The Affairs Organizer Blog

Melinda Beck, in this Wall Street Journal article, outlines the long line of women in her family who have suffered from osteoporosis.

Here are my remarks in the comments section:

Ms. Beck, you hit the nail on the head about being aware of our genetic predispositions.

I’m sorry for the loss of your great-grandmother, grandmother and mother to osteoporosis (directly or indirectly), however knowing your family medical history arms you and your health care providers with very important information about what to be especially on the lookout for, as well as preventative actions to you can take.

Here http://12criticalthings.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/12cr_med_hist.pdf is a free PDF for documenting and your family medical history. Share it with your family members and consider keeping a copy in your travel luggage.

-Mark Gavagan
http://12criticalthings.com/
http://www.affairsorganizer.com/

This WSJ article has a few ideas about steps businesses should take towards creating a disaster plan.

Excerpt:

“Review insurance policies. …(including) property insurance policies, which cover the cost of replacing damaged or destroyed equipment or buildings. But also consider business interruption insurance, which covers lost income in the event that your business is forced to shut down temporarily.

Develop a contingency plan. Come up with a list of backup vendors or suppliers in case your primary ones are shut down. Consider alternative work sites so that you can keep operating. Keep a list of twenty- four- hour emergency numbers for all your employees, and develop a quick and efficient way of keeping employees informed.

Back it up. Make backup copies of all critical records, such as accounting and employee data, customer lists, production formulas and inventory. Keep that information in a separate location at least fifty miles away, or subscribe to a online data backup service provider.”

The WSJ article was adapted from Colleen DeBaise’s upcoming “The Wall Street Journal. Complete Small Business Guidebook,” which I have not yet read.

An interesting article in The New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell about the psychology of overconfidence and how it relates to the behavior (and losses) of banks in the sub-prime meltdown.

Excerpts:

“One of the things that happen to us when we become overconfident is that we start to blur the line between the kinds of things that we can control and the kinds of things that we can’t.”

“Most people are inclined to use moral terms to describe overconfidence—terms like “arrogance” or “hubris.” But psychologists tend to regard overconfidence as a state as much as a trait.”

“As novices, we don’t trust our judgment. Then we have some success, and begin to feel a little surer of ourselves. Finally, we get to the top of our game and succumb to the trap of thinking that there’s nothing we can’t master. As we get older and more experienced, we overestimate the accuracy of our judgments, especially when the task before us is difficult and when we’re involved with something of great personal importance.”

When looking to understand what happened in this meltdown, also consider Joe Nocera’s “Risk Management” article in The New York Times Magazine which skewers the “Value At-Risk” method of risk management employed by most banks.

Below is an excerpt from Peter Bregman’s blog post “An 18-Minute Plan for Managing Your Day”:

“Managing our time needs to become a ritual too. Not simply a list or a vague sense of our priorities. That’s not consistent or deliberate. It needs to be an ongoing process we follow no matter what to keep us focused on our priorities throughout the day.

I think we can do it in three steps that take less than 18 minutes over an eight-hour workday.

STEP 1 (5 Minutes) Set Plan for Day. Before turning on your computer, sit down with a blank piece of paper and decide what will make this day highly successful. What can you realistically accomplish that will further your goals and allow you to leave at the end of the day feeling like you’ve been productive and successful? Write those things down.

Now, most importantly, take your calendar and schedule those things into time slots, placing the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day. And by the beginning of the day I mean, if possible, before even checking your email. If your entire list does not fit into your calendar, reprioritize your list. There is tremendous power in deciding when and where you are going to do something…

If you want to get something done, decide when and where you’re going to do it. Otherwise, take it off your list.

STEP 2 (1 minute every hour) Refocus. Set your watch, phone, or computer to ring every hour. When it rings, take a deep breath, look at your list and ask yourself if you spent your last hour productively. Then look at your calendar and deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don’t let the hours manage you.

STEP 3 (5 minutes) Review. Shut off your computer and review your day. What worked? Where did you focus? Where did you get distracted? What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?

The power of rituals is their predictability. You do the same thing in the same way over and over again. And so the outcome of a ritual is predictable too. If you choose your focus deliberately and wisely and consistently remind yourself of that focus, you will stay focused. It’s simple.”

Thank you, Peter Bregman, for your great ideas!

VisualEconomics.com has another very interesting display of data from the most recent (April 2009) Bureau of Labor Statistics’ spending survey.

Visit http://www.visualeconomics.com/how-the-average-us-consumer-spends-their-paycheck/ to see the full-size graphic.

Here’s an interesting article from The New York Times by Gabrielle Glaser, published: April 18, 2009

“EVEN in these hard times, Peter Moloney, a funeral director, believes that people should have what they want.

lthough not all of his customers can fully express their wishes, Mr. Moloney and his brothers, who own six funeral homes on Long Island, have worked hard to arrange customized send-offs. And the touches are as varied as the customers themselves.

Bike lovers pay an extra $200 or so to take their last ride in a special hearse towed by a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Gardeners select wildflower seed packets to include with their funeral programs. One gentleman wanted to be remembered for comforting his grandchildren with ice cream, so, after the funeral, mourners were greeted by a man in a Good Humor truck, handing out frozen treats.”

More excerpts:

• Revenue in the American funeral industry will grow 1.2 percent this year (2009), to $20.7 billion.
• A preference for cremation is already transforming the funeral industry in the United States. Cremations will account for a projected 38 percent of all deaths this year, compared with 26 percent in 2000, according to the Cremation Association of North America, an industry group based in Chicago.
• Americans may be living longer than ever, but the reality of a graying nation is stark. The annual death rate of about 2.5 million has been rising about 1 percent a year, and is expected to spike in the early 2020s as older baby boomers reach their mid-70s.
• Families are increasingly abandoning traditional religious funerals, which are typically organized by funeral directors, in favor of secular ceremonies they may arrange themselves. Natural burials, which avoid embalming and concrete burial vaults, are more commonly considered than they once were, while a minority of families are bypassing funeral homes altogether to take care of their dead themselves.

Click here to read the whole article.

The Wall Street Journal’s Shelly Banjo knocked the ball out of the park with this article.

1. What’s in the adviser’s background?
2. What do the adviser’s clients say?
3. How does the adviser get paid?
4. Where are the adviser’s checks and balances?
5. What’s the adviser’s track record?
6. Can the adviser put it in writing?
7. What do other pros think?

Take a few minutes to read the whole article at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123913983139498483-email.html