So, 2012 is upon us, hey?

After jotting down my thoughts on 2011, I really wanted to spend some time looking ahead to this new year. In fact, I’ve been downright excited to write this post. So then, it figures that I start having problems with the site that I have to address before I can keep going.

First, the site went down… again. This was a fairly common occurrence this past year, and I don’t want to risk it happening again. So, I switched servers, which took most of last week. I figure there is no reason to slap together a new post and try to drive traffic to it if the site doesn’t work. So I waited.

Then, yesterday, I notice that MailChimp had screwed up my signup forms for The “I Can” Movement. After hassling with customer service, I decided to switch over to Aweber, which I am still in the process of doing.

So, after all of this, I am ready to start some serious writing, and the site and community should be happier for it (and if the signup form on the right side of this page looks bland, just be patient. I’ll get it jazzed up soon).

So, I find a great exercise is to sit down and figure out what you plan on doing this year. After discovering all the cool stuff I was able to accomplish last year, I was even more excited to put this list together. There’s a great mix of travel, professional, and personal stuff (much of it from my bucket list) on here that should make 2012 a rousing success. If you keep up with what I’m doing here or elsewhere, then here’s what you have to look forward to:

I’m going to totally dominate Europe this year.

This is the big one. In October, my wife and I are going to celebrate our two-year anniversary by flying into London and doing a giant figure-8 across the continent. We’ll be visiting my old college roommate in Scotland, as well as hitting up Germany, Ireland, England, Rome, Paris, and Austria. It’s going to be the trip of a lifetime.

After visiting Taiwan a few years ago, I’m doubly excited to hit another continent, as well as immerse myself in the cultures of the world – and the food!

Attend a Packer game while they’re good.

I’m from Wisconsin. That means I’m a Green Bay Packer fan. They only lost one game all season this year, and as of this writing, they are defending Super Bowl champions. In other words, they’re good. I plan on heading up to historic Lambeau Field to enjoy it in person next season.

Make $50,000/year.

This is the next income goal on my bucket list, and I think it’s very doable this year. It’s going to take a lot of effort on my part, but I look forward to the challenge. As I expand my business, this should become more and more of a possibility. I did not come close to this income level in 2011, but I am poised to make a run for it if I play my cards right in 2012.

Get 1,000 Twitter followers.

It’s not the be-all, end-all in terms of influence, but I do feel that having over 1K followers on Twitter will really give me the opportunity to spread the word about what I’m doing, as well as connect with more awesome people. One thousand is a completely arbitrary number, but it’s a big one for me. As of this writing, I’m sitting at just under 800.

Play guitar at a performance level.

I don’t have clear parameters on this yet. I’d like to record myself playing, or even hit up an Open Mic night somewhere. I love playing guitar, but I’m generally pretty bad at it because I don’t practice enough. This is the year I dedicate myself to the craft so that I can be at a level that I can be proud of for a change.

Attend a bloggers’ conference.

There are lots of these available, but I’m headed to Portland, Oregon in July of 2012 to attend the World Domination Summit. It’s much more than a bloggers’ conference, but it will give me the chance to connect with so many more like-minded individuals.

Take a train somewhere.

I’ve never really been on a train (Disney World doesn’t count). We’ll be taking it around Europe, so this should take care of that.

Run a half marathon.

Yep, last year I ran a 5K independently. Twice. Now, I’m taking it up a notch. I planned on working on this sometime later in the summer, but a friend of mine convinced me to sign up for one on May 5th. So I guess this one will be crossed off a lot sooner than I had originally planned!

Write more epic stuff.

One reason I really enjoyed the 2011 review is because I was able to write a much longer post. That’s the goal this year. I find that it will be better for me as a writer, and it will force me to come up with stuff that you guys will enjoy and be able to learn from. In my head, I’ve got this post from Corbett Barr over at Think Traffic stuck in my head.

Implement “No TV Tuesday”.

Last night, my wife and I had our first full-scale “No TV Tuesday”. We have struggled with leaving the TV on and watching “just one more” episode of something, effectively killing our desire and resolve to get stuff done. Instead of leaning on that, we are now actively not watching television on Tuesdays. The result? We got a lot done, and we spent time playing a board game instead, which was actually a lot of fun.

