DPT--Morning Routine

As someone who is incredibly busy basically seven days a week, one way I have found to get the most done in the shortest amount of time is to have a morning routine. Having a structured morning from say 5am to 9am will allow you to get a huge amount of work completed in a relatively short period of time. As a bonus, by the end of your morning, many people are just waking up so you have escaped the calls and emails that can pull you away from your tasks and you have completed almost a full day's work before most people are rolling into their offices. Here's a few tips for putting together your own morning routine:

• Do the same tasks in the same order each day. Pretty soon this becomes almost automatic and you can run on auto pilot as you are becoming fully awake.
• Get a good night's sleep. Seven to eight hours is optimal.
• Wake up early--5am or 6am is best. You will have more time to work with fewer interruptions.
• Do a couple of physical tasks first (ie: picking up the house, watering the garden) as soon as you get up. This will allow your brain to fully awaken before you get started on more thought-intensive tasks.
• Set aside an hour for exercising each morning. Getting this done first thing is important as it is often easy to say you will exercise later, yet you become so busy it doesn't happen.
• Complete each task in full. If emailing is on your list, respond to or process all email that is in your email box. If updating your websites or blogs is on your list, complete this task before moving on to the next. Skipping around from task to task but not completing anything in full leads to wasted time and unfinished work.
• Write out your "to do" list for the day so you have a structure to follow.
• Do like tasks together. If you read the Bible and pray each morning, do these together. If you clean the house and do laundry, do these at the same time. When you eat breakfast, remember to take your vitamins.
• Complete at least one task that will move you forward with your major life goals, one task that will help you become more prepared and one task that will make a difference in your work. Little accomplishments each day will have a surprisingly profound impact a year from now.

A regular schedule, like any habit, may take a few weeks to set, but once you are on track, you will be amazed at the increase in productivity you can achieve.

A Lesson on Food Storage from the DEM

I had the opportunity to speak to the director of our county’s DEM (Department of Emergency Management) office the other day. What I learned from her made a lot of sense.

The Director said they used to store a cache of MREs which would be used to feed their staff during a disaster when everyone is in the office working around the clock. The problem with MREs, however, were many. They were expensive, they had expiration dates which meant that when they expired, all of this investment would need to be dumped in the garbage, and, most importantly, the novelty of eating something out of a brown cardboard-wrapped foil pouch wore off rather quickly.

This is what they do now: they purchase all of their food cache from Costco and the local grocery store. The cost is reasonable, especially if you purchase canned, boxed and foil-pouched foods on sale. The products do have expiration dates but with “regular” food, this is easy to get around—simply work the stores into your regular food supply and restock as you go along, or, you can, as the DEM does, donate the near expiring food to the local food bank. Finally, when you purchase and package “regular” food, you are able to buy food that is familiar and often a welcome respite when it comes to disaster work—everything else may be “going to Hell in a handbasket” but on your five minute break you get to have a can of Campbell’s soup or handful of Oreos—something familiar and soul-warming.

The DEM does still have MREs, they are useful if you have to go mobile, but their overall food storage plan now meets their needs in the most efficient, effective way possible.

10 Reasons to Have an Emergency Fund

You need to have an emergency fund. How many times have you heard that? Of course we all know that an emergency fund is important, however the impetus to save may be further reinforced by considering the following reasons:
1) You never know when you will be riffed, fired, laid off or outsourced. Many an employee has gone to work one morning only to find a pink slip on their desk, or worse, the doors to the business chained closed never to reopen. Having a nice chunk of change to see you through at least the first couple of months after such an event is extremely comforting.
2) You never know when someone is going to die. Funerals, in fact the entire death experience, can be costly for next of kin. If your spouse, parent or God Forbid, child, were to die unexpectedly tomorrow, would you be able to afford it?
3) You never know when your washing machine/car/computer is going to go “toes up” and leave you with an immediate need to shop for a replacement. Some things, such as a vacuum cleaner, you can live without for a couple of weeks but other items that your job (computer or car) or sanity (washing machine if you have a house full of kids) rely on, require a replacement ASAP. In order to not get stuck with high interest rates or huge credit card bills, it’s best to have an emergency fund you can dip into if needed.
4) You never know when you are going to receive a surprise bill that needs to be paid immediately. A couple of years ago, my accountant was having a personal crisis at the exact same time she was preparing my taxes. A year later I received a notice from the IRS informing me that I owed an additional $5000 (plus interest, of course) because the accountant had forgot to include income from a couple of investments that I had had. An “oops” on her part led to an “Oh my God” on my part. At least having an emergency fund made this less of a traumatic event.
5) You never know when you will come across a great deal. A super-duper sale that will more than fill up your pantry for the season with canned goods, a friend selling his truck at way below market value because he needs some quick cash, a last minute trip to visit family because airline ticket prices suddenly took a nose dive (no pun intended)…all of these can benefit you IF you have the cash on hand to take advantage of these great deals when they come along.
6) You never know when your kid will need braces, your wife will need surgery or your mother will need to re-roof her house. Some expenses you can see on the horizon but the actual process of saving for these items kind of gets left by the wayside until the event is upon you. With an emergency fund, you’re covered.
7) You never know when an extended illness, slow down at work or other event will cause you to be unable to earn money for a period of time. With a nice cushion of, say, six month’s worth of expenses in your savings account, you will be able to survive quite nicely until you either recover, wait for production needs to increase or find a new job.
8) You never know when a friend will ask you for help. Granted there are very few people who I would loan money to at all but there are a few who have proven to be extremely trustworthy and always pay their debts. It’s good to know that if a friend does need help, I have the ability to provide said help. As a side benefit, I know that I can call on these people for absolutely any favor, and receive it due to this relationship that has been developed.
9) You never know when you will need to disappear. For whatever reason—an abusive spouse, a psycho ex, an imploding personal life—you may want to just disappear. If you have no savings, your only option will be to disappear among the homeless in the next city down the road. With a sizable emergency fund, you can be chilling on a beach in Rio until things blow over.
10) You never know when TS will hit TF. There are lots of disaster scenarios as well as real-life past events to show just how important it is to have money saved up to help during times of disaster. If you had to flee your city and start all over in a new area (a la New Orleans) would you be able to? If your entire country were to fall into civil war and you needed to either fight or flee, would you be able to have the financial backing to support your decision?

