and bad — that you don't see in yourself.

"I see you as outdoorsy," a new friend told me the other day, which caught me off guard. I've never thought of myself that way.

Or a few months ago, a friend told me, "Every time I see you, you're doing something amazing." Me? I love my life, but much of it seems so mundane, so boring. But I only see this friend a few times a year, and through her eyes I'm always doing something new and different, like training for a marathon or traveling to South America or writing a book. (To me, these are the exceptions and not the rule. Mostly, I sit here at this desk, typing on this keyboard, writing about money.)

This Saturday (May 14th) is Give Your Stuff Away Day, a worldwide celebration of getting rid of clutter. People all over the world will be gathering up their unwanted possessions and taking them to the curb, where they hope neighbors and passersby will adopt their stuff.

As the event organizers say:

Because of all the shopping we've done, many of us now own lots of great stuff we never use anymore. And for some reason, we don't sell or give it away. Lots of valuable stuff — just wasting away. Let's take all this stuff and over one weekend, make it available to others for free. Continue reading...

More about...Shopping, Productivity

In my fantasy life, I'm an organized guy. In the real world, that's just not the case. I do my best to stay on top of things — I make lists, use a calendar, ask Kris for help — but there always seems to be something slipping through the cracks.

Before we left for Africa, for example, I hid my wallet. I always do this when we go on a long trip. (I don't use my wallet when I travel.) And every time, I have trouble finding it when I get home. You'd think I'd develop a system — but no.

I'm not the only one with problems like this. Sure, there are folks out there like Kris and her sister — people who never let anything fall through the cracks — but they're few and far between. Most of us need to develop systems to help our lives run smoothly.

D