But now let me take a few more words to explain.

Simple

Money often feels anything but simple.  Just thinking about terms like asset allocation, credit utilization, and fiduciary can make you want to flop down on the couch and grab the remote.  But hang on.

A central tenet of this blog is to teach simple ways to use money well, and a core route toward simplicity is making money much more objective.  Don’t know how much a family like yours can afford to spend on this or that?  There’s an answer, and it’s available through this blog.

Meaningful

Of course, my work is about financial success.  But financial success alone isn’t enough.  Stories of financially successful yet miserable people are a dime a dozen.

What I’m interested in is a brand of financial success that’s deeply satisfying.  It’s about connecting our use of money with what makes life meaningful – using money in a way that’s intertwined with our life purpose.

There are many people who have devoted themselves to studying the causes of human happiness, and their findings boil down to three pursuits – three life purposes, common to all of us, that make life meaningful: Living for something bigger than us, building strong relationships, and using our gifts and passions to make a difference.

For me, that “something bigger” is really someone bigger: God.  My Christian faith is at the center of my life, and therefore at the center of my work.  I find it fascinating, but not surprising, that the three life purposes identified by secular researchers simply echo what the Bible teaches.

As important as my faith is to me, no matter where you stand on spiritual matters, I’m thrilled that you’re part of this community.

Success

Through a ton of study, reflection, and personal trial and error, I’ve come to see that simple, meaningful financial success comes down to 11 core principles.

1 – Know Who You Are.  We are not consumers.  According to the Bible, we are stewards.  However, a term I prefer, also drawn from the Bible, is builders.  We have all been entrusted with all that we need to build lives of meaning, purpose, and joy.

2 – Earn Diligently.  There’s no such thing as guaranteed employment, but there is such a thing as guaranteed employability.

3 – Plan to Succeed.  I’m a huge advocate for the use of a budget. Knowing how much you can spend in each spending category, and then knowing how you can get the absolute most from what you have available for each category, are some key steps to a very good experience with money.

4 – Give Some Away.  One of the central ways to find meaning in our use of money is to be generous.  That’s because generosity has been woven into the fabric of our spiritual DNA.

5 – Put Some Away.  In life, stuff happens.  One of the best ways to live in a constant state of preparedness, and to experience a lot of peace of mind, is to have some money in savings.

6 – Ruthlessly Avoid Debt.  I’ve lived with debt, and I’ve lived without debt (except a reasonable mortgage).  Believe me, living without debt is way better.

7 – Manage Your Number.  One section of my live workshops that always draws lots of questions is where I talk about credit reports and scores.  This is a topic that’s increasingly important, and still shrouded in lots of mystery.  I’ll help demystify the topic.

8 – Patiently Pursue Interest.  Investing is the most challenging part of personal finance.  I’ll help you find it less challenging by discussing proven strategies for successful investing.

9 – Build Walls of Protection.  Beyond keeping some money in reserve, carrying the proper insurance in the proper amounts helps protect against some of the big stuff that can come our way.

10 – Spend Smart on Housing.  For most of us, housing is our biggest expense.  A big key to a financial situation that works is getting this expense right.

11 – Spend Smart on Everything Else.  I don’t care for the term frugality.  I prefer spending smart, and there are ways to spend smart on everything from cars to clothes to Caribbean vacations.

There are two other key topics that I have a lot of passion for: money & marriage, and teaching our kids about money, so I’ll address these topics throughout the year as well.

Are You In?

If this is what you’re after in your financial life – simple, meaningful success – you’ve come to the right place.

My one main request of you is that you participate. Tell me what you agree or disagree with, how the topic being discussed has played out in your life, and what else you can contribute to the conversation.

Let’s be in this together.  Let’s encourage each other, challenge each other, and celebrate with each other as we learn more about using money to live life to the full. Are you with me?

Recall! E-Mail Habits That Could Cost You At Work (via MSNBC.com).  Our job is our economic engine.  One way to keep it humming is to make sure we’re following proper e-mail protocol.

Go Beyond Referrals to Find a Real Estate Agent (via MarketWatch.com).  Buying or selling a home is a lot easier with the right agent.  Here are some good ideas for making sure you have the right one on the job.

Back to School Smart Phone Shopping Tricks (via CNNMoney.com).  Time- and money-saving ways to use your smart phone to help your kids get ready for school.

