| Cents & Sensibility: Start Putting off Procrastination |
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Cents & Sensibility: Start Putting off Procrastination Just the possibility of frustration can keep you from completing important tasks, so our financialista makes the case for organizing all your vital information in one convenient place. A couple months ago, I finally was getting around to addressing a few items in my never-empty inbox, which included rolling the balance of my 401k account from my former employer's plan into my individual IRA. Because of convenient advances in technology and the Internet, this should have been an easy task. I just had to log into the retirement plan's Web site, click a few links and voila! My funds would have been on their way to my IRA. Notice I said, "should have" and "would have." Before I could even complete the first step, I needed my login information. I thought I knew it, but after three failed attempts I was faced with the dreaded message: "Due to security reasons, your account access has been locked. To reset your password, click here." I clicked, entered my information, and was notified that a new password would be sent to me via U.S. mail. So much for taking care of it that day! Roadblocks like this are frustrating and only feed the fire of putting off tasks that theoretically should only take minutes. Perhaps this sounds familiar. How many times have you sat down to complete a task on the Internet that should have taken about five minutes, only to waste a half hour trying to figure out how to log in? Or even worse, perhaps you aren't even making the time to take care of things, such as reallocating your 401k account, because you don't feel like digging out your access information. I'm guilty of it too, but that doesn't make it a wise procrastination. Some of these tasks could make or break your financial future. I started thinking that if this is a problem for me, it must be an issue for others. I mean, I only have to keep track of my own stuff — what about couples and families? At the suggestion of one of my friends, I created a spreadsheet to assist with gathering all vital information into one convenient place. It can be maintained on a computer or printed and completed by hand. The information organizer has a couple tabs. The first tab is a balance sheet that tracks all my assets such as my bank accounts, home and car, as well as liabilities like a mortgage, car loan and credit cards. The next tab contains all my personal information including doctors, service providers and important data like my social security number, drivers license and blood type. Another section keeps track of my login information for everything from my bank accounts to my Twitter password. For a limited time, I'm offering the template for this organizer to my readers as a courtesy — simply send me an e-mail, and I will send you the directions to access the tool online. Of course you then must set aside the time to complete the organizer, but I think you will find that once you have taken the time, it will be easy to maintain and may actually encourage you to stay on top of important things like your child's 529 plan or your own 401k savings. Happy organizing! | ||||||||||||||||||
Last update: 14-05-2010 01:30
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