Frugally Green » At Work

The Art of the Staycation

Tyler — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:35:27 +0000

Since I wrote on Monday why I think big, polluting jetliners are actually a good thing, I thought it might be nice to balance it out with a word on staycations.

For those of you that might not be privy, a staycation is exactly the same as a vacation except for one major aspect – you don’t go anywhere. At least, you don’t go very far.

I’m a huge fan of staycations and take advantage of them on a regular basis. They’re a great way to get away without the hassle and expense of actually getting away, never mind the ecological benefits of a vacation close to home.

However, the staycation is a bit of an enigma. When I tell people how much I like them, I usually get an eye roll followed by something like “Why would you use your time off to sit at home?”

This is how most people look at the staycation, so it continues to lack the respect it deserves.

Enjoying a a truly gratifying staycation is an art form. It takes practice and, believe it or not, an adventurous spirit. When done right, it can be a really lively and refreshing experience.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can experience a truly awesome vacation in your own backyard.

Be a tourist

When people from out of town come to explore your city, what do they do? Where do they go? Do those things and go to those places!

When you’re living your every day life, you probably overlook a lot of the things that people find really fascinating about your home. A staycation is a great way to reconnect with your city or rediscover the things that drew you to where you are in the first place.

When I staycation here in Portland, I might go to the zoo, have a picnic at the rose garden, or go for a hike in our famous Forest Park. These are things I vividly remember falling in love with when I moved here, but rarely take advantage of anymore now that I’m settled.

What is your place known for? How can you reconnect with it?

Find a new hole-in-the-wall

Life at home can really become routine with your day to day responsibilities. Does your typical day looks something like this?

Wake up and go to work
Eat the same lunch you did yesterday
Go home and eat the same dinner you do every night
Distract yourself with the same thing you do all the time
Go to bed, wake up, repeat

If it does, take the time during your staycation to slow down and open your eyes to the places you pass by every day, but never notice. When you’ve got a routine down, every day becomes getting from Point A to Point B with fewer and fewer interruptions.

This kind of efficiency can be great for productivity, but you’re likely missing out on some great stuff that is right in front of your face. Spend a day biking or even walking your commute to work or other places you commonly go.

The slower pace is like turning up the resolution of life. There are likely all kinds of shops, restaurants, and cafes that you pass by all the time and today is the day to discover them. Take it slow and enjoy.

Is there some interesting place you pass by all the time, but you’ve never been inside?

Reconnect with friends and make new ones

Life is all about relationships and a staycation is the perfect time to nurture them. Just like all the things at home you miss during your day at work, there are people you probably miss, too.

Take a second to give them a call and let them know you’ve got some free time coming up and would like to spend it with them. You’ll probably have to work around their busy schedule since they’re still working, but that’s OK since you’ve got your free time during the day to take care of other business.

Also, don’t pass up an opportunity to strike up a conversation with some new faces at your new favorite hole-in-the-wall. You never know who you could meet.

Quick. Who’s just a hop, skip, or jump away that you’ve lost connection with?

Explore a new neighborhood

A staycation is a great time to get outside the comfort of your neighborhood and see what other parts of your city has to offer. Sure, you probably make your way around town once in while, but do you really know what’s going on in other neighborhoods?

When I was in college, I took a few courses in urban planning and one in particular required that I acquaint myself with a different neighborhood each week and report out in class. In just ten weeks, I had learned more about my city than the previous 2 years that I’d spent hanging out on campus.

Don’t forget that learning a new neighborhood is a great opportunity to find that hole-in-the-wall cafe and meet interesting people. Better to not miss out. Double up wherever you can.

Where’s the one part of town that you keep hearing about but never get to?

Finish a project

This is probably the most highly contested piece of advice for a staycation, but I firmly believe in it.

Critics say that to make the most of a staycation, you need to do all you can to leave your daily life behind. That’s fine for some people, but not for me.

I take on all kinds of projects in my free time (this site is one of them) because I really like them and want to spend time doing them. Most of them get finished, but some of the harder, time consuming ones end up by the wayside when work and responsibilities get in the way.

A staycation is the perfect time to focus your energy on that project you started but haven’t made time to finish yet.