18 Tips to Ace Your Job Interview (via USNews.com).  If you’re in the market for a new job, review this list before heading out to your next interview.

My Wallet Was Stolen: 4 Lessons Learned (Via Kiplinger.com).  This re-run of an older story has timeless lessons about preventing your wallet from being stolen and what to do if it happens to you.

And now, here are five especially helpful personal finance blog posts.

A Wedding Planner’s Top Tips for Cutting Your Big Day Budget (via Mint.com).  With the average wedding tab now topping out at over $25,000, here are some good ideas for keeping costs under control.

Seven Frugal Ways to Keep Your Kids Busy This Summer (Via FiveCentNickel.com).  Actually, most of these ideas are good year-round.

How Not To Get Promoted (via FreeMoneyFinance.com).  Helpful and surprising findings from a new CareerBuilder employer survey of what personal characteristics may keep you from getting ahead.

Is Your Social Media Activity Putting Your Career At Risk? (via MoneyNing.com).  A good reminder that what you put on Facebook and other social media sites may come back to haunt you.

How to Make an Efficient Weekly House Cleaning Schedule Template and Checklist Chart (via MoneyCrashers.com).  Time is money, so spending less time cleaning is a good thing.  Here are some good ideas for staying on top of household chores.  It’s a good way to keep the kids involved as well.

Which of these articles did you find most helpful?  Anything to add to any of them?

Know someone else who would benefit from this article?  Please forward a link to my site.  And if you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to this blog by clicking here.  Two or three times a week, you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

What’s the secret to such a life?  Can it be taught to the masses?  And is it a life worth pursuing?  I thought I’d investigate by reading the book.

What’s the Goal?

Ferriss is against what he calls “the deferred-life plan” where you do “soul-crushing” work for most of your days as you trudge toward the golden carrot known as retirement.

He’s for joining the “New Rich” (NR) who are all about living luxury lifestyles right now.  The NR have figured out how to put income on autopilot so they’re free to pursue lives of excitement and adventure.

A Muse You Can Use

The ultimate expression of Ferriss’ vision is for readers to find their “muse” – his term for a business in which you don’t manufacture the product, answer your own phones, ship your own products, or service your own customers.

The idea, he explains, is to own a business, not run one – preferably a business that throws off plenty of cash without interrupting you too often while you live your life of adventure.

Ferriss’ muse is a nutritional supplement company.

And how would you come up with such a company, you may wonder.  That’s simple, according to Ferriss.  Just:

1) Choose a market you know

2) Pick a product to sell to the market

3) Run some low-cost advertising tests.

And Now, the Fun Part

Once you find a product that sells, you simply outsource all those annoying details that the poor people who run businesses have to attend to, like manufacturing, marketing, advertising, taking orders, shipping, billing, and providing customer service.

When it’s all humming, you’ll just need to do some occasional training, put out an occasional fire, and check to make sure your automated deposits are landing in the right account.  You should be able to take care of all that by noon.  On Monday.  Then you’ve got the rest of the week free.

Your biggest challenge from that point forward will be figuring out what to do with all your free time and money.

Right.

What’s Wrong With The 4-Hour Workweek

I disagree with Ferriss’ stated goal of living a life of luxury.  It’s just too self-indulgent.  I believe we are called to live for something greater than ourselves, something much more than our own pleasure and comfort.

Some of his tactics also sound downright unethical.  For the typical employee, he advocates lobbying for one or two work-from-home days each week.  Then, purposely dial down productivity when you’re in the office and dial it up when you’re working from home.  Hopefully, that’ll lead to always working from home.  And that can lead to slipping out of the country to travel the world.  Why should it matter to your boss if you’re checking e-mail from Europe?  It’s none of her business where you are, right?  Ah, no.

And I believe his three-step process for creating a hands-off cash machine of a business is absurdly oversimplified at best.

What’s Right With The 4-Hour Workweek

We all know people who are just putting in their time, waiting for retirement.  They’re not living; they’re getting by. We were made for more than that.  So, I appreciate Ferriss’ desire to shake people out of their usual ways of thinking about work and retirement.

I also agree with his point that many of us could use our precious hours much more effectively.