TV isn’t evil. As I’ve written in the past, I love TV. But it can control your life if you’re not careful. When I was hanging out with Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus when they were in town last month, Joshua said that he didn’t own a TV, but only because he knew he would watch it constantly.

It’s not as simple as saying something is “good” or “bad”. It’s about recognizing your own weaknesses and shortcomings, and taking steps to fight them. That’s what “No TV Tuesdays” are about for us.

Migrate from SEO writing into full-time direct mail copywriting.

SEO writing has gotten me out of the office job, and for that I am grateful. However, it’s not a very challenging or fulfilling occupation. With direct mail, I’ll be able to make a lot more money and work less, creating more freedom in my life while we pay down our debts. I’ve  igotten my foot in the door at several companies, but I have to make sure I perform to the highest level so that I can establish myself. Once that happens, I can ditch the SEO work. It’s a switch that I’ve been waiting to make for 6 years.

50 Guest Posts in 2012

According to Caleb Wojcik of Pocket Changed, I’ve got a little competition for this one. The only way I can grow the audience here and at HustleLife Magazine is by getting my name out there, which means I have to make guest posting a priority. That’s what this year is all about. So I’m hoping that I will be able to knock out 50 guest posts on various sites to really start gaining some traction!

Smarter consumption of information.

A lot of people feel that there is an information overload in today’s online world, and I would be inclined to agree. But I don’t think that we necessarily need to cut it all out. In fact, you can limit your information overload by having a better system of managing it. Some people will use different tools, but here is what I have:

• My Kindle + Readability. With my Kindle, I can read books anywhere – quickly and easily. This is great, but the real power of the Kindle comes from combining it with Readability. With the combination, I can find long-form content online and send it to my Kindle with one click for later reading. So instead of managing magazine subscriptions for my long-form content, I just keep my Kindle. One of my favorite places to find great content that I can read is LongForm.org, which allows me to click “Send to Kindle” and be done with it.
• Google Reader. I keep trying other tools, but Reader still can’t be beat for clean and simple feed reading. I manage a lot of feeds from Google Reader, but I don’t read everything within their interface. Sure, I will if I have the time, but if I want to batch my stuff and save it for later, I use…
• ifttt and Evernote. With these two tools, I can save links from Google Reader and Twitter that I want to review later, eliminating my need to constantly consume information. With ifttt, as I’ve written about before, I can star items in Google Reader that will go into my “Links to Review” notebook in Evernote. Then, when I see an interesting tweet or link on Twitter I want to look into, I just “favorite” the tweet and it is sent to the same notebook in Evernote. Then, I can just read them at my leisure on my…
• Netbook. With my new netbook (see the goofy picture above), I now have the laptop I’ve always wanted/needed. I can use it for quick access to links and content that I want to review, and I can use it for portable working (or blogging – which I’m doing on it now).

Having an organized system of digesting content allows me to read on my own time, where and when I am comfortable. Then, I am able to weed out the important stuff and keep my brain learning new interesting and valuable information without becoming overloaded. Oh, and the entire system uses free services, which is awesome.

Okay, what about you?

What do you want to do this year? Let’s chat in the comments section!

The result was an interesting group of experiences, news, apps, and a lot of rambling nonsense. So, in a nutshell, here’s what 2011 looked like for me:

I completed a full year of self-employment, and I’m poised for growth.

After quitting my job in 2010, I was able to make it through all of 2011 with a fairly consistent income, which was fantastic on many levels. I was afforded freedom and flexibility that you just don’t get with an office job, and it’s been wonderful for my marriage. In July, I was able to further my copywriting expertise and I am now cracking into the direct mail market, which is one of the most competitive and lucrative markets available to copywriters. I’m gaining some traction, so 2012 is fixing to be an exciting year professionally!

The Month of Brogan was upon us in the spring.

I kicked around other names: BroganMania, BroganFest 2011, etc. In the end, I almost met Chris Brogan, and because of that, I had a huge surge in traffic in March. Using that experience, I was able to get a guest post up on ProBlogger, which led to a crap-ton more traffic. I learned that Chris is a very giving fellow, and I was (and still am) very thankful that he shared my story with his thousands of readers. Now, I just have to actually meet the guy.

Wisconsin sports in 2011 experienced unprecedented success.