There are a multitude of reasons to have an emergency fund, mostly none as dramatic as the ones listed above. However, having the financial wherewithal to do as you please, when you please, if you need to, is a priceless gift you can give to yourself and your family.

Revamping CNI...Ads...Blog Posts

You have probably noticed a slightly new look over at the CNI (www.codenameinsight.com) website. If you have been around for a while, you will remember that at first, all of the links were in two columns which made for a really long page. Then we rearranged the links into four columns which made for a really hard to focus on page (there were links everywhere). Now we are at three columns of links so hopefully this will be a happy medium between a too long page and a too schizophrenic page.

You will also see some ads on the site and on the blog as well. For years we have been supporting this site without ads, donations or any other source of income to cover expenses. With blogging, AdSense seems to be all the rage so we figured that this may be a good way to get a little bit of income coming in to help pay the bills as web traffic continues to increase.

And finally, you will see that blog posts will be occurring at a more regular pace. Much like updating of the site, a crazy schedule on our part leads to feast or famine when it comes to updates and blog posts. We are aiming for more consistency as far as updating and posting goes.

A question to readers...what would you like to see on this site? Are there any specific topics you would like to see addressed either on CNI or on the Blog? Do you have a site you would like to see listed? A topic you would like covered? Important information to share? Let us know!

Have you Googled Yourself Lately?

If you would like to start your morning off with a jolt, try typing your full name into the Google search bar. After that, type your phone number in as well (include the area code and dashes). Unless you have kept up a very high level of privacy, you may get back pages and pages of links with your information as the star of the show. I did this a couple of days ago and was surprised how many pages of results featured *me*. There were links to meetings I had attended years ago, conferences I had very minor parts in, a bio clip that I could not even remember writing and a link to another person with the same name. The electronic trail on a single, very unknown person can be surprisingly comprehensive.

DPT--Update Your Resume

How long has it been since you updated your resume? You never know when you will be a) riffed, b) fired or c) offered an amazing job opportunity on the spur of the moment. Having a readily accessible--and recently updated--resume may be just the ticket to a wonderful new job. Even if you are self-employed or have been at the same company for decades, it is still a good idea to update your resume so that when you do need to do a bit of self-promotion, you will have all of the information regarding your skills/experience/successes at your fingertips.

Summertime and the Preparin' Is Easy

It's summer here in the northern latitudes which means it is a most excellent time to get your preparedness efforts into full swing.

• Clean out, reorganize and perform all maintenance on your home
• Clean out the garage, outbuildings and storage areas
• Rotate your stored food and water
• Thoroughly check all of your preparedness supplies (air out the tents, check the batteries in all electronic goods, maintain the generator/camp stove/barbecue, etc)
• Go on a week-long backpacking trip and brush up on your survival skills
• Exercise outside
• Clean out, reorganize and maintain your BOV (bug out vehicle)
• Enjoy summer activities: boating, hiking, fishing, biking, etc

DPT--HAM Radio

Do you have a HAM radio or CB radio? These radios were much more common years ago but have fallen out of favor in recent years due to the advent of cell phones and the Internet. During a comprehensive disaster, however, this will be the way to communicate. Cell towers can be down, the Internet can crash but with HAM/CB radios, all you need is a power source (radio waves need no infrastructure). Consider adding a HAM/CB radio to your preparedness supplies and become familiar with using it.