A word of warning, though – I do not recommend you use this time to work on projects you started because you had to. Use it on one you started because you really wanted to. This can be extremely liberating and fulfilling.

Those projects you still have to do? Don’t worry, you’ll still finish them because, well, you have to.

Which project have you been dying to finish? If none, which one have you been dying to start?

Perfecting the art

It should be noted that your perfect staycation might look completely different from mine.

Before you embark, take some time to think about how you can really make the most of it. The perfect staycation is more of an art than a science. It’s very subjective, so try not to worry about what your friends think of your plans. That’s why they’re yours.

What does your perfect staycation look like?

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If you think hanging out at home is as cool as I do, leave a comment, or subscribe get free updates.

Connect with me on Twitter: @tylertervooren

Image of backyard playground by trbpix

Give Yourself the Right Tools for the Job

Tyler — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:30:35 +0000

This is a really, really, REALLY important lesson. Anytime you decide to take on a challenge, you should spend some time up front identifying the tools you need in order to succeed.

I’m not going to lie to you. If you fail to take this step upfront, you may very well still succeed. The problem is, you’ll be so exhausted and annoyed by the time you reach it, you may not care anymore that you made it.

Heed my warning, for I know of what I speak.

I am writing this post at 10:00 PM on Tuesday night, furiously pounding the keyboard to create something useful, insightful, and witty for you to read when you wake up in the morning.

I’ve got a big smile on my face because I love writing, but damn it, I’m grumpy. I’m grumpy because I decided to install a new dishwasher in our house on Saturday. By install, I mean rip the old one out and then wander around town looking for a new one. When I finally found the right one for us, it wasn’t available until Monday.

“Oh, that’s fine,” I told the salesman as I clenched my teeth. That was a lie. While pulling the old dishwasher out, I damaged the water line, making it impossible for me to reconnect it while I waited for the new one. The shut off valve is old and wouldn’t close all the way so my girlfriend, Jessie, and I spent the weekend bailing water out of the kitchen with a well placed plastic tub.

I picked up the new machine Monday night only to find that the fitting was different than what I had existing. A 10:00 PM trip to Home Depot fixed that. What it didn’t fix, though, was the fact that all of my tools are currently at a friend’s house, 50 miles from home. Glad I remembered that before I got started.

Refusing to be deterred, I completed this daunting task thanks to a pair of pliers, a kitchen knife, a wrench I found in my driveway, and several youthful summers spent watching reruns of MacGyver. If I had taken a second in the beginning to compile a budget and a schedule, I can assure you I would be well over on both.

So, you see, the task is complete – a success. But is it really? Jessie and I are irritable because it took a long time to finish, I cut my finger pretty well, and you have to listen to me ramble on about a dishwasher because I didn’t give myself the time to write the post I really wanted to (next week, of course).

Do you have an urge to change something about your life right now?

Maybe you want to build a compost tumbler. I’m all for jumping right in and getting dirty, but don’t forget to think for at least a few seconds before smashing your thumb with a hammer about why you’re going to smash it and what you’re going to need to smash it with.

Want to save $10,000? Sure, you can do it without much planning, but with an average 3% rate of inflation, how much is it going to be worth when you finally get there at retirement age?

We green frugalistas are always looking for another project to complete that will boost us to the next level of enlightenment. Well, we can do any damn thing we want without much thought, but doing it well and doing it happily are more difficult results to come by.

I’m no rocket doctor, but even I could have taken five minutes to get out a note card and jot down the tools I would have needed and the order of operations to follow to make this project a happy success.

No doubt about it, my dishes are now impeccably clean. My language over the last few days was not.

Have you ever found yourself in over your head due to poor planning? How do you make sure you’ve given yourself the right tools for the job you want to complete? What’s your favorite swear word when everything goes wrong?

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Image of woodworking tools by Robert S. Donovan

Marketing for Environmentalists: Sell Benefits, Not Features

Tyler — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:00:48 +0000

One of my favorite blogs right now is Naomi Dunford’s Ittybiz. She writes about ethical marketing for small businesses without marketing departments. She also has a buzzed haircut and swears like a sailor. Awesome.

Go ahead and take a second to ask yourself what the hell that has to do with Frugally Green and then I’ll continue.

OK, enough postulating. The answer, interestingly enough, is “everything.”