He advocates:

• Putting the Pareto Principle into practice, figuring out the 20 percent of activities that generate 80 percent of the results in our life, and then systematically paring back on the 80 percent of activities that drive very few results.
• Practicing “selective ignorance:” learning to ignore or redirect all information and interruptions that are irrelevant, unimportant, or unactionable.  I loved the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote he used in this section: “There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.”
• Hiring a virtual assistant (VA) to do many of life’s busywork projects, such as conducting research (for work or personal projects), making vacation reservations, scheduling appointments, assisting with a job search, hiring contractors, and more.  Depending on the country where your VA is based, Ferriss says they can be hired for as little as $4 to $15 per hour.

I’m not sure about the VA idea, but this was my favorite section of “The 4-Hour Workweek.”  I take in way more information than I need, and Ferriss’ book has motivated me to cut back.

Have you read “The 4-Hour Workweek”?  If so, what did you think?

Know someone else who would benefit from this article?  Please forward a link to my site.  And if you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to this blog by clicking here.  Two or three times a week, you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

A Shared Experience

Some are still out of work.

Some who are employed are fearful about losing their job.

Some are dealing with the financial and psychological toll of owning a home that’s now worth far less than it was before.

Some are hesitant to spend.

Some are hesitant to invest.

Some have developed a new level of mistrust for financial institutions.

We’re Different, or Are We?

There have been quite a few headlines about how the recession has brought about lasting changes in how we manage money.  But has it?

It’s true that people are carrying less debt these days, and at first glance, it appears to be a positive sign.  But then the Wall Street Journal delivered this explanation on June 10^th:

“Households pared debt for the tenth consecutive quarter, partly as a result of paying down debt but mostly due to defaulting on mortgages and other loans.”

According to a 2009 Citigroup survey, 63 percent of people said the recession had forever changed the way they spend and save.  Again, it seems like a positive.

But then Citigroup ran the same survey a year later and the percentage of people who said the recession had forever changed the way they spend and save went down to 52 percent.

Let’s Learn Something Here

I’m always interested in stories of how adversity changed a person’s life in a positive, lasting way.  The recession, which has impacted all of us in some way, has the potential to be a positive turning point in each of our lives.

That may sound crazy to someone who is still out of work or who is now very much upside down on their mortgage.  I don’t mean to add insult to injury or suggest that we all just paint on a smiley face and move on.

But I am suggesting that we not miss the opportunity to use this huge financial event for good.

I’d also like to suggest that we not be too quick to frame our lessons in a negative light (“I’ll never trust another mortgage broker in my life!”).

What positives can we take away from the recession?  What financial lessons have you learned that you believe will make a positive, lasting difference in your life?  Let me know by leaving a comment below.

If you know someone else who would benefit from this article, please forward a link.  And if you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to this blog by clicking here.  Two or three times a week, you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

But then it all took a very sudden turn for the worse.

Her five-year-old brother had gone into the garage and emerged with a red Hula-Hoop.  Just walking past her with it in his hand was enough to twist her happiness into frustration.  “I want the red one!” she yelled, her blue Hula-Hoop lying lifeless on the ground.

It didn’t matter that the red one had a kink in it, whereas the blue one was perfectly round.  The red one looked better to her, especially in the hand of her brother, and she wanted it.

She yelled again: “I want the red one.”  And then she cried.

The Envy Instinct

I’m no child psychologist, but envy doesn’t seem to be a learned behavior.  It seems to come very naturally.  And it doesn’t seem to be something we outgrow.

I’ve coveted what others have plenty of times in my life.  Homes, cars, vacations, and golf swings are just a few of the things I can recall someone having a better version of that I wanted.

I’ve had plenty of blue ones when I wanted red ones.

How about you?

It’s embarrassingly easy to get caught up in the comparison game. Researchers call it social comparison. You and I know it as keeping up with the Joneses. Today we may be satisfied with our five-year-old Toyota. But tomorrow, when our neighbors show up in their new Lexus, with its leather seats and concert quality stereo system, the old Toyota just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Juliet Schor, author of The Overworked American, points out that we may not even be aware of the comparisons we make with other people. “It may be as simple as the fact that exposure to their latest ‘lifestyle upgrade’ plants the seed in our own mind that we must have it, too—whether it be a European vacation, this year’s fashion statement, or piano lessons for the children.”

Thanking Envy Away

Here’s what I’ve discovered about envy.  We can’t will it away, guilt it away, or ignore it away.  But there is one thing that seems to help, and that’s gratitude.

I don’t know when or how I developed this habit, but I begin most mealtime and bedtime prayers by giving thanks for the day followed by a simple statement: “Every day is a gift.”