For the first time in almost three decades, the Milwaukee Brewers won the pennant. They made it to the National League Championship Series, and came within a game of making it to the World Series. As big of a bummer as losing was, the truth is that baseball in Milwaukee hasn’t been this fun in a very long time. On the football front, our beloved Green Bay Packers not only won the Super Bowl, but they only lost one game in 2011 (stupid Kansas City Chiefs!). They dominated the game all year, and it was so much fun to be a part of it. Now, we’re pulling for a repeat championship. Being a Wisconsin sports fan was truly a good time all year, after so many decades of pitiful teams.

I wrote some pretty good stuff here.

Here is a listing of ten of my favorite posts of the past year:

• 20 Average Goals from Extraordinary Achievers
• Dust Yourself Off and Keep Fighting
• Go Home and Get Better
• “Get mean and go do it.”
• Use Your Pain to Fuel Your Fire (a tribute to a lost friend)
• “The hard is what makes it great.”
• 34 Things You Probably Don’t Know About Me
• 7 Reasons Why On-Demand TV Kicks Cable/Satellite TV Square in the Teeth
• Six Lessons About Hard Work and Persistence from My Six-Year Old Nephew
• Stop Complaining and Make Change

And you enjoyed some of it, too.

Here are the top 5 most-read posts this year, according to Google Analytics:

• 20 Average Goals from Extraordinary Achievers
• 9 Reasons Why Being a Nerd is Awesome
• How Almost Meeting Chris Brogan Led to Personal Growth
• 4 Movies to Fight Your Feeling of Hopelessness
• Why You’re Not Getting That Promotion/Guy/Girl/Life

After a ten-year hiatus, I returned to competitive distance running (and ditched my running shoes).

I signed myself up for a 5K race in May, and completed it in decent time, crossing something off my bucket list (see below). Then, after announcing my retirement, I signed up for another race in September – and ran it barefoot. Now, I’ve added a few more running-related items to my bucket list, and I plan to run a half-marathon in 2012. I’m loving every minute of it.

I started my bucket list, and I crossed things off like a madman.

• Stay at a Disney resort (October 2011)
• Tour the White House (September 2011)
• Take Amanda to Disney World as a couple (October 2011)
• Run a 5K independently. (5/21/2011 – 25 minutes, 10 seconds)
• Get 100 HustleLife subscribers. (October 21, 2011)
• Ride a horse. (October 21, 2011)
• Take a hot air balloon ride. (October 21, 2011)
• Go jet skiing. (August 13th, 2011 – Castle Rock Campground)
• Brew a drinkable beer. (July 2011 – Thank you, Mr. Beer!)
• Run a 5K barefoot (9/10/11 – 27:04)

My gadget crush on the Kindle grew, and I read some awesome books.

Last Christmas, my wife bought me a Kindle (now called the “Kindle Keyboard”). It has rapidly become my favorite gadget. I love reading anyway, and now I don’t have to hold open a big book or read in awkward positions. Instead, I can just focus on the reading, which I love. A few months ago, I discovered the usefulness of my Kindle email address, where I can send documents to read on my Kindle. If I see a cool article on the Web that is really doggone long, I can send it to my Kindle to read in bed later for free. Also, I signed up for a weekly article from SendMeAStory.com (a similar service is Delivereads), and they send me a cool feature article (usually topical) from a publication of the last 25 or so years, formatted for my Kindle. I just flip on my Kindle and it downloads! Add to that the free books to Amazon Prime members at the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, and this gadget has become my #1 source for content in the past year. Love. It.

A few of my favorite books this year include:

• Accidental Genius by Mark Levy
• Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
• The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
• Do The Work by Steven Pressfield
• The Last Lecture by Randy Pautsch
• The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

I failed to start a few series of blog posts.

I love blog post series, so I wanted to start some of my own. Given that this site focuses on small goals, I tried to create a list of 237 small goals. Unfortunately, nobody really seemed all that interested in the list, and it died a quiet death at #14. The same is true of the Cool 30, which was a Thanksgiving-related series I started. I didn’t make it a priority, and it died. Both of these are pretty public failures, but hopefully I will learn from them when I put together my next series effort.

Some awesome connections were made, and I met up with quite a few people as well.