I’ll prove this by asking you a few questions:

Do you enjoy saving money and improving the environment?
Do you sometimes wish that other people enjoyed saving money and improving the environment, too?
Have you ever had someone ask you what this “green movement” is all about?

If you answered yes to those three questions then, whether you realize it or not, you’ve had to market your frugally green lifestyle to someone else. If you’ve ever stumbled over your words and left them with a puzzled look then, unfortunately, you’ve marketed poorly. But that’s okay, we can fix that. I know you never wanted to be a marketer, but as long as you have to be one, you may as well be good at it, right? That’s right.

On the other hand, if you answered no to those questions, I’m not quite sure why you’re here. Maybe you aren’t, either. Hmm…awkward. Feel free to stick around anyhow.

Anyway, I know a lot of us hanging out in the anti-consumerism camp have a strong distrust of marketers. We think they’re constantly conspiring to find new, slimy ways to convince us to buy junk we don’t need. Well, yeah, a lot of them are. But some of them aren’t. Some of them find a deeper meaning in connecting people with ideas and products that will truly change their lives. That’s the kind of marketer Naomi is and I know that’s the kind of marketer you want to be.

The other day, Naomi taught me about the difference between selling features and selling benefits. As environmentalists, I think this is one of the most important lessons we can learn about getting and keeping others interested in the movement.

Features

We care about our environment…a lot. Sometimes we care about it more than we care about other people. In fact, sometimes we create an adversarial relationship between our environment and other people because we’re so passionate about it.

That’s why, when people ask us why we “sort our garbage” (sometimes also called recycling), we answer with something like, “Because we’re running out of space in our landfills.”

That’s why, when someone wants to know why we ride our bike around town instead of driving, we retort with, “Because it emits less carbon dioxide into our suffocating atmosphere.”

That’s why we say, “Because it clears our mind of the consumerist culture,” when someone asks us why we don’t watch TV.

These are all examples of selling the features of environmentalism.

Benefits

Technically, they’re all true, but the problem is that all these “other people” we’re trying to get our message out to don’t care about features. They care about benefits. Benefits are what they get out of making the changes we want them to make. Benefits are more compelling to people than features because they can tangibly relate them to their personal life.

Ideas like landfill depletion, carbon emissions, and the consumerist culture are too psychologically far away, too disconnected from the every day goings-on of normal people. They can’t relate to them in the way they can relate to the benefits they see when they make a change that affects these ideas. Does that make sense?

So, the next time your neighbor asks you why you sort your trash, instead of going on about landfill depletion, kindly inform them that you call it “recycling” and doing it can save them a bunch of money each year on trash hauling that they can use for something else they care about.

When your co-worker wants to know why you would ride a bike instead of take a car to the grocery store, let him know it’s because it’s fun and the exercise you get saves you money on a gym membership.

If your sister wonders why you got rid of your TV, tell her it’s because you’ve found that it allows you to exercise your creative mind by finding new ways to spend your time and the money saved from the cable bill helps fund your new hobbies.

As backwards as it might sound, true environmentalism is about people before it’s about the environment because, well, what good is a clean, beautiful world without anyone to appreciate it?

What do you think? Is marketing an important part of our “job”? Are people more important than environment?

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Used car salesman image by bonkedproductions

Quit Worrying About 80% of Your Life

Tyler — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:00:44 +0000

How would it feel if you found out that you were wasting 80% of your time doing things that weren’t getting you any closer to your goals? What if you learned that you could stop, or at least quit focusing on, 80% of the things you do on a day to day basis and still enjoy the same success you do today – still live the same life you’re living? What new and exciting challenges could you add to your life if 80% of the time you spent managing your money and your eco-footprint were simply gone?

What a crock, right? That’s what I thought, at least at first, because that’s what comes to mind any time I hear anything earth shattering (I don’t necessarily recommend this life perspective, by the way). But guess what? It’s true, and it works – at least to some extent. If you don’t believe me, and I wouldn’t expect you to since this post intro is already playing out like the first 30 seconds of every Sunday morning infomercial you’ve ever seen, just take it from some of the richest and most successful businessmen in the world, greatest leaders of all time, and various instances of math and science. That’s right, math and science.

