Blaine561's Online Forex Trading Journal!

Time Management methods most often incorporate some

element of the goal setting process, as a key

ingredient for overall effective use of time. Whether

in the personal or professional realm, goal setting is

an important aspect in becoming a productive

individual, who effectively manages time.

When speaking of “goals” this term will include any

number of specific tasks which need to be completed,

from household chores to major business proposals.

Tasks to be performed are referred to as either short,

medium, or long term goals, depending on the available

time the individual has to complete them.

Short term goals may be thought of as daily goals.

These often include everyday chores, as well as

projects which need to be completed immediately. In

effective time management a list of short terms goals

is formulated, and each goal on that list is

completed, on a daily basis.

Medium term goals are often goals that need to be

completed within one week to one month of time.

Depending on the amount of time required to complete

the goal, a medium term may be broken up into smaller

pieces, to be accomplished daily. For instance, a

project which will take 6 to 7 hours to complete can

be broken into pieces, requiring only 1 hour per day.

Long term goals can reflect major undertakings, such

as obtaining a college degree, building a new home, or

any number of other such goals. These goals are broken

down into daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly

goals.

For instance, to obtain a college degree in 4 years

the individual will need to research financial

options, register for classes, take and pass specific

subjects, complete homework assignments etc… Long term

goals are best managed when broken down into small

sections, each one a step toward completion of the

final goal.

Improving your financial status and becoming free of debt usually only requires practicality on your part. When you learn to become responsible and practical in your use of credit cards, then you would not have had immense debt problems to begin with. However, you can apply the same level of practicality when it comes to paying off or settling debts.

A few companies offer debt elimination programs but you need not jump right into it. You need to consider whether you will end up paying more than you could afford. However, if it saves you time and stress while also reducing the interest rate placed on your debts, then it would make great sense. There are steps that you can take yourself to advance toward your effort of becoming free of any credit card debt.

1. Set a specific time frame for your debt elimination.

Before you determine how much you are going to pay for your debt settlement on a monthly basis, you must come up with a specific time period first. Say for example, you are paying the minimum monthly payment for your debts, which means that you would end up paying your debt for another 5 or 10 years. If you want to shorten the payment period, then you can opt increasing your monthly payments if you do not want to extend your payment period.

2. Be flexible with your debt elimination campaign.

In the middle of paying off your debts, it is not unlikely that some people with encounter financial emergencies. Therefore, it is best to opt for a credit company that allow flexibility or changes in your payment options when these cases should arise. Find a flexible debt payment plan that make room for such changes.

3. Determine your source of cash for purposes outside debt settlement.

There are a few credit company that unable you to have access to your own money during emergency cases. Therefore, make this an important determiner when you look for a debt relief program. When you encounter financial emergencies, the inaccessibility of ready cash bring about more financial stress. Look for a debt settlement plan that will have extra funds available when such emergencies occur in the middle of working towards your goal to eliminate credit card debt.

4. Evaluate its impact on your credit rating.

There are a few debt settlement methods that can impact your credit rating, so you have to find one that will help eliminate any of your existing credit card debts without necessarily hurting your credit status. If there are any negative marks that could tend to pull down your FICO score, look for other alternatives that could make your FICO score quickly increase. Whether it is making on-time payments or paying double the minimum monthly payments, you need to talk with your credit company to not just free yourself of any debts but also to boost your credit rating.

5. Look into associated fees and charges.

Although some credit card debt elimination programs are offered for free, most are charged service. It is therefore important that you understand how much such services cost before you commit on your involvement with them. Some of the most common fees are upfront fees or attorney fees and some other processing charges. If there are any hidden fees, try to talk them out. The idea here is obvious: you are trying to lift off any financial burden and having your credit company charge you with huge amounts would not help at all.

Learning how to work your way around such negotiations involved with settling off credit card debts could help you be debt-free and regain better control over your finances.

Do you have a customer tracking program that keeps record of basic client information, such as name, address, email and phone number of a client?

Do you try to keep your client lists on scraps of paper and notepads? Many small business owners use the Post-It notes system which takes up much desk space with information about clients and customers everywhere. The way to solve this is by creating “contact databases”. The contact databases requires that you put information into a customer file, using the customer file to send correspondence, extend information or keep in contact with people who you do business with.

You have to keep up with your customers who know the products and services, for they are the people individuals that will come back if your service was good. Having a contact database makes it easier to manage customer information and in some cases (depending what software you use) archive certain customer service issues.

The first application is to provide customer integration data was ACT. This software allowed business owners the flexibility of inputting the clients’ basic information, assign account numbers, job and invoice numbers and response dates.

Microsoft Office, which was introduced in Microsoft 3.1 Operating Systems, started as a basic address book. The contact database was also available in earlier versions of MS Office. Microsoft Office integrated the email client with the address book which made it easier to record customer data and email the customer .You could do mass mailings to contacts in Microsoft Office, which we discuss later.

