The Online Investing AI Blog

There’s a difference between productive meetings and meetings.

Productive meetings need three things:

• A purpose
• An agenda
• A time limit

Most business people just don’t get that and meetings become ego jam sessions–or maybe ham sessions–where people strain for more face time and hope to instill among their co-workers just how important they are.

After all, it’s just an hour or two, right?

Now we have the ultimate tool that proves this wrong.

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Accelerating Technology, Business Strategy, Money, Online Investing AI, Success business, meeting, Money, technology, time

Picture credit: ellievanhoutte @ Flickr

Depending on which researchers you talk to, about half to two-thirds of all Americans aren’t saving enough for retirement.

There’s a variety of reasons for not saving for retirement. You might think you don’t have the spare money. You might think that saving money for retirement can be started “later.” Or, you’re one of those James-Dean-live-fast-die-young type of people who figure they won’t be around long enough to enjoy the delayed fruits of their labors.

Worse, some people might think they can rely on Social Ponzicurity to take care of them in their golden age.

The truth is, a lot of factors can affect your retirement. So, if you’ve calculated your retirement savings, or you’re going to–you might want to consider the following six factors that can influence your retirement:

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Flickr

Society has decided–for whatever reason–to push papers five days a week, eight hours a day. Even those hours are mostly relegated to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Some folks cut out at 6 p.m. because lunch is not part of the eight-hour work day.

After all, food isn’t necessary for productivity.

It wouldn’t be correct to say that there are no advantages to the 9-5 slog. Just like dogs nipping at the ankles of the sheep, bosses and managers can herd their workers into the right direction, or at least in the same direction, if there’s a common time and place.

But, the strictly-regimented time and place of office work is starting to fracture under the strain. Commerce is becoming global and information is quickly becoming ubiquitous. You don’t need to access a drawer full of files to complete a task. That info is available whenever and wherever you want.

Not only is it no longer necessary, it may be actually holding us back.

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Accelerating Technology, Money, Online Investing AI, US Economy 9 to 5, globalization, management, office work, offices, productivity, time

For some people, money is everything. They are great at tracking their spending, know their net worth, and always get the best prices when they shop. These people are great at managing their money, and don’t waste a dime.

Then, there are other people who are great at managing their time. They are always finding ways to get more things done faster. They never waste time sitting in traffic, and make sure their meetings are quick and productive. These people understand how valuable their time is.

What could be more valuable than our time?

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Investing, Money, Success effort, energy, financial future, Investing, Money, Success, time

Save time for strange days with Automated Trading.

Dan Brown has made a fortune exploring the hidden agendas of church and state in his books The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons.

Oliver Stone’s been portrayed as one of those hidden agenda-seekers, acknowledging the roles of the FBI, the CIA, the Mob, anti-Castro Cubans, pro-Castro Cubans, and participants in the military-industrial complex in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He also insinuated that a half-naked native had a role in writing songs for sixties rock band, the Doors, even though it was more than likely Robby Krieger.

As part of the development team charged with creating Automated Trading systems, I am now in possession of information that reveals the hidden–and shocking–agenda of Automated Trading.

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Accelerating Technology, Automated Trading, Business Strategy, Dreams Come True, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI, Success, US Economy analysis, Automated Trading, Money, time, traders, trading, wealth

The whole wage-slave mantra is “time is money.”

Minimum wage is based on the hour. Overtime is (sometimes) paid for extra hours worked. Salaries are tabulated annually. Bills are paid monthly.

The connection between time and money is intricately woven in our society.

The system works well, at least for some elements of the wage-slave strata. Bosses, for example, use the time-is-money principle to dangle a carrot in front of their workers to ever-higher levels of productivity and, at times. ever-lower levels of dignity. It’s also a good way to divide workers. The time of some workers is more important than the time of other workers.

Unfortunately the whole system is a sham.

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Dreams Come True, Investing, Online Investing AI Money, time, wage, wage slavery, wealth

Index funds have become more and more popular over the last 15 years. The internet has made people aware of the high costs of mutual funds, and they were looking for a better solution. It’s true that index funds are probably better than mutual funds. But do they have drawbacks as well?

One of the major challenges with index funds is that they (obviously) go down with the market. People understand this when they invest, but they don’t really get it until they see their retirement account drop by 50%. What no one tells them is that sooner or later their account will drop by a large amount. It’s difficult to prepare ourselves psychologically for something like this, when we have no experience in the past.

Automated Trading systems do not need to go up and down with the market. They can exit or short a stock or index at any time. So, while the market goes down an Automated Trading system can actually make money. In fact, since markets go down faster than they go up, Automated Trading systems can make more money faster when the market is going down.