The Pareto Principle

Enter the Pareto principle. A long time ago, in a land far, far away (think Italy in the late 1800s) there was a gentleman by the name of Vilfredo Pareto who happened to notice that 80% of the wealth of Italy was owned by only 20% of its people. After further research, he found that the same balance applied across many countries and, cumulatively, the world. Fast forward to the 1940s and we find a business management consultant by the name of Joseph Juran who, fascinated by Pareto’s findings, decided to apply it to his field, finding that 80% of the success of businesses comes from 20% of their efforts.

Juran found that many of his clients could experience substantial growth and success by reorganizing their priorities to focus more on the 20% of things they do that have the biggest impact on their bottom line. Microsoft has reported that, when they release new software, they’re able to eliminate crashes 80% of the time by focusing only on the top 20% of the bugs that users report. Many businesses today have learned that 80% of their income is produced by only 20% of their customers. This is why they offer lavish incentives to their top clients; they know just how much they depend on them for continued success.

What’s in it for us?

If so many others have been able to find success by applying the Pareto principle to their situation, why the heck can’t we? In my mind, there’s no difference between what we’re doing and what the business world is doing. We’re all trying to get the most bang for our buck and make the biggest change we can with the time and resources we have. When I analyze everything I’m doing, its pretty easy to see where I’m making the biggest difference.

I know that by eating less meat, I am helping to make a huge dent in the conservation of the environment by reducing the amount of space needed to raise animals and reducing the number of them that are emitting methane into the air. I also know that by winterizing my home (something I’ll be posting about soon since it’s starting to get cold) I can save a bunch of money on my energy bills since the furnace doesn’t have to work as hard to keep me warm. But these two things are only a small fraction of all the things I do on a daily basis.

In terms of personal finance, I’ve found that by spending just minutes a week using an online account aggregator (Mint.com), I have considerably more control over my money by being able to visualize where it’s all going on a regular basis. This has been a huge benefit to me since spending countless hours trying to develop money saving systems for myself before turning to Mint proved relatively ineffective. For me, the secret was in being able to easily see a snapshot of my finances at any given moment.

What about the left over 80%?

So, now I’ve whittled down my list of “really important and meaningful tasks” that deliver far more value than all the rest of the things I do and I’m going to spend way more time working on them. But what am I supposed to do with this giant pile of waste that comprises the remaining 80%?

I guess this is the part of the infomercial where, just after becoming entirely sold and actually picking up the phone to order, you realize that there’s no way you can actually get fit drinking beer and watching infomercials all day with your Mega Ab Buster 4000™ stuck to your gut while you lay on the couch. But that’s a tad over-dramatic because the Pareto principle actually does work, you just don’t get to entirely throw out the rest of your commitments.

When you start to put this rule into action in your own life, you’ll find that you still have to do a bunch of the things that don’t have a significant impact on your success. This is a reality of existing. There will be at least a few things on that list, though) that you’ll notice you were spending way too much time on for how little you were getting out of them (this was a bit of an embarrassing revelation for me).

While implementing the 80/20 rule into your life could certainly eliminate a number of no-benefit tasks you were fixated on, the whole point is to reorganize your priorities. By focusing on the 20% of things that are really effective for you and your goals, you should start to see more success in your progress towards achieving them. This makes dealing with the remaining 80% of the sometimes necessary busywork in your life a whole lot more bearable.

Final Thoughts

If you ever wondered before why you were working so hard but achieving so little, this might be at least part of the answer. Hard work and determination are amazing characteristics, but if they’re aimed at the wrong targets, the wheels are just spinning. Put the rubber to the road by nailing down what’s really important. Exclude the rest until life forces you to deal with it.

What are you trying to achieve and what’s the 20% that you need to focus on? What’s some of the background noise that seems to get in the way when you try to do this and how can you deal with it?

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Yesterday, I announced a survey for my readers. If you’re at all interested in shaping the future of Frugally Green and it’s content, please click through to yesterday’s post and give me your feedback by completing the survey. I do a lot of talking around here, but your opinion is the most important.