You can create your own databases using Structured Query Languages but why bother when you have everything integrated with these packages?

As a business owner, you must maintain your customer lists and ensure customer information is up to date.

Most contact databases can be imported and exported between programs (Microsoft Office) in a format called Comma Separated Volume format which means that if there are two programs that support CSV format, then the same fields in one database can be transferred to another without you typing in everyone’s name or information all over again.

Customer databases are important because they provide you with information to help you do business.

Making a trading plan is no joke. It takes a whole lot of effort and research to come up with a trading plan that is perfect for you. But the problem is, sometimes, when that ticker or number goes up and up or down and down, we aren’t control ourselves and jump the gun on selling whether for profit or loss.

The problem with that attitude is, once you break away from your trading plan, nothing can stop you from doing it again. Rationalizing your violation of the plan by any profit you’ve earned is just a step away for you. That’s pretty much where it begins and it’s all downhill from there. Pretty soon, you’ll be ignoreing that trading plan you made and just go with the flow of the market. Oh, yes, you’ll have a few successes and then you’ll be broke, having thrown away your money on sure things.

What some traders don’t realize is that trading plans are more than just a few rules and guidelines for you to follow when you start trading. A good trading plan, and I mean a really good one, reflects your personality and should not be easy to break away from. When it is well-made, a trading plan takes into account your personal temperament and should be constructed in a way that all of its instructions are things that you will be comfortable with. This is why the first part of creating a trading plan is to always determine what are your mental limits are; both in terms of knowledge and in your personal character. A worrier’s trading plan will be incredibly different for one made by someone who is more daring. It may not seem like much but watching the stock prices fo up and down can have a heavy toll on a person. That’s why making a plan that you’re personally comfortable with is important. If you’re comfortable with the plan then it will be easier for you to follow it.

Why is it so important then, for you to follow your trading plan? It’s pretty simple actually – discipline. Discipline is sometimes a hard thing to have when you’re in the middle of a rough-and-tumble market. A good trading plan keeps you on your course and gives you definite goals. A man with a puprpose and a plan to reach that purpose always beats out anyone who just has a vague idea of what he’s doing. Traders who don’t have a plan, or have plans that are vague, usually end up panicking when bad stuff starts to happen. Even when good stuff happens it can confuse a trader, like suddenly selling all your stock at what you thought was a good price when you could have sold at a higher price later. A good trading plan limits how much you buy and how much you sell at particular levels, maximizing profits or minimizing loss.

This is why you should try your best to follow your trading plan. Keeping that iron discipline and keeping yourself following the plan that you made may be hard at times. It may even cost you in terms of profit, since even plans can’t be perfect. However, let me assure you that keeping to your trading plan is the only way to go if you want to be a serious trader.

Many of us have the aspirations to become a success in the network marketing industry; it’s why we joined the business. What is the difference between you and someone who is a raging success? Probably the daily habits and goal setting has a big thing to do with it. I don’t know of one successful person that success just happened to them by accident. This is especially true in the network marketing industry.

The biggest success stories begin with a dream and a goal. That goal is usually to make a lot of money and be able to work from your home. This is a wonderful goal to have, however, don’t become disappointed too soon if your dream isn’t becoming a reality. Rome wasn’t changed in over a night and neither will your life be. The first thing you need to do is to set goals. Where do you want to be in a month? A year? Five years? Set that goal for yourself and benchmarks you have to surpass in order to reach those goals.

When you pass each one, mark it off your list.

When they are all marked off, start with a new set of goals. Another program that can help you reach your goal faster is the association of network affiliates programs. A network affiliate program is a program that uses a form of advertisement. This type of advertisement relies upon a number of affiliates (or advertisers) that help to drive traffic to your sites. These types of programs use the multi-level marketing theory in order to help bring in potential business to your association or internet/network marketing program. While some marketing businesses are multi-tiered and this means even more traffic, some are not. It’s best to check before hand before you sign a contract with an affiliate. Some marketers develop their own in-house marketing program or they can use a third party marketing team.

Look at some of the leaders in the network marketing business. Some of them have created training programs that will show you how they did it. Read through their material and if it doesn’t work for you, then leave it and move on.

Some marketers use programs such as Bee Free and Link share in order to accomplish their goals. Many wouldn’t recommend that you jump right into using affiliates with your networking business, it’s better to build your business a step at a time. Know your market audience and keep setting your goals one at a time.

And when you believe you’re ready to take that next step in building your business, then you can contact a networking affiliate program and help drive up your business. Always check with the government regulations in your state and with federal business regulations and the Better Business Bureau before associating your company with an affiliate. Remember, slow and steady wins the race. But when talking about your goals, work at a pace you’re comfortable with and you have your business growth in mind.