If I’m really honest about it, I say the words so often that there are times when they come from habit much more so than from my heart.

But those words have become a helpful, often-needed reminder to myself that no matter how bad things get there is much to be thankful for.

Regular Weeding Required

Recently I found myself lying in bed wide awake feeling irritated.  A couple of clients were way overdue on several sizeable invoices, and I had gotten a call that morning from another client saying his organization was having financial problems.  Great.  Another one for the overdue-and-might-never-pay pile.  Last year a seemingly successful company had hired me for some video work only to go bankrupt, leaving me unpaid and having to eat all the travel expenses for which I was supposed to be reimbursed.

I used up way too many minutes envying those who get a steady paycheck.

That day I had also driven to an appointment in our van, along the way seeing several vehicles I’d much rather have been driving.

It had been a day of owning blue ones while wanting red ones.

But in the quiet of the night I got up and looked in on our three sleeping kids, and I was overwhelmed with a deep sense of gratitude.  I love my family and the work I get to do.  And yes, I even appreciate our van. It’s amazingly reliable, hasn’t needed any major repairs, and it’s big enough for our family of five – attributes that work really well for this stage of life.

As I took inventory of the many things I’m grateful for, the irritations of the day started to fade away.  Without even thinking about it, I found myself saying a silent prayer and meaning every word: Dear God, thank you for today.  Every day is a gift.

How do you deal with envy?

If you know someone else who would benefit from this article, please forward a link.  And if you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to this blog by clicking here.  Two or three times a week, you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

Aim For The Job And Employer You Want

A better approach is to concentrate your search.  Instead of looking at job postings and applying for the ones that look like a fit, hone in on the work you’d like to do and where you’d like to do it.  Identify about 10 companies you’d like to work for.  Keep in mind that, by some estimates, as many as 80 percent of available jobs are not posted.

Find An Insider

Then use your social network to find someone at the company with whom you can connect.  Ask friends if they know anyone who works at the company.  Use LinkedIn to find connections.  If it’s a big enough company, chances are you’ll be able to find someone who knows someone who works there.

Once you find a connection at the company, don’t ask them to refer you for an open position or put in a good word for you.  If they don’t know the person who referred you to them very well they’re not likely to make a very strong recommendation.

Instead, ask if you can use their name when you apply for the job.  That may help you get your foot in the door and then you can sell yourself.  Also, ask this person good questions about the company so you can talk intelligently about the organization during an interview.  And, genuinely ask if there’s any way you could help them in return.

I once took a similar approach in landing a corporate job.  I knew the type of work I wanted to do, identified what looked like an ideal company to work for, and found someone who knew someone who worked there.  The only nuance is that when contacting the insider friend of a friend, I asked for an in-person meeting in order to learn more about the company.

We had a great conversation and he was then kind enough to recommend that I talk with a colleague who had an unadvertised opening in his department.  Eventually, I got a great job at the company.

What’s been your experience either with landing a job where none were posted or with utilizing a friend of a friend to get a foot in the door?

Know someone else who would benefit from this article?  Why not forward a link?  And if you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to this blog by clicking here.  Two or three times a week, you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

At the end of his last day, Schmidt sits in the midst of his boxed belongings, watching the clock, waiting until 5:00 p.m. when the workday and his career will be over.

At a retirement dinner that evening a long-time colleague toasts him, telling Schmidt he should feel “rich” to have devoted his life to something so meaningful. The look on Schmidt’s face says he’s not so sure. He once dreamed of having his own business, but instead chose the security of a steady paycheck.

A Universal Longing

Shortly after Schmidt’s retirement, his wife dies. The sudden changes—retirement, the loss of his wife of over forty years—leave Schmidt wondering even more about the meaning of his life.

“I know we’re all pretty small in the big scheme of things,” he writes to Ndugu, a six-year-old Tanzanian orphan he sponsors in response to a television advertisement. “And I suppose the most you can hope for is to make some kind of difference, but what kind of difference have I made? What in the world is better because of me?”

Our culture would have us believe that life is about competition. It tells us that happiness is found in having more than we have now and more than others have. But as Nicholson’s character expresses so well, it’s contribution that we long for, a sense that we’re making a difference with our lives.

The Paths to Meaningful Work

I used to think there were just two types of jobs in the world: meaningful jobs and all the rest.  Meaningful jobs were ones in which the work itself helped people or helped solve one of the world’s great problems.  Any other type of job was just a job.  I now see it differently.

