Improve your willpower

Willpower is about more than resisting our bad habits. It's the mental discipline that allows us to cultivate good habits, make better decisions, and control our own behaviours — everything from dieting effectively to powering through difficult problems at work. It's a quality that can separate the most productive businesspeople from the least productive. And it's a trait that many of us lack. Surveys of more than 1 million people show that self-control is the character trait modern men and women recognize least in themselves.

Our environment only exacerbates the problem. The jungle of stimuli that engulfs us each day make it difficult to exercise restraint or focus on the important habits we need to build or tasks we need to accomplish.

Nicholas Carr has argued in his book, ‘The Shallows’, that the internet is destroying our ability to concentrate and read or think deeply; and as John Tierney and Roy Baumeister point out in their book, ‘Willpower’, a typical computer user checks out more than three dozen websites per day. Focusing on an important memo is hampered by the distraction of Facebook and the incessant new email notifications blinking on our smartphones. Our ability to read a book is handicapped by the impatience of our 140-character habits. Even as I write this article, I'm tempted to snack, surf Wikipedia, check Twitter, or switch to another task.

But willpower is an essential quality you'll need for personal effectiveness at work, forcing yourself to prioritize the most important items on your to-do list, powering through an endless day of difficult decisions, or simply resisting the urge to eat that extra bag of chips in the office snack room. Want to grow your business or get that promotion at work? Cultivating willpower may be your quickest route to success.

To combat declining willpower, consider a few of the following approaches, based in part on Tierney and Baumeister's recommendations:

Practice small

Did you know that by reminding yourself to sit up straight at your desk you can train the same mental muscle you need to quit smoking or sustainably shed pounds? Research has indicated (PDF) that even reminding yourself to keep good posture on a regular basis can gradually improve your ability to self-regulate, and maintaining a regular exercise routine may improve self-control. Practice small exercises in self-control, and your overall willpower will benefit.

Take on your greatest challenges one at a time.

How long was your New Year's resolutions list this year? How many points have you already ignored? Even my suggested list for young leaders had five separate points, but if you want to shake a particularly trying habit (or build a good one), you should only focus on one major change at a time. Start, for instance, with your resolution to check Facebook or Twitter only twice per day; then, once you're free of that habit, move on to your new diet and exercise plan. In the short term, the amount of willpower you have is fixed, and overloading yourself with new tasks that require it may diminish your ability to accomplish any goal.

Monitor, monitor, monitor

Want to run a fast mile? Time every run. Want to write the next great American novel? Post the word count you've written every day on Facebook for all your friends to see. The more you monitor something (and ask others to help you monitor) the more likely you are to stay on task. Sites like Quantified Self offer an increasingly diverse array of ways to self-monitor, just as sites like Mint.com offer specific opportunities for self-regulation. If you're distracted by Facebook, Twitter, or other social media at work, keep a log of every time you check those sites and force yourself to introduce small goals to reduce the number of times you visit them every day.

Find time to replenish

In the short term, you only have so much willpower, and once it's depleted, your ability to exercise self-control or make sound decisions diminishes dramatically. If you're in a stressful job, for example, your ability to make decisions is worse in the afternoon than in the morning. However, finding downtime and even eating (replenishing your body's glucose) can help you replenish your willpower before taking on difficult decisions or tasks. Skipping or working through lunch may actually negatively impact both your ability to make decisions and your ability to work productively in the afternoon.

Keep it clean

A simple way to improve willpower is to operate in a neat environment. Tierney and Baumeister note that environmental cues like messy desks or unmade beds can "infect" the rest of your life and habits with disorder, whereas maintaining a neat and clean environment can help you to maintain order and self-control in the other tasks you confront. If your office or cubicle is a mess at work, make your first order of business to organize your space, and you may find your focus and productivity improving at work.

Source: 
Harvard Business Review

Power Traps to Avoid

If your powers bills are going through the roof here are four common traps to avoid when considering changing electricity or gas suppliers.

If you live in the ACT, NSW, Queensland, South Australia or Victoria you can choose who you buy your gas and electricity from.

Unfortunately that choice comes with the need to be vigilant about some of the tricks commonly used by energy providers to trap you in contracts that may not be as good as they look. Here’s what you should look out for when negotiating a better deal on gas, electricity or solar.

1. Pushy sales tactics

Door-to-door and telephone sales are common practices in the energy business but according to the ACCC there are certain things that energy company sales people should not do when they telephone or come to your door.

You shouldn’t have door knockers after 6pm and before 9am on weekdays and not at all on Sundays and public holidays. You shouldn’t get calls from sales people after 8pm and before 9am on weekdays, after 5pm on Saturdays and not at all on Sundays and public holidays.

You are under no obligation to tell sales people about your current energy arrangements, show them bills or tell them how much you currently pay. You shouldn’t have to ever sign something to get more information from them or accept a deal on the spot.

You should be able to ask for confirmation of the deal in writing. There should always be a cooling off period during which you can cancel the contract without penalty. For more information visit www.aer.gov.au. Each state also has an energy or energy and water ombudsman service to deal with complaints.

2. Contract confusion

According to the ACCC there are two types of energy contract. 