This was the year that I finally was able to pound the pavement and meet with some really cool people that I had been following for years. I met Milwaukee restaurant guru Joe Sorge earlier this year on the same day that I shook hands and chatted with author and respected entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk. Impossible-doer Joel Runyon moved to Milwaukee for a few months, and I had the privilege of getting to know him while he was here, and he connected me with a ton of other interesting people as well, including Josh and Ryan over at The Minimalists just last night. I was also able to meet up with J. Money of Budgets Are Sexy and Love Drop (see below) when I visited Washington, D.C., which was a load of fun as well. Sean Ogle of Location 180 started a new community called Location Rebel, and I was honored to be interviewed as an expert on building a location independent business, which also gave me the chance to meet Sean (via Skype). Through HustleLife (also see below), I have been able to connect with new people every single month, which has been incredibly rewarding.

I did some pretty awesome traveling.

From touring the White House in Washington, D.C. to strolling down Main Street, USA in Walt Disney World, I got to see some cool sights of the country. Add to that my buddy’s bachelor party in Chicago, and I got around a little bit this year!

HustleLife debuted.

In May of this year, I launched HustleLife Magazine – a free digital magazine dedicated to helping people achieve their dreams by rolling up their sleeves and getting to work. With interviews and other resources, it has become one of my favorite projects to work on. I’ve been very blessed to interview plenty of great people this year, and I’m looking forward to talking with many more. In October, the subscriber count grew to over 100 people, which is really humbling and way awesome.

Some cool apps and online services became essential tools in my life.

Don’t tell me the internet is a waste of time – I’ve discovered plenty of great tools and resources that I use every day:

• XBMC (XBox Media Center) – This is on our home theater PC, where we stream lots of shows and movies to our television in a slick interface.
• Netflix – Yeah, it got some bad press this year, but it is a serious resource for great TV shows, movies, and a ton of brilliant documentaries. And a lot of the content is in HD, which is just a bonus. It’s the best $8 a month that we spend.
• Google Reader – I tried Feedly, I really did. But Google Reader continues to be a clean, simple, and useful resource for my blog reading.
• ifttt – Many of these tools are run through ifttt, which lets you connect different web services with hundreds of uses. It, for example, allows me to automatically save certain items into my Evernote account for later reading with one click. A very powerful and underutilized tool.
• Evernote – Post ideas, magazine plans, ideas for stuff I can do later, future projects, current projects, recipes, blog posts to read, gift ideas, shopping lists, quotes, book excerpts, store hours. You get the idea?
• Amazon Prime – We used the trial to quickly get a wedding present for my buddy and his wife. At the end of the 30 days, we decided to drop the under-$80 for a year’s worth of the service. We’re never looking back. Prime gives us access to the Kindle library (from above), as well as unlimited two-day shipping on anything Amazon keeps in its warehouse. Virtually all of our Christmas shopping was done through Amazon this year, and we are even starting to order grocery items from there to save money. They even have a streaming library of TV shows and movies (still small, though) included in the service.
• Google Music – My new favorite way to store my music. With my Android phone, I can just stream my entire library to my phone through the data connection instead of carrying around another MP3 player or having to sync devices.
• Twitter – Networking made simple. Most of this review would be impossible to achieve without Twitter. Seriously.
• Endomondo – I don’t run without Endomondo anymore. It got me through my race training, and I plan on using it for my half-marathon training next year.
• Google Maps – With the turn-by-turn Navigation feature, I don’t get lost anymore. Heck, I used it to navigate the public transit and walk to destinations in DC. Must have, all the time.

My fellow bloggers knocked it out of the park this year.

