Favourites

I've been thinking about favourites. There's a little box somewhere on the blog where you can make a list of your favourite things. I think that's what started me thinking about it. I have so many favourites, I don't think a single list would suffice. So, today I'm going to start with a list of my favourite email newsletters.

Over time I have managed to get myself signed up to dozens of email newsletter. Many of them I don't even open, they go straight to delete. Some however are firm favourites, and I read them whenever they turn up. So, in no obvious order, here they are:

• Simple Savings, http://www.simplesavings.com.au/, weekly, Australian. There are two newsletters come out. One is a top tip savings for the week, the other is a compilation of bits and pieces. I actually have a membership to the "vault" for this site. The vault is a collection of savings tips from readers and has heaps of interesting ideas. The reality of my life that when hubby and I get our budgetting act together we will do much better at saving.
• Cheapskates, http://www.cheapskatemonthly.com/, daily, Amercian. Mary Hunt sends a variety of tips each day, including both time and money savers. Some of them are interesting; some of them not very relevant to Australia.
• World Wide Words, http://www.worldwidewords.org/, weekly, British. Michael's newsletter is has a combination of a modern phrase or word and some older terms that may have fallen into disuse. He also has a wonderful section "Sic!" where readers contribute grammar mistakes they've seen, often in quite illustrious publications.
• Word a Day, wordsmith.org/awad/, daily, Amercian(?). I believe Anu is Indian, but lives in Amercia. He often picks a topic for the week and sends out an obscure word each day. Sometimes just for fun he picks on more common words - or maybe it's just they're words I'm familiar with. At the end of each newsletter is a quotation, totally unrelated to the word. I love quotes.
• My Daily Insights, www.mydailyinsights.com/, daily!, Amercian. This is a quote a day service (told you I love quotes). They cover a whole range of issues, but are positive, motivating quotes. Friday's newsletter is a longer story, often very pointed.

My favourite newsletter of all is Philip Humbert's "TIPS for Extraordinary Living" http://www.philiphumbert.com/. Philip is an Amercian life coach. I often find "success" newsletter have a strong focus on making lots of money, gaining lots of tangible assets and generally being wealthy. Philip has a wonderful balance. Whatever your definition of success - HD student, sports star, business genius, great mum - his weekly tips are applicable. If you're a business person he has a separate section in the newsletter that is just business tips; but the main section is general lifestyle tips.

For example, just recently he looked at perfection, excellence and good enough. Only very rarely should we (can we) aim for perfection. And often the reality is that good enough is enough. We need to weigh up our priorities and decide how much effort something is worth to us. The example he used was mowing the lawn. If our garden is not our supreme priority, than maybe good enough is enough when it comes to spending time mowing the lawn.

And talking of priorities, I've promised my study accountability buddy that I would achieve a certain amount of study today. Guess I better get to it.