BennyEast.Com/Blog The official blog of Kenny West

5Mar/170

Going With The Flow

Life is all about things flowing.  The flow of oxygen into your lungs and carbon dioxide out as you exhale.  The flow of coffee from the coffee pot...

Or, the flow of text, voice, email messages to family or friends, or coworkers.

Lately I've been thinking about that a lot.  How life is just kind of a flow... I wrote in a previous blog about cashflow... In my investing I focus on that way more than just the overall value of how much money is in my portfolio.

Everyone always looks at the total value.  But, if you look at life, in general.  It's ALL about the flow.  I mean, even the sun shine is a flow.  It's an even rate of sunbeams hitting the earth, a constant flow of solar energy.  No one cares about the size of the sun... It's about the even flow of energy to earth.

SO, that's why I'm WAY more interested in flow rate when it comes to investing.

The last 6 months or so, I've been working on buying into shares that produce cashflows, both on their books from the products or services they sell, and as well in the form of dividends for me.

So far this year I've made a few hundred, which I know, isn't enough to live off... And in my upcoming dividend calendar of income, March alone is going to be a heavy hitting income month... I'll most likely make more in dividends for March than I will for January and February combined.

The reason for this is because most companies that pay quarterly pay every 3 months... So, you don't have an even flow.  It's more like having cloudy or rainy days, or weeks, or months.... And then lots of sunshine.

Though the sun is shining and flowing every day, sometimes it doesn't seem that way due to weather.

But investing aside, life really is about a flow.  I mean, that's just how it all works.  A flow of TV shows from Netflix... Or a flow of books from an e-book device.

It's all about information, money, goods, services, sunshine, oxygen... Flowing from person to person, or place to place.

A flow of paperwork or emails at work.  I constantly have a flow of emails coming into me.  In exchange I get a flow of paychecks once a month.

Just one of the many things that I ponder.

But the key to being in control of any flow, is net positive or negative flow.

If you seem overwhelmed at work, it's not about getting it ALL done RIGHT NOW... It's about measuring the flow coming in, and just staying 1 email ahead of the flow.  As long as you get one more item done than is coming in, eventually that work will dwindle down to a more manageable amount.

With cashflows, savings is simply using less money than is coming in.  Same with investing.  As long as you don't use all of the cashflow, you can then reinvest some of that flow and generate more flow.

Net postive flow, or net negative flow.

Right now I'm in the process of making a little excel sheet with my flows... It's stupid, and silly, but I like to make excel sheets for things... So, my money flow for one, is also known as a budget... A budget is actually a flow!  It's a flow that is net neutral.  Not positive or negative.

Accountants do this kind of stuff all the time.  They are all about balancing the monetary flow.

Balancing the budget.

Anyways my flow is not only a budget, or investing, it's the amount of sleep I get, workout routines, amount of work I do... Budgeting creative time into my week.

Basically it's a weekly flow tracker where I'll take ALL the hours in a week, and then look at how much flow I'm dedicating to each thing.

When you look at the big picture you get a better idea of where your time is going in the overall flow...

Like, look at a week...

24x7=168 hours.

If I'm not sleeping enough I can then steal some time from something else and increase that.  So if I sleep 6 hours a night, that's 42 hours... Now I have 126 hours... 8 hours a day 5 days a week working... now there's 86 hours left.  Now I try to work out for an hour every day, another 7 hours.  Then there's time to get dressed in the morning, and free time to watch TV... And creative time to work on music and such...

It's just like a cashflow but with hours in the week.

I guess I'm trying to be more creative with managing my time.  Like, map it out, measure it, create schedules.

I thought of it while I was combing through the last 12 months of credit card transactions and I realized that each one of the transactions is part of the great big flow of money, and if I wanted to reduce my frivolous spending on silly things to gear that spending towards other things, like new home appliances and renovations and such...

I'd have to identify where I spend my money foolishly... And where I can take that money and put it to better use.

We do the same time with lots of things in life.  Sometimes we flow in the wrong direction... Which isn't bad... It's all about what you want and what direction you want to go.

So if you're trying to work towards a goal of some sort, don't just start from zero and go full throttle to the max.

Start with one thing, and then take it from there.  Just spend an extra 5 or 10 minutes a week on something, and then work it up to an hour.  Or two or 3 hours.  But just know that if you're spending in one place, another place is probably going to have to sacrifice.

It's all about a flow that works for you.

My cats for example have a flow goal of maximizing the amount of times they can get pet, or treats, or the amount of naps in sunshine coming through the window they can take.  It's all about what your goal is.

Making an excel sheet mapping out the total hours in a week, or even total minutes, and then carving out your week to put more time to work, or exercise, or taking more "me" time... I just think it makes it easier  to see.  Just like making a money flow, or budget, and looking at where all your credit card transactions are being made and then decided do you REALLY need to go spend that 5 or 10 bucks here or there?  Or can you do without that for a few months to then put that money towards a different goal.

Flows and goals.  Start with a little flow here and a little there, and adjust to taste.  Just some thoughts that I'm thinking over this three day weekend as I work on things at home.

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