The End of Year: Time to Plan
Now is the time to make the time,
Hope is still in sight.
Let us not go gently,
To the endless winter night.
– Rush, Red Tide
I don’t know about you, but I love to plan. Plan the day, the month, and most importantly, the year. Most people are running around shopping like crazy, but I think now is the most important time to stop, think, and plan.

The end of the year is a great time to evaluate this year, and think about what we want to happen for next year. I like to ask myself the following questions:
Am I better off now than at the beginning of this year in the following categories:
- financially
- emotionally
- with respect to my relationships
- with my body and health
- in my career or business
If I have one most important goal in life, what would it be? How much progress did I make toward it this year?
Here are some more questions that are great to ask:
Think I am full of doom and gloom? Absolutely not. Both Matt and I are extreme optimists. But consider these facts: depressions happen on average once per lifetime, or every 80 years or so. It’s been 80 years since the last depression. The government is running budget deficits on a scale that has never been seen before, and has no way of paying back the money. The housing market has leveled off, but there is nothing to help it recover after the current first time house buyer’s stimulus wears off. The unemployment rate is getting higher, and there is nothing to slow that down. The US automakers have recovered for this month, but only because of $3 billion dollars of free money for (mostly American) clunkers. As soon as that stimulus effect wears off, the American car manufacturers will be in even worse shape than they were last month.
















