I am Making a List and Checking it Twice: Forming Your Financial "Honey Do" List

I love lists of future accomplishments. I don't think of lists as things to do, but things to accomplish. I have fallen behind on the use of my Franklin/Covey day planner and I am getting back into the swing of things. Speaking of day planners, the motivational quote of the day in mine was "Many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little."--Plutarch.  This was the inspiration of today's post.

By making lists you can breakdown multiple tasks into smaller tasks and not feel so overwhelmed. Prioritizing tasks will break them down even further. Pareto's Law states that 20% of your activities will result in 80% of your success. So if you put a 100 items on your list, 20 of them are probably the one's you need to focus on.

You can have several types of lists of future accomplishments:

• Short Term
• Long Term
• Daily
• Weekly
• Monthly

I also look at these tasks or future accomplishments as goals. You can have a goal of things you want to accomplishment over any span of time you want. Just be sure to prioritize them. These can also be put into categories:

• Important and Urgent
• Important and Not Urgent
• Not Important but Urgent
• Not important and Not Urgent 

The other day I came up with a series of general goals that I wanted to accomplish, but these will need to be refined and broken down to complete this the way I want too. Here is what that list looked like:

•  I will get my six figures of debt paid off in the next 3 to 5 years
•  I will continue to get my health back.
•  I will continue to structure my life that I am able to do the things I love.
•  I will continue to strive to develop a residual income by doing what I love so I can live a life of peace and abundance.

When it comes to financial matters and if you have credit card debt, no emergency fund, or retirement savings Dave Ramsey's 7 Baby Steps is the best list of future accomplishments you can have.

Here's a look at my current financial goal list and how I am doing based on Dave Ramsey's 7 Baby Steps:

1. $1,000 to start an emergency fund: An emergency fund is for those unexpected events in life that you can't plan for. I already have this one checked off.
2. Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball: Lists your debts, excluding the house, in order. The smallest balance should be you number one priority. Should be seeing my first credit card paid off in the next couple of months.
3. 3 to 6 months of expenses in savings: Don't start throwing all your extra money into investments quite yet. I made this mistake once and it has been a costly one.
4. Invest 15% of your household income into Roth IRA's and pre-tax retirement: When you start this step you should have no payments but the house and a fully funded emergency fund.
5. College funding for children:  Be sure your up to step four before starting this one. This is a concern  for me as I want to get rolling on it for my new daughter. The sooner you can start the better.
6. Pay off home early: This is the really cool one. Imagine what it would be like to have no house payment. The first time I was six figures in debt I had followed the first four steps, but neglected this one, which about 6 years ago this goal would have been totally possible for me.
7. Build wealth and give: Imagine being a first generation millionaire. Being able to actually leave your children an inheritance. Or how about giving to a charity or back to God, whichever you choose. The sky is the limit once you get to this step.  

So what's on your list of future accomplishment's? Let us hear from you.

 [This post is written and copyrighted by Financial Elite (http://financialelite.blogspot.com/ ).]

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