Do you sit at your desk all day and stare at your computer screen? Does logging on give you headaches, blurred vision, and dry eyes? If so, you might have “computer fatigue syndrome.” It can also cause shoulder, back and neck pain, low energy and dizziness. Fight back with these tips.
The key to avoiding eye fatigue and the associated headaches and eye issues is to “look down, look away, and leave.”
You want to look down toward the monitor. Ideally the screen should be about 20 degrees below eye level. This reduces strain on your neck, which reduces the potential for headaches. Most headaches are caused by tense neck muscles.
Make sure you take frequent breaks and look away from the screen. You want to focus on things in the distance, 20 to 30 feet away. This allows your eyes to change their focus as they would naturally (if you weren’t staring at something a foot away all day). Take breaks every half hour or so.
Finally, take longer breaks and get up and walk around. Leaving your desk lets your physical and mentally break from the screen. It helps loosen up back and neck muscles that you tighten while looking at the screen.
In Ch 18 of the Bogleheads Series we talked about keeping emotions in check when investing. Here are some emotional traps and how to avoid them.
- Recency Bias - Never assume today’s results predict tomorrow’s. It’s a changing world.
- Overconfidence - No one can consistently predict short-term movements in the market. This ,means you and/or the person investing your money.
- Loss aversion - Be a risk manager instead of a risk avoider. Believing you are avoiding risk can be a costly illusion.
- Paralysis by analysis - Every day you don’t invest is a day less you’ll have the power of compounding working for you. Put together an intelligent investment plan and get started. If you need help, seek out a good financial planner to assist you.
- The endowment effect - Just because you own it, or are part of it, doesn’t automatically mean it’s worth more. Get an objective evaluation. Invest no more than 10 percent of your portfolio in your employer’s stock.
- Mental accounting - Remember that all money spends the same, regardless of where it comes from. Money already spent is a sunk cost and should play no part in making future decisions.
- Anchoring - Holding out until you get your price to sell an investment is playing a fool’s game. So is blindly assuming that your financial person is doing a great job without getting an objective reading of what’s really going on. Get a second opinion.
- Financial negligence - Take the time to learn the basics of sound investing. It’s really pretty simple stuff. Knowing it can make the difference between having a life of poverty or one of prosperity.
This is Chapter 9 of the Never Eat Alone
series at Catch a Gideon. Points from Mr. Ferrazzi are in bold. I’m asking that you react to the quotes through comments. Share you reaction to each as well as your experiences in college and the real world. (Yeah that’s right, network!)
You are never going to be completely ready to meet new people, there is no perfect moment. The trick is to just plunge right in. If you don’t believe you are going to get what you want from the call, you probably won’t.
Similarly, everyone is nervous when they go out to clubs. That’s half the fun of it, overcoming those “bad” feelings.
Frequently people won’t get back to you. You have to put your ego aside and persist in calling or writing. Don’t sabotage your efforts by expressing how anooyed you are that they didn’t get back to you as quickly as you would have liked. Nor should you apologize for your persistence, just dive in as if you caught him on the first call. Make it comfortable for everyone.
I get hundreds of communications a day. At work these are mostly emails via the Blackberry. Once I read something, I usually continue what I’m doing. I try to flag things so I look at them again later, but I’m sure I miss a dozen or so a day. The point is people don’t necessarily mean to blow you off. Call back, email again. BUT don’t complain about them not getting back to you. That will only annoy people, whether they intentionally didn’t get back to you or if they simply forgot.
Someone who is busy is more likely to answer their own phone at 8 am or 6:30 pm. Plus, they’re probably less stressed out since they’re not facing typical 9-5 pressures.
This really works. I had a project involving McDonalds my freshman year. We needed to get ahold of some people in the company. The staff kept giving us stock answers that weren’t useful for what we needed. Finally we tried calling a few executives outside of normal hours, and got one right away.
Creating and maintaining a sense of optimism and gentle pressure around the appointment is all part of the dance. Convey credibility by mentioning a familiar person or institution. State your value proposition. Impart urgency and convenience by being prepared to do whatever it takes whenever it takes to meet the other person on their terms. Be prepared to offer a compromise that secures a definite follow up at a minimum.
People don’t like you if you’re negative all the time. Your friends will stick around…for awhile, but other people will make excuses and leave. Don’t be fooled by people thinking they want honesty either. Be positive all the time and you’ll meet more people and keep them coming back.
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Never Eat Alone is one of the best networking books written, period. Buy it now and follow along as Catch a Gideon goes through each chapter of the book.
This is Chapter 8 of the Never Eat Alone series at Catch a Gideon. Points from Mr. Ferrazzi are in bold. I’m asking that you react to the quotes through comments. Share you reaction to each as well as your experiences in college and the real world.
I mapped out the most important players. My goal was to get to know almost all of them within a year.Connect with the “influentials.” That is journalists, early adopters, industry analysts, potential customers, and potential acquirers interested in funding you.
College is a great time to meet these people. Find people outside of your major and become friends with them. Finding a wide range of friends makes life more interesting, and builds your network for the future. Continue reading ‘Take Names - Ch 8 of Never Eat Alone’
If you’ve gone over and over your tax form, you’ve squeezed out all of the deductions that you can, and you still can’t believe the number that showed up on the “Amount You Owe” line, don’t panic. All is not lost. First off, file your return on time. That alone can prevent some penalties. If you don’t have the money to pay your taxes, there may be several options several options.
If you can’t pay the full amount that you now, pay what you can, then pay the rest in a few weeks or months. Paying what you can now will reduce some of the interest and penalties you will have to pay later. In a month or two the IRS will send you an invoice for the remaining amount you owe. Pay it then if you can, otherwise, pay what you can again. The IRS will go through several of these billing cycles before they contact you to create a more formal payment schedule. Hopefully by this time you’ve paid the remainder.
Other options:
Continue reading ‘What If I Can’t Pay My Taxes?’
Remember that student ID of yours? Do you know how much money it saved you?
A lot of people keep their IDs in good shape, or even get new ones right before they graduate. Why? Because everyone knows students get discounts! Movies, pizza, tickets, it’s all there.
That’s the easy way to save money, a straight discount. But do you know the other way your student ID likely saved you money? That’s right, you didn’t pay taxes when you bought things with it. Continue reading ‘How To Save Money: Use a Student ID’