• Standard contracts are set by the government or an independent regulator in ACT, NSW, Qld, SA, and in Victoria standard contracts are set by energy retailer or
• Market contracts which are set by the energy retailers

Market contracts can include price discounts, non-price benefits, different billing periods, different payment terms and periods, fixed terms and fees and charges including establishment and exit penalties.

Different retailers may have a series of different market contracts for various durations with various “deals”. This can make it rather difficult to compare deals.

For instance, according to Alan Belkin, founder and CEO of Electricity Wizard, some companies will offer 10% off the price of electricity per kilowatt hour but some also guarantee that they will not raise their rates above CPI within the contract period. If they do increase their prices beyond inflation during your contract period and there is a price guarantee in place you will be free to change providers without penalty.

Other retailers do not offer that price guarantee. They may offer an initial rate that sounds brilliant but once you’ve signed your three-year contract there is nothing stopping them from putting their rate up and there may be heavy exit fees if you want to move to another provider before the end of the three year contract.

The ACCC says it’s essential to shop around for energy deals and compare contracts closely before signing.

3. Direct debits

Belkin says another area consumers need to check carefully is direct debits. Sometimes energy retailers offer additional discounts if you are prepared to enter a direct debit arrangement and have your bill automatically debited from your bank account.

For example, Belkin says one retailer commences the direct debit arrangement by billing you for the first month in advance and the amount they debit is based on your established usage pattern on previous bills.

4. Smart meters

There are several consumer campaigns under way about the roll out of smart meters in Victoria based on their short-comings and reports that they have increased some consumer’s bills by up to 300%.

Smart meters are a digital alternative to the traditional electricity or gas meter that can be read remotely so energy providers can do away with the expense of meter readers. They also allow energy providers to apply different rates at different times of the day. This may mean you are using more energy during periods that have higher charges per kWh without realising.

Sometimes switching to a solar PV system may involve the installation of a smart meter without you knowing, so check with the installation company before going ahead .

Please tell us if you have recently investigated or taken up an electricity offer and what the outcome was.

Source: yourmoneymag.com.au

Do you understand your mortgage?

Knowing what your home loan offers will give you more options when you need them. Here are some common home loan features explained to help you make informed decisions.

There’s more to a home loan than immediately meets the eye. Chances are your loan and lender are more flexible than you think. Just by knowing what you can and can’t do will help you if you want to reduce the life of your loan, save some money on interest or ease the financial pressure at a key stage of your life.

Offset accounts
Offset accounts put your savings to work and help in reducing the overall interest cost on your home loan.

The way offset accounts work is that you only pay intereset on the difference between the full loan amount and savings which are placed against the loan amount. This reduces the amount on which interest is calculated. For instance, on a $100,000 loan with $50,000 in offset savings, interest would only be calculated on $50,000 - the difference.

The money in the offset account earns the same interest as the home loan so in effect 'offsets' the interest cost on the home loan. What this means is that by placing funds into an offset account and making the minimum repayment or more on your home loan, you’re going to bite into the principal amount owing sooner and reduce the term of the loan.

Redraw
Redraw works in a similar fashion to an offset account but in this instance you’re actually making repayments against the home loan above the minimum repayment. The extra repayments can then be withdrawn from the loan account at a later date.

For instance, if your minimum repayment was $2000 a month but you pay $2500 a month, at the end of 12 months you’d have $6000 available in redraw. You would have reduced the principal amount owing by $6000 and would only be paying interest on the reduced amount until you used the redraw facility.

Top-up facility
Top-up facilities allow you to borrow further funds up to the amount you originally borrowed. It is different to a redraw facility which works on extra repayments you’ve made. With top-up you take a further advance on the loan.

This is, in general, a more efficient way of obtaining funds for renovations, debt consolidation, holidays etc.

Switching
Sometimes the original loan you took out with your lender no longer suits your needs, even though it did in the early years.A classic example of this is a borrower who initially took out a basic variable loan but now need a fully featured home loan.

There’s no need to refinance the existing loan to a new lender. Most lenders allow existing borrowers to switch between products for a nominal fee. The switching options will depend on the products but, for example, on a variable home loan most institutions will allow you to switch to a discount variable or fixed product.

Portability
Do you already have a loan that you’re happy with but you want to move to another property? If your answer is yes, there’s no need to pay out your existing loan and apply for a new one because portability can assist you in this circumstance.

Portability allows the loan security to be moved from one asset to another. For instance, if you were to purchase a new property you’d be able to transfer your existing loan over to a new property without having to obtain a new loan.

Split loans
Split facilities allow borrowers to split their total loan across two or more products. Split facilities are used for differing reasons with the two main ones being:

•  to distribute the loan across various properties when secured by the one loan, and  
• to spread interest rate ‘risk’.

The most common split is designating certain percentages of the loan to fixed and variable interest rate products.

Repayment holidays
Expected or unexpected events, such as the impending arrival of a baby come up in life. At such time a mortgage repayment relief may be needed.

In certain circumstances or if you are ahead in your repayments, most institutions will permit some form of repayment holiday. The best course of action, if needed, would be to contact your lender and ask what options you have available to you.