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80/20 Rule Image by Sleepy Valley

It’s Easy Being Green: A Handbook for Earth-Friendly Living

Tyler — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 12:00:09 +0000

A few years ago, a gal named Crissy Trask noticed that everywhere she went, people she met were excited and interested in the green movement. Everyone was talking about how important it is to live responsibly and be mindful of the earth. Then she realized that all these people that seemed so gung-ho about an environmentally friendly life weren’t actually doing anything about it.

After a bit of research and asking around, Crissy realized that the people in her life were excited and interested in the prospects of a cleaner, more sustainable world, but didn’t really know what they could do to help or even where to go to find out what they could do. That’s when she decided to write It’s Easy Being Green: A Handbook for Earth-Friendly Living.

Who should read this book: If you’re relatively new to the concept of sustainability, need some help navigating the lingo, or looking for some help figuring out what types of pursuits might fit your lifestyle, this book can offer some guidance as well as references that you can continually look back to.

Who shouldn’t read this book: If you’re looking for a matter-of-fact guide to tell you what to do, then this book isn’t for you. Also, if you’re looking for playful storytelling, this book won’t be a good fit – it’s very middle-of-the-road in its presentation.

It’s Easy Being Green is just what it says it is, a handbook. In fact, I prefer to think of it more as a reference manual as it is filled with definitions of commonly heard (but often misunderstood) terms from around the greenoshphere (I just made that word up so no, it’s not included in the handbook) as well as tons of external resources to get you going in the direction you want once you’ve read it and decided what that direction might be.

The real value in this book, in my opinion, is the 59 page list of tips (organized by topic) that allow you to define a roadmap of things you will do to improve your eco-footprint. At 59 pages, it’s a bit cumbersome, but it’s really comprehensive. Here’s how you use it (This process is also described in the book):

Read through all the tips, one at a time, making a check in the 3^rd box next to it if it sounds interesting to you.
Go through the list again, looking only at the tips you identified as interesting and place a check mark in the 2^nd box if you feel it’s something you’d actually like to pursue.
One by one, go through each tip and begin to accomplish them, giving yourself a time frame to complete each one. To avoid overload, don’t focus on more than one item at a time. Give each your full attention.
Using the 1^st box next to each tip, give yourself a rating of 1-5 to identify how you feel you performed implementing it.
Start over at step 1.

This section of the book has the ability to turn into a living document as you fill it out and pursue the tips you identified. Once you’re done, you might find it useful to go back and look over all the ones you chose, implemented, and scored yourself on. You’ll probably find that you performed a lot better in certain areas than others. It might help you to prioritize your green pursuits going forward.

I should also mention that Crissy understands that her audience likes to buy stuff as she includes 2 chapters in her book titled Buying Green and Green Shopping Online. Personally, I prefer the Don’t Buy Stuff method to getting through life, but that’s not exactly realistic and it’s important to know how to make the best choices when you need to purchase something, so I’m glad she covered it thoroughly.

Crissy also writes a chapter titled Getting Involved where she provides numerous tips and resources for easy ways to connect with organizations that promote sustainability in areas you may be interested in.

Overall, I can’t say that It’s Easy Being Green was a great fit for me. I feel like I’m slightly beyond the level of material that was presented, but I do appreciate all the external references provided. I’ve written down a number of them that I will eventually check out to see if they could fit into my pursuits. But like I said earlier, if you’re just starting out or need help finding direction, you might find a lot of guidance from this handbook – especially from the 59 page worksheet.

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Create Your Own Green Collar Career

Tyler — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:00:57 +0000

Frugally Green readers are savvy about saving money and saving the planet. They’re always on the lookout for ways to do both at the same time. Personally, it’s one of my favorite things in life. But I think there’s more to frugality than just saving money. I think it’s also important to focus on making money. Earning more money (without inflating our lifestyles) allows us to achieve financial security quicker and take our minds off of earning just to survive. It also opens new doors to helping the environment in ways we may not have even known possible before.

Right now, the U.S. is reeling from economic recession. Our unemployment rate is at 9.7% and that doesn’t count all the people that have simply quit looking for work. I bet there are probably even some Frugally Green readers that have lost their jobs recently.