Having a trading plan is not going to make you a sudden millionaire. I mean, there are a dozen things that can possible be go wrong in the market, even with a plan, that a profit isn’t exactly guaranteed. But then, it would be a lot easier if you can make the plan work. That’s essentially the crux of it all: to make the plan work for you, you have to make it work. It’s not some magic genie after all, and it needs a bit of that elbow grease to get the gears turning.

Let’s be clear here, when I talk about trading plan, I don’t mean a half-assed list of cobbled together advice from a dozen investment books. A working trading plan is more than buy this, buy that, sell this, sell that. A trading plan should be your personality on a piece of paper with a whole lot of work attached to it. You should have put in research for your

The very first thing that you need to make a trading plan functional for you is to make it something that you are willing and able to work with. What does that mean in terms of how it is made? It means you have to know what the trading plan is about and what its goals are. For example, if you’ve set some unrealistic profit margins for yourself in your trading plan, you’ll have no choice but to not meet them. Not meeting those profit margins is very discouraging psychologically and you’ll probably start ignoring the plan because of that, which will even more cause you problems. A trading plan starts with realistic and easy-to-meet goals and a market that you can understand. If you were a dentist or a doctor, you’d know all about the pharmaceutical market, the same goes for an engineer for the construction companies and real-estate market. Knowing what you’re getting into will always make your trading plan work and you should focus on that.

Next, your trading plan should not make any unreasonable demands on you. This means that you shouldn’t write on your trading plan to sell at 1.50 when you really want to sell at 1.75. A person’s personality whether it be daring or conservative should both be reflected and slightly reined in by your trading plan. Always try to go for the middle ground when creating trading strategies for your plan. What this means is, you have to bridge that realm of personal instinct and logical trade practices. A good example of this would be if, as a conservative trader, you’d be comfortable at selling at 2.0, hoping to avoid any loss of profit. But your research tells you that the company’s shares can peak up at abou 3.0. A safe choice for your selling would be 2.5, that sweet spot right in the middle, with just a hint of risk but still within safety parameters. Trust me, it would be a whole lot better for your mental health, if you can work with your plan than constantly second-guessing it.

All of this, of course, is pretty much aimed at making you follow the trading plan. To be honest, following the plan is the only thing you need to make it work, but then would you follow a trading plan that you’re uncomfortable with? So, if you’ve done all of your homework, using your plan now should be a piece of cake.

To break the monotony of being confined to your home office, the best investment that you can get for your SOHO business is a notebook or a laptop.

A notebook or laptop computer allows you the flexibility to do your work anywhere. Desktop systems are of course, desktop systems that leave you chained to your home office desk but notebook or laptop systems allow you to go into coffee shops, libraries or do work while you’re having your car fixed.

Years ago, laptops were over $2,000 dollars and only a few people can afford them. These days, you can get a nice laptop for $600.00 dollars and many computer companies are making laptops and notebooks just for SOHO business owners with suite application software included in the package.

Surveys show that computer users between 18-30 prefer notebooks and laptops instead of big desktop systems because of the ability to take work on the go with them. The generation before them (baby boomers and Vietnam War generation people) prefers desktops because most don’t see the need of carrying a portable computer around with them. That generation is still trying to learn how to effectively use the computer.

What’s so great about laptops is that wireless internet devices are built into the laptop. This means that you can get the internet in your favorite coffee shop, library or bookstore. Some establishments have free wireless internet that you can use and some establishments have a small card that you have to pay for to get on the net.

Most neighborhoods are converting into wireless hub neighborhoods which will allow you to get the internet for free. Many companies are exploring the option of free wireless internet in a certain geographical region and this will allow the internet to be picked up in cars and busses. Some cities have converted a few buses into internet buses so that passengers can have access to the internet while they are on the bus.

So notebooks and laptops can free you from the monotony of working at home. Join the portable generation and buy a system. You’ll love the flexibility!

SOHO business entrepreneurs can use the internet to their advantage in areas of advertising, marketing and e-commerce. There is another area that needs to be mentioned and it’s an area that’s titled “Secure E-Commerce Transactions”.

It’s true that people are spending mass amounts of money online like never before! That means that there is profitability for you in whatever your goods or services are but people will feel more comfortable shopping on the internet knowing that their credit or debit card information won’t be compromised or stolen.

Secure system transactions have improved over the last five years making it safe for people to shop online at their favorite store or internet portal. It is your responsibility, as a business owner, to ensure your customer that their transactions are safe when they visit your web-site to shop for goods or services. E-Commerce security should be integrated your customer service plan.