Some people do get the chance to do work that heals people, eradicates diseases, or other things that most would agree are inherently meaningful.  However, there are many other types of jobs where great meaning can be found.

For some people, the satisfaction of providing for their family makes their work meaningful.

For others, their relationships with co-workers give their work meaning.

For others, their sense of meaning comes from how they use the fruits of their labor.  For example, I know a corporate attorney who lives far beneath her means in order to contribute significant time and money to a ministry that keeps kids out of gangs and helps homeless people get a new start.

For some couples, their joint decision to have one parent stay home to focus on their kids fills both of their lives with meaning.

Maybe Meaning is an Inside Job

When we struggle to find meaning in our work, one possible cause is that we think meaning is something our work should bring to us instead of us bringing meaning to our work.

In his book, Authentic Happiness, Psychologist Martin Seligman tells a great story of a hospital orderly who meticulously selected pictures for the walls of a room where a close friend of Seligman’s lay unconscious. The orderly explained, “I’m responsible for the health of all these patients. Take Mr. Miller here. He hasn’t woken up since they brought him in, but when he does, I want to make sure he sees beautiful things right away.”

This orderly viewed his work as integral to the healing of patients. Another orderly might think of his work as menial and meaningless. The first orderly saw his job as a calling; the second saw it as a source of income. The tasks are the same; only the perspective is different.

How do you view your work?  Is the actual work you do inherently meaningful?  Or, is your job a means to some other end that you find meaningful?

Who else do you know who would benefit from this article?  Please forward a link.  And if you haven’t done so already, you can sign up for a subscription to this blog by clicking here.  Two or three times a week, you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

Don’t worry; I haven’t become part of the “Rush $29.95 before midnight tonight!” infomercial crowd.  I’ve simply become a big believer in changing the concept of job security into income security — becoming more and more self-sufficient in generating income.  And I believe one high-potential route toward that is through the creation of your own web site or blog.

Pat Flynn is one of the most powerful, inspiring examples I’ve found of just how far this can go.  One day, he was working as an architect – a job he enjoyed.  The next, he was laid off.  Not all that long after that, he was making a great living through a blog and ebook he created that helps people prepare for a specialized exam in the architecture industry.  He then parlayed that success into another blog, SmartPassiveIncome.com, that teaches others how to generate income online.

Recently, I had a chance to talk with Pat.  If you’ve ever thought of creating your own web site or blog, listen to this 30-minute conversation.  I think you’ll find it eye-opening, instructive, and inspiring.

If you are reading this article through e-mail and are having any trouble accessing the interview, click on the headline.  You’ll be taken to my site where you’ll be able to listen.

Here are the links mentioned in the podcast.

SmartPassiveIncome.com You’ll find lots of free information – blog posts, videos, podcasts, and more – on how to set up a web site or blog and create a revenue stream

GreenExamAcademy.com This is the site Pat created to teach others how to pass an architecture industry exam to become certified in sustainable building practices.

Bluehost This is the web hosting company Pat recommends.

Market Samauri This is the keyword tool Pat mentioned.

Elance This is the site Pat mentioned where you can find freelancers to do various jobs or post jobs.

Have you ever thought about creating your own web site or blog?  What’s been holding you back?

If you found this article helpful, please share it with someone else by forwarding a link.  And if you haven’t done so already, you can sign up for a subscription to this blog by clicking here.  Two or three times a week, you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

Jane Hammerslough, author of Dematerializing: Taming the Power of Possessions, describes how a roof repair gone wrong forced her family into a quick move to a small, sparsely furnished rental house for six months. She writes of their surprise that they didn’t miss much of what they left behind. Rather than feeling depressed by the “hideous living room” and “mismatched plates” in their temporary quarters, they felt liberated. And when they returned home, she felt “overwhelmed by the utter excess of stuff.” A purging of things soon followed.

She concluded that, “When ‘enough’ is always just a little more than you already have, you don’t have a lot of room left for the truly great pleasures of life: family, friends and the time to enjoy them.”

Making Room For What Matters

Of course, too much stuff can also leave too little room for God. With all the time required to shop for, use, store, clean, maintain, organize, insure, and worry about our stuff, there can be little time left for reading God’s Word, prayer, ministry, church, and reaching out to others.  Is it any wonder that the Bible encourages simple living?