• The Art of Nonconformity – Chris Guillebeau just kept doing his thing, inspiring a kerbillion people while he traveled the world. Favorite post this year: Second Chances
• 11 Points – A hilarious series of “Top 11″ lists. Yeah, that’s really all it is, but it’s really funny and cleverly written. Favorite post this year: 11 Worst Movie Posters of the 90s
• Advanced Riskology – Tyler Tervooren takes a really smart approach to risk, and it allows him to do things that others are afraid to do. Favorite post this year: 9 Tricks to Avoid Becoming a Mistrusted Hypocrite
• Blog of Impossible Things – After saying so many nice things about Joel, he’d probably be offended if I didn’t include him. Seriously though, Joel has accomplished so much in the past couple years, and he’s a very cool dude to know. Favorite post this year: Choose Doing
• Lifehacker – Half of my life is based on Lifehacker. Full of insanely useful tips every day, it is my #1 source for information. Favorite post this year: 50 Free Apps We’re Most Thankful For
• Location 180 – Sean Ogle, as mentioned before, is killing it with great business advice here. Plus, in his travels, he occasionally has some gems for life advice too. Favorite post this year: Inquiring Minds
• Nerd Fitness – Talking to Steve Kamb was one of the most fun interviews I did all year. His site takes a “nerd” approach to fitness, and he has uncovered some interesting stuff. His posts are always well-researched and thorough, and they are a lot of fun to read too. Favorite post this year: Simplify the **** Out of Everything
• Sensophy – I think Jacob Sokol is awesome. If nothing else, I want his office walls. I’ve chatted with him a couple times this year, and he is truly dedicated to finding his way in the world. Favorite post this year: 3 Things That Optimistic People Do Differently
• The Art of Manliness – A perennial favorite, I love what Brett McKay is doing here. With AoM, he is helping guys understand what it really means to be a man, without the stupid barbarism or the foofiness that comes with today’s guy. Old-fashioned and respectful – that’s what it’s about. Favorite post this year: Lose With Dignity. Celebrate With Grace. (Part II)

Love Drop was one of the most fulfilling moments of my entire life.

I met J. Money in DC as stated above, and he mentioned his business partner, Nate. Nate was from Milwaukee, and they ran a cool thing called Love Drop – where they raise funds for a needy family every month and then do a big “love drop” of gifts to help them right the ship. So I started following Nate on Twitter. The next thing you know, Nate’s looking for a family in Milwaukee to do a drop in December. I connected Nate with my former pastor, who operates a church in a rather needy area of Milwaukee. Diomi and Nallee were selected for Love Drop’s December push, and I was invited to join them when they bestowed the gifts on the family.

Watching Nallee try to comprehend that the piles of gifts were all theirs, or watching Diomi and her children embrace in tears when it’s announced that they are getting two new beds and a washer and dryer (they had been doing laundry in the sink and line drying in their apartment) were hard for me to sit through without losing it myself. Among thousands in gift cards and food, Diomi received tons of new dress clothes and a phone so that she can go to job interviews, and career coaching and counseling for free. Nallee, who had one school uniform and no socks (in winter – in Wisconsin), got plenty of socks, and five new uniforms. To be a part of helping a really needy family get some help is something I’m going to hold with me for the rest of my life.

It was announced that Arrested Development is returning for a new run of episodes and a movie.

The new season will be filmed and released exclusively through Netflix. It was officially the best year ever.

I hope your 2011 was as awesome as mine was. Next week, let’s get together and plan out what we’re going to do in 2012! Happy New Year!

Keeping things in the cloud is a godsend, pure and simple.

Yeah, there are sometimes a few hiccups here and there, but think about this: ten years ago, when your computer crashed, you might have been out of your email for a week or more, depending on your resources/finances. Today, when your computer crashes, you can still grab your email on your phone, or you can hop on another computer and access it through a web browser.

The opposition to cloud-based services is what if the server crashes? In other words, if I keep all of my information on Google’s computers, what happens when their computer goes down?

Well, Google spends a sizable amount of money on their computers, and they keep backups of everything. I’d much rather rely on Google’s state-of-the-art computers, which cost thousands of dollars, rather than on my four-and-a-half year old Toshiba Satellite laptop that I bought for $500 or so when it came out.

The cloud is changing everything that we do, and we don’t even realize it. My favorite? Publishing. This blog is completely run by the cloud. I have backups emailed to me every week, but that’s about it. It is 100% run in the cloud. I’m even writing this in a web browser. Thanks to the cloud, I am publishing the 7th issue of my own digital magazine, an ongoing project that I’ve always wanted to do. My books are stored in the cloud.

We use the cloud for communication. I use Google Voice for my business communication, Facebook to communicate with most of my friends, and Twitter to network with and meet new people in various industries.

The cloud houses most of my entertainment. Whereas I spent my younger years meticulously recording TV shows onto video tapes (remember those?), so that I would never be short of entertainment, I now use Netflix for much of my entertainment, along with Hulu, and I read a number of hilariously entertaining and thoughtful blogs.

