I'm a person who likes to make recommendations. This is embarrassing to me, but I can't help it (yet).
SO... here are some things I wish I could tell everyone about.
SCRIVENER I heavily, heavily, recommend the computer app scrivener for anyone who writes anything ever. It's like an infinitely nestable binder that can be reorganized at will and viewed in bunch of ways. Plus, it's not a subscription. You buy it once and its yours. Here's a tour of it
I don't know what I would do without it, I use it for so many different things.
- I've used it in school for writing essays, or as a binder/notebook for individual classes
- I've used it as a journal
- and for long form fiction and nonfiction projects
- and for music writing (keep different variations of a song connected AND you can attach video, audio, and logic files to sections of the document)
- I keep a general doc called "notebook" that has separate sections for whatever slop comes out of me more regulary
- I use not even 1/4 of the features and it does everything I could possibly want. Which is saying something.
BUDGETING has changed my fucking life. I love my budget. I'll talk about it to anyone who will listen. I believe in it so much I would pay you to let me help you build one.
I think deep down a lot of people think of budgeting as some sort of tedious and restrictive tool that's hard to use and is an obstacle to having fun and living large.
The opposite has been true to me. I sound like a scammer when I say this, but budgeting has made money appear for me. Somehow, by being aware, intentional, and engaged with the cold hard numbers associated with my income and expenses, spending and saving are both easier.
Plus, it's so freeing not to have a bunch of uncertainty about how much money you have, how much money you need, and how much money you want. I built a nice little spreadsheet, and now I let it do my thinking. My budgeting system.