When you select an e-commerce system, make sure the system is certified and has a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate. This program encrypts customer data and uses a private key to read it. In other words, if you have an SSL Certificate in your e-commerce system and your customer makes a transaction; their transaction is scrambled and encrypted so only that the server that has the private key can understand it. No outside sources can hack or break the encryption key.

You can buy an encryption certificate for a year and use it to protect all your customers’ e-commerce transactions. You should ask your host provider if their server support SSL Certificates at the server level which is where your web-site resides.

Verisign has the best SSL encryption services for financial transactions, e-commerce systems and data and voice infrastructure. All e-commerce web sites that are viable usually pick Verisign as their provider for site encryption.

You want your customer’s transactions to be safe. After all, it’s a big part of your business and your customer service operation.

Fancy colored diamonds are all the rage

these days. Gemologists have developed

new ways to create versions that are

affordable for the average person – by

treating less desirable diamonds. These

less desirable diamonds are treated with

irradiation followed by intense heat. This

turns brown and yellowish diamonds into

beautifully colored diamonds that you can

afford. This produces stunning greens,

blues, yellows, reds, purples and other

colors. These colors are considered

permanent, but there is a possibility

they could change during repairs if a high

heat is used.

Treatments like irradiation make it possible

for more people to own these vividly colored

diamonds. Most natural colored diamonds

are rare and also extremely expensive. When

shopping for colored diamonds you need to

assume that any affordable fancy color

diamond has been treated. Ask about the

stones origin and request to view a lab

certificate to verify authenticity.

Synthetic colored diamonds are another

option if owning a colored diamond is

something you desire but cannot quite afford.

They are real diamonds, but they are created

in a lab.

Natural fancy color diamonds get their

coloring from different trace elements present

in the stones, such as nitrogen, which

produces a yellow diamond. Diamonds can

be colored by exposure to radiation during its

creation. An example of a diamond affected

by radiation is a Green diamond.

Another way that a natural colored diamond

gets color is by its inclusions. Regarded as

flaws and undesirable in a colorless diamond,

inclusions give unique tones and brilliant

flashes of color in a fancy color diamond.

Remember that Natural fancy colored

diamonds are very expensive, any colored

diamond labeled to be sold as natural should

be accompanied by a certificate from a

respected grading lab.

A “fancy” diamond is a natural diamond that

has color. These colors vary from red, green,

purple, violet, orange, blue and pink – and

most shades between. Fancy color shades

vary from faint to intense.

The most famous diamonds in the world are

Color diamonds. The Tiffany Diamond,

which is yellow and the Hope Diamond which

is blue are colored diamonds. Color

diamonds have an amazing financial track

record. The value has never decreased on

wholesale level in more than 30 years. Blue

and pink diamonds have doubled every 5

years of a strong economy. In the 1970’s

you could have bought a very high quality

blue diamond for about 50K and today the

very same stone would be worth between

2 and 3 million.

You may already have heard about various trading systems that will allow you to succeed on your trading ventures. You should seek the best one out as soon as possible so that you can take advantage of its benefits.

If you cannot come out of your old fashioned shell when it comes to trading, you should learn to adapt with how the system evolve and change as time goes by. There is nothing wrong if you choose to seek help from humans with regards to your decisions and strategies. If you have a mentor on your trading schemes, they can definitely guide you on various things that you have to decide on regarding your investments and the opportunities that await you. But you cannot expect humans to know it all when it comes to the trading market. Just like you, they are researching and studying all options available to them.

They have other tasks to do. It cannot be helped that sometimes, they may tend to overlook important aspects of the trade, no matter how good they are. This is where you can trust certain systems that are created to help people like you. The bottom line here is that you have to know the best product available for you so that you can invest on such and gain in the long run.

Start Your Research

You must keep updated with everything that you can get hold of with regards to the systems that can help make you become a better trader. Although there are books that you can read regarding the matter, you can also gain the information that you are looking for online. You can read through product reviews and testimonials from people who have tried various schemes on this thing.

Before you buy anything and settle on a product, you must know everything that you need to know about it, specifically how it will help you with your trading. You must not believe everything that you will get to read about related products. There are people who will say all the positive words to encourage you to buy so that they will earn in return. It will be best if you can get your hands on to various sources that are talking about similar products so that you can make comparisons first before you do any further steps.

What to Look For

You should first be curious about the provider. Look at the other products that they are selling and see if these are faring well in the market and if people are finding them good as promised on their marketing vehicles. After you have settled this aspect, you need to turn your focus on the product itself. Look at the consumers’ ratings as well as reviews. You will gain a lot from reading how other people view the tool that you are eyeing on. If you are not satisfied with what you have already read, you can contact some of these people to ask further questions.

If you are uncomfortable with the idea, it might be better if you will join online forums where you can meet traders like you who are more open to share their feats on their investments in trading and the tools that helped them along the way. They can lead you to the suitable trading systems that you can choose for your own trading strategies.