I house my thoughts in the cloud with Evernote, I keep my day-to-day life in Google Calendar, and I even used the cloud to complete a correspondence course on direct response copywriting to expand my business. We manage our finances in the cloud with ClearCheckbook, and I can travel to new destinations and enjoy classic moments from movies and television with YouTube. You can even expand your knowledge about almost any subject with Wikipedia and a Google search.

The cloud houses your information, teaches you new stuff, keeps you entertained, and organizes your life. Heck, the cloud even makes me money every month. That is so cool.

If you are trying to reach a goal of yours, but feel like you don’t have the time, then it’s time to get more productive. But there are endless blog posts written on productivity – from systems like Getting Things Done, perhaps. But those all generally fall under the category of “work productivity”: trying to get things done that will move you closer to your goals. There’s nothing wrong with them at all, and you definitely need to be productive when you are working.

But there is also the little matter of wasting your personal time. Today’s average web surfer is trying to do a lot of things with a lot of different services. For example, some services that I use most often are:

• Twitter
• Google Reader
• Google Photos (Picasa)
• Evernote
• Facebook
• Gmail

With so many services to manage, I need to work with them as efficiently as possible to keep my time from spiraling out of control. Enter If This Then That.

If This Then That (or IFTTT) is a web service that links these different services together however you want them to, simply and quickly. I first discovered this tool from a post on Lifehacker called, “How to Supercharge All Your Favorite Webapps with ifttt”. There are loads of different uses for this tool, with services like the ones listed above, as well as Foursquare, Dropbox, RSS Feeds, Instagram, Last.fm, and others.

Once you link up the different services you use, you can create “tasks” that tell the services to do something when you take an action. For example, when somebody tags a photo of me on Facebook, that photo is automatically grabbed and uploaded to Google Photos for additional backup. When I click “Share” in Google Reader on a post I like, it will automatically be tweeted. There are seemingly endless possibilities, and the interface is very easy to use.

If you are unsure of where to get started, they have a “recipes” page, with tasks that others have created. Just browsing through those items can get you going. Here are the ones I currently have set up:

• If I am tagged in a Facebook photo, it is uploaded to Google Photos immediately
• If I star an item in Google Reader to read later, it is sent to Evernote as a new note in a notebook called “Links to Review”
• If I mark a tweet as a “favorite” for later viewing, it also is sent to Evernote as a new note in the same notebook (this means that links I save are now stored in one central location from both Google Reader and Twitter)
• If I share an item in Google Reader, a tweet is automatically sent with the link to share with my followers
• If I upload photos or a photo album to Facebook, then the photo(s) are automatically uploaded to Google Picasa

This is just the beginning of how you can use this tool. Other ways include:

• Receiving a text when it’s going to rain
• Sending automatic direct messages to new followers on Twitter (DON’T do this one though – it’s really annoying!)
• Save all Instagram photos to Dropbox
• Put Foursquare check-ins on your Google Calendar
• Sync Instagram photos to a Facebook album
• Receive a text alert when something specific pops up on Craigslist

…and so on. It’s a free tool, and it has eliminated many steps that I used to have to take on a daily basis. Do you use IFTTT? If not, try it out and play around for a bit. If so, what’s your favorite “recipe”? Share in the comments!

I don’t believe the earth is going to blow up if we keep using paper. I’m all for going “green” and everything, but I also believe that the environment is stronger than we give it credit for.

That said, I’m a huge advocate for going paperless in your life whenever possible.

• It’s more secure. Security is always an issue with documents on computers, and if done poorly, then you can leave your documents open to certain vulnerabilities. But at the same time, how secure is a piece of paper? If you have a fire in your house, those papers are gone. All those records, all those photos, and everything in between: history. Meanwhile, all of my important documents are scanned into my computer and saved securely in Dropbox, so I can restore them at any point.
• It’s easy. Going paperless is not that much work. It might take a little bit of legwork at the beginning when you are starting, but this is a goal that is pretty much automatic once it’s set up.
• It’s cleaner. I mean clean in two ways. First, there’s nothing more unsightly than a desk full of piles of papers. Scanning them and getting rid of the papers makes for a clean house. Second, I’m a left-handed writer. For those of you lefties out there, you know the pain that we all grew up with: smudgy handwriting as your hand crosses over what you’ve written. As I stay paperless, I don’t have to bother with that smudgeness because I type everything out instead.
• It’s searchable. “Now, which document had that information on it?” “Where did I put that…” Two common problems with paper documents. You might know what information you need, but have no idea which piece of paper has that information on it. Or you know the exact page you need, but you can’t find it. Keeping it on a computer saves you that trouble because you can search all of your documents for what you need quickly.

