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This weeks newsletter is is not
directly related to investing but it is something that effects all of
us.
Time is arguably our most precious
resource. You cannot buy it, store it or turn it back.
And once we are born it starts running
out for all of us.
For this reason I am always on the
lookout for tools and strategies to save me time.
Email is a wonderful invention. It
allows us to communicate with people everywhere without interrupting
them, allowing them to deal with our mail when they have time.
That is unfortunately not how it works
in practice.
I am addicted to checking and answering
email. It interrupts my day and takes me on all kinds of tangents
away from my most important tasks.
And when I look, the day is over and I
did not achieve what I set out to do.
Leo is quite radical in his approach,
but even if you only implement a part of what he suggests you will
benefit.
I hope it helps you to free up more of your
time for investing.
_________________________________________
Clear out your inbox and be happy.
In a sentence: Don’t reply or even read most of your emails.
Your inbox can be cleared in minutes with that method.
Here’s how I suggest you do it:
-
Select all junk mail, newsletters,
routine notifications, auto-replies, joke emails, chain mail, ads,
anything else not super important. Delete em.
-
Select about half (or more) of the
other emails that you know are not important, just from the subject
line. Archive em.
-
Quickly read through the rest,
archiving almost every one of them. Select a few to reply to or act
on (5 at the most). Those will be your most important.
-
Reply to them in three sentences or less, act on them
immediately, or put them on your calendar to do later.
Done.
Following this method, you can process your inbox in less than 5
minutes if you’re quick (use keyboard shortcuts).
What?
But … what about all those emails I need to reply to? President
Obama gets thousands of letters a day, and only
reads 10 of them. This method forces you to simplify, to
focus on what’s really and truly important.
Then, when you’ve saved all that time you might normally spend
on email, go and Do
Something Amazing. Oh, and only do this once or twice
a day at most — the rest of the day, stay out of email.
Try it for a day or two. Tell me if the world falls apart. I bet
it won’t. If it does, I’ll buy you a beer. If it doesn’t, you
owe me one.
This is about something a bit deeper: our need to reply and act on
every single request that comes in, rather than to take control of
our work days and do what we know is important.
You don’t need to respond to every email, act on every request,
or even read everything that comes your way. You can choose the
essential ones, and then get to work on what really matters.
And if you tell others that you’re doing this, that you’re not
going to reply to every email, they’ll eventually stop expecting
you to reply.
Note: I realize this method won’t work for everyone … but I
did say this would be a simple method.
You can use it to get even simpler than the steps I listed above —
just choose 1-5 emails to respond to/act on, and archive all the
rest.
________________________________________
Leo
Babauta is the creator and writer of the Zen Habits blog
which is about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives.
It’s about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what’s
important, create something amazing, find happiness.
Leo is the author of a new best-selling
book, The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the
Essential, in Business and in Life.
________________________________________
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Policy
An often overlooked, but very helpful
feature of most email systems is the ability to establish rules,
called filters if you use Gmail.
The rule or filter function allows you
to set up criteria and have emails sorted as they arrive, before you
have even seen them.
For example.
I have found that rules are ideal for joke
and “please send this on” emails you receive friends or
relatives where do not have the heart to ask them to stop.
These types of emails disappear in a
folder, gets marked as read and I can look at them if and when I have
time.
I can, of course, also just delete them
without looking.
This means that I don't find these
mails in my inbox and, as they are already marked as read, in a
separate folder I do not even know that they are there.
This feature can be found as follows in
the main email programs:
Outlook Express
Go to the Tools menu, click Message
Rules, and select Mail from the sub menu.
Outlook
On the Tools menu, click Rules and
Alerts. Click New Rule.
Thunderbird
Go to Tools, and click "Message
Filters". The "Message Filters" window will pop up.
Click New, and the Filter Rules dialogue will open.
I hope you manage to save a few minutes
of your precious time.
Regards
Tim du Toit
P.S. A media company in the wrong country at the wrong time...
This month the company I found for subscribers is located in France.
In terms of the size of companies I look at its quite large with a market value of €1,72 billion.
The company owns the most popular television channel in one of the largest European countries but is also very active in new media channels including the internet, tablets and smart phones.
In spite of this, the market views it as an old media company that is soon going the way of the dinosaurs. However, when you look at its financial statements you will see what a great business it is.
Its balance sheet is solid with no debt, and it generates a high amount of free cash flow and profits. This enables it to pay a dividend of just under 7% that can easily be maintained and has room to increase.
When I recommended the company it was trading at 7 times free cash flow, 7,7 times 2010 earnings and 5,6 times EBIT to enterprise value.
I am sure you will agree this is undervalued.
To immediately get your hands on this value investment idea (for as little as €39) click here.
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