Maybe you’ve lost your job. Maybe you’re bored with your current work. Maybe you just feel stuck in a low paying job and want to earn more money. Well, as bad as things are right now, there still seems to be momentum building in the green industry. Where you might fit in could depend on a number of factors like your current skills, qualifications, and personal interests. With a little bit of creativity, you might find that your current environmental interests and professional aptitude overlap in a way that could bring a meaningful change to your career. Here are a few examples of white and blue collar jobs that could transform to a shade of green with a little bit of effort and ingenuity:

Artist - Ever thought about a foray into found or environmental art? There are some great creators out there working with the things we simply throw away as well as completely natural elements. These great minds bring a new perspective and vibrancy to environmentalism.

Engineer - No matter what field you specialize in, there are all kinds of opportunities to use your interest in sustainability to focus on designing systems that tax our planet less and shape the way we live our lives.

Architect - Green building seems to be an ever increasing point of enthusiasm and there will likely never be a time when we stop trying to design the structures we reside in to be more efficient and healthy to occupy.

Journalist - As society continues to grow towards this seemingly “green renaissance,” it will be the work of our reporters and journalists to convey to the world all the developments taking place. If you’re a journalist with a passion for sustainability, you might find yourself in a rather interesting niche.

Product/Packaging Designer - Consumers are starting to walk the talk with their buying choices and just about every major company out there is looking for a way to improve their products to meet these demands. Maybe you could be the one to help them along the way?

Consultant - There are so many people and businesses out there that want to do more for the environment but either don’t feel they know how or don’t have the time. If you’ve got some experience in coaching or advising and a knack for sustainability, there’s a career to be made helping them.

General Contractor - Architects and engineers aren’t the only ones trying to reduce the impact of our buildings on the planet. The folks putting the pieces together have to be just as green-competent to be successful. Many contractors and construction management companies are actively looking for environmentally conscious employees to help them build a better future. (Note: This is what I do during the daylight hours.)

Librarian - I think this would be an awesome job! Maybe you could use your knowledge of how people interact with media and libraries to help create more accessible and user friendly online libraries? I can envision an interesting consulting opportunity here.

Real Estate Agent - Some day when I buy a home, I’ll be looking for one that not only has the sustainable features I’m looking for, but also has the potential to easily incorporate even more. I wouldn’t mind having an agent that was an expert at recognizing these kinds of opportunities or one that could direct me away from a potential bad fit.

Teacher – Do I even need to say much here? Schools, public and private and at every level, seem to be looking for faculty that can help train our future generations about the importance of environmental stewardship.

Taxi Driver - With all the gas consumed by the average taxi idling and sitting in stop and go traffic all day, you might see a return on investment and, subsequently a competitive advantage by switching to a hybrid model or even an all electric vehicle as they become more prevalent.

Auto Mechanic - With a little bit of specialty training, an auto mechanic could really differentiate herself as a competent technician for the hybrid and all electric market that is growing and growing.

Carpenter - Framing a house? Why not use your passion for sustainability to sell your client on FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) certified lumber? Maybe you’re building a piece of furniture? There are lots of really interesting ways to incorporate reclaimed wood and repurpose other recycled materials into the design.

Electrician - An electrician might have some unique opportunities to educate his client on ways their project could use less energy and be more efficient.

Farmer - The demand for organic food keeps growing and growing. Unfortunately, a lot of it still has to travel long distances to make it onto the shelves of your local stores. As a farmer, you might have an opportunity to provide your community with a supply of better, locally sourced organic food. You might consider getting started at your community’s farmer’s markets.

Technician - As demand grows and we continue to expand our renewable energy infrastructure, the need for skilled and qualified technicians and mechanics to install and service large scale wind turbine and solar power farms will grow as well.

Landscaper - A landscaper has a unique opportunity to educate his clients, whether they’re home owners or businesses, about all the work and resources required to maintain a lawn and exotic plants. By specializing in passive landscaping with local vegetation, she could create works that compliment the local landscape and save her clients a lot of money and effort on maintenance.

These are just some of the possibilities that I could come up with off the top of my head. There are so many more out there. The best way to have a really successful career is to differentiate yourself from your competition. This is something you can do as a business owner or as an employee. It doesn’t matter. All it takes is a little forethought and willingness to learn and continue to learn in order to stay on the leading edge of your field.

Have you had success incorporating sustainability into your career? Do you see any opportunities in other careers that I didn’t mention? I’d love to hear about them.