Getting out of debt advice

Debt min
JonthumbPosted by Jonathan Weyermann on March 6, 2018 at 12:03 AM

As a blogger whose focus is at least partially on personal finance, I'm often hesitant to touch this topic because it seems so obvious to me. However, since many people struggle with this, and people like Dave Ramsey have made fortunes on telling people out of debt, I suppose I should try to at least tackle the issue at some level, mostly because it's extremely difficult to invest an...

Discipline is good, removing the temptation is better

Download
JonthumbPosted by Jonathan Weyermann on February 13, 2018 at 12:02 AM

There is a growing body of research which suggests that's willpower may be a limited resource. Regardless of how much discipline you have, it appears that having to use it at least temporarily reduces your available willpower. Having to make more decisions earlier in the day apparently depletes your ability to make quality decisions later in the day. This appears to be the reason some in...

Automating your Financial Success

Automating ecommerce tasks
JonthumbPosted by Jonathan Weyermann on December 26, 2017 at 12:12 AM

Many financial experts urge you to put away 10% of your income, or some such amount. Personally, I try to save a much higher amount because I wish to have the option to retire early. Whatever amount you choose, it should automatically be deduced in some way. While personally I don't have the temptation to spend money I should be investing, for many people it helps if the amount comes str...

Ingredients to early financial independence

Baking ingredients on table
JonthumbPosted by Jonathan Weyermann on December 19, 2017 at 12:12 AM

While for most the idea of early financial independence or retirement may only be a dream, I believe it is within the realm of possibility for many. There is no question that it requires some sacrifices and tradeoffs,  but I believe that these are worth it. 

Here are some of the ingredients for early financial independence. While you don't need to do all of these, the mor...

The Fermi Paradox

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JonthumbPosted by Jonathan Weyermann on September 24, 2017 at 11:09 PM


In the the milky way alone, there are 400 billions stars. There are perhaps 20 billion like our sun, with perhaps 1/5th of them with earth-like planets in their habitable zone - where life could exist. If 0.1% of these had life, there would be 1 million planets with life.  This leads to an important question

Where are all the aliens?

It gets even worse when you re...

Lending Loop Experiment

Lending loop
JonthumbPosted by Jonathan Weyermann on September 4, 2017 at 6:09 AM

While there have been many online peer to peer lending opportunities open to US citizens, such as Prosper and Lending Club, lending options in Canada have been non-existent in Canada until October 2016, when Lending Loop received regulatory approval to offer its platform in Canada. Lending Loop is now making loans to dozens of Canadian businesses, and has over 10,000 investors.

I'd...

Five ways of Beating Procrastination

Procastination
JonthumbPosted by Jonathan Weyermann on September 4, 2017 at 4:09 AM

1) Eliminate distractions

For me this involved conciously blocking some website on my installed browsers. While I put this off for a long time, because I convinced byself I would merely circumvent the block when I wanted to view the site, this really helped. Somehow having the site retu...

TeamViz

Teamviz
JonthumbPosted by Jonathan Weyermann on September 4, 2017 at 4:09 AM

TeamViz is by far my favorite time management tool. At the very basic level it is a pomodoro tracking tool. It even sounds like a tomato timer. But it's so much more than that. It allows you to plan tasks in multiple categories and split them into Pomodoro. It allows you to assign an estimated number of pomodoro to a task which you can change at any time. ...

The importance of bounded time

Il pomodoro
JonthumbPosted by Jonathan Weyermann on September 4, 2017 at 4:09 AM

Even since I've started using the pomodoro technique, I feel like my productivity has increased greatly. For those who don't know, a pomodoro is a bounded unit of time, during which one is to do their best not to get distracted. It is a unit of work during which checking your e-mail is a no-no. Pomodoro is the ...

In search of an Android Wiki

Colornote intro
JonthumbPosted by Jonathan Weyermann on September 4, 2017 at 4:09 AM


Having recently read Pragmatic thinking and Learning by Andy Hunt, I realized I should try to find some way to build a personal wiki. A personal wiki can function...