I do want to point out, friends, that time is of the essence. There is no time to waste, so don’t complicate your lives unnecessarily. Keep it simple —in marriage, grief, joy, whatever. Even in ordinary things—your daily routines of shopping, and so on. Deal as sparingly as possible with the things the world thrusts on you. This world as you see it is on its way out. – 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 (MSG)

In his classic book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster agues that, “The majority of Christians have never seriously wrestled with the problem of simplicity, conveniently ignoring Jesus’ many words on the subject. The reason is simple: This Discipline directly challenges our vested interests in an affluent life-style.”

But the recession may have started to change that, sparking a renewed interest in simplicity.  In recent years, writers ranging from mutual fund company founders to spiritual thinkers have weighed in on the question: “How much is enough?”

Simplicity Is More Than Uncluttered Closets

Of course, there is no clear line indicating exactly how much is enough.  But one thing is for sure: simple living does not begin with a trip to The Container Store.  Instead, Foster describes simplicity as “an inward reality that results in an outward lifestyle.” It’s “a life of joyful unconcern for possessions” and “the one thing that sufficiently reorients our lives so that possessions can be genuinely enjoyed without destroying us.”

Foster, who explores the meaning and practice of simplicity in more detail in his book, Freedom of Simplicity, says there are three heart attitudes related to possessions that lead to peace. “If what we have we receive as a gift, and if what we have is to be cared for by God, and if what we have is available to others, then we will possess freedom from anxiety.”

Once we have begun to cultivate those inner attitudes, what might the outer expression of those attitudes look like? Foster offers 10 suggestions:

• Buy things for their usefulness rather than their status
• Reject anything that is producing an addiction in you
• Develop a habit of giving things away
• Refuse to be propagandized by the custodians of modern gadgetry
• Learn to enjoy things without owning them
• Develop a deeper appreciation for the creation
• Look with a healthy skepticism at all “buy now, pay later” schemes
• Obey Jesus’ instructions about plain, honest speech
• Reject anything that breeds the oppression of others
• Shun anything that distracts you from seeking first the Kingdom of God

Moving Toward Simplicity

In our materialistic, over-marketing-messaged world, simplicity isn’t, well, so simple. But as Richard Foster emphasizes, it begins on the inside with the attitudes of our heart.

What have you found helpful in cultivating a simpler lifestyle?

My first post each month explores what the Bible has to say about money and material things.  Here’s why.

If you know someone else who might benefit from this article, please forward a link.  And if you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to this blog by clicking here.  Two or three times a week, you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.

We Americans are good at many things, but taking time off isn’t one of them. In part, that’s because we simply don’t get much paid time off.  According to a recent series of articles by CNN, employers in more than two-dozen industrialized countries are required by law to provide their workers with at least four paid weeks off.  In the U.S., there are no such rules and regs, and as a result, U.S. employers are among the stingiest with paid time off.

Still, our lack of R & R isn’t all our employers’ fault.  A recent poll found that just 57 percent of U.S. workers take all of the vacation days they could take.

Out of Sight, Out of a Job?

Especially in a tough job market, lots of folks fear that if they take a vacation they may return to find someone else occupying their cube.  But there’s something more at work here. Surveys have shown that Americans take more of their happiness from their work than Europeans, for example.  Europeans take more of their happiness from their leisure activities.

So, even when we do take time away from the office, we still work, missing out on opportunities to recharge and make memories with our family and friends.

How to Leave Your Work at the Office

I have to admit that I have a tough time completely unplugging from my work.  What helps is when I make it a to-do, putting it in my calendar so I can check it off as an accomplishment.  “Blueberry picking with the family.”  Check.  Afternoon at the beach.”  Check.  Probably not ideal, I realize, but it helps me.

Experts quoted by CNN say that if you have a tough time disengaging from your work, try structuring your vacation around not working.  Leave your laptop at home or intentionally choose a vacation spot with a bad or non-existent Internet connection.  As with other goals, I also believe it helps to make a commitment and tell someone else about the commitment, asking them to help hold you accountable.

If you didn’t fully take a day off on Memorial Day, start thinking ahead toward any vacation time you have planned this summer, and see if you can arrange to truly take a vacation.  You’ll be healthier and happier that you did, and your family will be happier as well.

What have you found helpful in truly taking time off?

If you found this article helpful, please share it by forwarding a link.  And if you haven’t done so already, you can sign up for a free subscription by clicking here.  Two or three times a week, you’ll receive ideas and encouragement for using money well.