One of the good things about index funds is that once you make an investment, you don’t need to spend a lot of time or effort managing it. Index funds are perhaps one the most “Set it and forget it!” investments available. Automated Trading is similar in that it does not take a lot of work to manage the account. But you do need to check it periodically (if not daily) to make sure it is working properly.

Index funds definitely have their advantages. And, so do Automated Trading systems. It will be interesting to see how the investment landscape changes over the next few years.

Automated Trading, Investing, Money Automated Trading, effort, index funds, Investing, Money, retirement, time

In a previous post, 7 reasons Why Saving Money Makes You Poor: Reason #6, I talked about how it’s easy to waste a lot of time for a very small financial return. For example, some people will drive an extra 30 minutes to save a few dollars gas. Or, sometimes people take a job that requires hours communing and they don’t think about the time, energy and frustration that will be required just to get to work.

Those are some poor uses of our time. So that got me thinking.

What are some great uses of our time?

Probably for many of the people reading this, writing in your blog is one of the best things they can do with their time. Blogs are awesome because they let us create value for a large audience and even generate revenue at the same time. It seems that most of the people who post comments on this blog have a blog of their own. Chances are you’re probably well aware of all the benefits!

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Dreams Come True, Success blogs, energy, goal setting, relationships, Success, television, time, work

In the last post of the Five Ways to be More by Doing Less series, we discussed how technology can help you manage time more effectively.

How much time do you waste each day?

Ever think about it?

I did and was shocked. I found that I spent so much time checking web stats, for instance. I would flick back and forth monitoring traffic. Why? I have no idea! It just became a habit, one that I am breaking free of by using better time management skills. In this case, I set aside a certain time for checking stats.  Now, I have a lot of work to do, but I’m making steps in that direction

While I continued my examination, I came up with a three-step process for better time management.

Simplify
The examined life is usually the simple life. One way to simplify is to cut down on the things that don’t add value to your life. Once you arrive at the things you value, you can go to the next step: prioritize.

Prioritize
Make sure you spend more time accomplishing tasks that give you the most return–whether in passion or in wealth–to your life.

And remember, when your prioritizing, that adding beauty and reflection in your life should be a priority. Here’s how Leo Babauta of Zen Habits explains it:

What is so important that it can’t wait until later? What email must be answered right this moment? Do we really need to read all those articles online, all those messages from others, all those newspapers and magazines? Do we need to have the television and radio and Internet on all the time?

Budget
Set aside time for things you have to do, but may not necessarily want to do. That stops tasks from mounting in huge procrastinating walls.
A great resource for this type of thinking is at Zen Habits, a blog that is centered on living the simple, but extraordinary life. It’s also a big proponent of the “Be More, Do Less” philosophy. You may also check out the e-Book at Zen Habits called Zen to Done.

In the next post, we’ll take a look at how forming relationships can actually save you time.

Business Strategy, Great Books, Online Investing AI, Success Money, time, time management, wealth, zen, zen habits

In the first step of Being More While Doing Less, inspired by the Accomplishing More by Doing Less book by Marc Lesser, we discussed taking regular time off. This can re-charge your batteries and improve your productivity.

Another way to Be More While Doing Less is to leverage technology.

The internet and other new technologies has created new tools to master your time, the trouble is few people use them effectively and actually lose time by becoming immersed in the time-wasting elements of new tech.

Have you ever watched someone check their email continually? Or do you do that? Most of the times it’s just to read the latest spam message about the latest male performance-enhancing drug.

Other people use new technology to play games and waste time. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that if it’s used in the confines of a time budget; the problem is some folks don’t set a time limit for this type of activity and it consumes way too much of their day.

Instead of using technology to waste time, use it to make time.

The web can be used for research, communicating, and organizing. One great resource for this is Lifehacker.com, a site that helps you get things done. Whether you want tools to land a new job, or ways to tap Photoshop magic, Life Hacker can help.

Since we deal with financial matters at Online Investing AI, we recognize that making money, budgeting money and spending money can consume great big, heaping, steaming, bowls of time. In fact, we’re creating Automated Trading systems to make money for people, so they aren’t stuck at a computer all day watching the marketing and making trades. It’s a trading autopilot without the exorbitant fees of financial managers.

But there are other ways to leverage technology to help manage your money. We like Mint.com as one site that merges all of your financial accounts for better management (and to cut down on fumbling around looking for account statements). The internet is full of resources like Mint.com, as well.

To learn how relaxation can actually help you check out yesterday’s post to Be More By Doing Less.

Check out Step 3 to Be More By Doing Less, Master Your Time, which will appear tomorrow.

Accelerating Technology, Automated Trading, Online Investing AI advanced technology, Automated Trading, freedom, Money, tech, technology, time, time saving