So how do we do it?

• First, get a scanner. Think you can’t afford one? You are sorely mistaken. The price of printers with scanners built in to them have dropped to hilarious levels. Our printer recently went belly-up, and I was able to find this bad boy at Target for $40 (though it’s listed online at $50). It’s not fancy, but it does exactly what we need it to do.
• Get software to scan to PDF. I use Simple Scan for most documents on Ubuntu, but if you are a Windows user, you can use Scan2PDF. All you Mac lovers can use Image Capture to grab documents (you can save as an image file instead of a PDF if you want). They are all free and easy to use. You stick the document face-down on the scanner, open up the software, and click “scan”. Boom – you have a file that can be read on any computer.
• Store your important documents on Dropbox. This includes letters you want to save, receipts, and legal documents. Dropbox will give you 2 GB of free storage, which is plenty for what you’ll be using it for. It will back up any files in the Dropbox folder and you can restore it at any time. Instant relief.
• Start using technology in place of paper. Now that you have scanned documents in, you can start using your computer for stuff that you used to use paper for. Take notes in Evernote. Keep your to do lists in Google Tasks or Remember The Milk. Grocery lists can be stored in Google Tasks, Evernote, or Cozi, and they can all be accessed and checked off from your mobile phone, eliminating the need to write it down on paper and take it to the store. Store your recipes in Evernote (seeing a pattern here?) and tag them, so you can access them anywhere, at any time.
• Sign up for paperless statements. Most of your bank accounts offer email statements. Take advantage of them. Pay the bills online with your bank’s online bill pay, which is usually free to use. Track your finances in a Google Docs spreadsheet or in ClearCheckbook. Forward your new statements from your email into, you guessed it, Evernote.

Going paperless will save you postage, paper costs, printing costs, and will keep your life a little more organized. Got a favorite tip for going paperless? Share in the comments!

It’s so easy that we don’t even think about it anymore: you look at the sticker in your window, see that it’s time to get your oil change, so you take it to the shop, sit in the waiting room for 20 minutes, pay him, and then drive away. You go through this process every 3 months or when you’ve driven 3,000 miles.

So why would you want to learn how to do this yourself? You can pay somebody to do it!

• You’ll save money. Let’s say, for example, the price of an average oil change is $25. I can change my own oil for a little over $10. So you save almost $15 right there. And you’ll save money in the long-term too, because…
• You’ll change your oil less often. Oil change companies and shops say every 3,000 miles or every 3 months, right? That’s been the standard frequency for oil changes. But those rules were written long, long ago, when oil was more susceptible to breaking down into sludge and ruining engines. Nowadays, under normal driving conditions, your oil can last up for 5,000-7,500 miles. This is even being reflected in your manuals, but you never open them. Why, then, do the oil changers tell you every 3 months? Because they want your money. So, if you’re changing your oil less often, you’re saving money, and time!
• You will understand your car a little better. A car is a pretty sophisticated piece of machinery. It’s good for you to know a little bit about how it works. It’s just like cooking – ignorance leads to bad habits. You’ve spent a lot of money on that car. Get to know it.

So if you are avoiding the local oil change shop, how do you get that oil changed?

• Pick up your supplies. Assuming you have the tools already, run to your local auto supplies store and grab a new oil filter and some oil. Just buy the store brand of oil and the cheap filter. They’re all just fine for the driving that you do. There are different kinds of oil, so check beforehand to see the kind you should get (you can find this in your owner’s manual, or online). The oil filter section will have a book for you to look up which filter to get. It’s pretty straightforward.
• Go to a garage. You can’t do this on the street, it’s illegal. If you don’t have a garage, call a friend and ask if you can borrow some garage space for half an hour.
• Warm up your car by driving around. It doesn’t need to be piping hot, but it should be warm. Warm oil is thinner, and it will empty out quicker and easier.
• Put on some crappy clothes. You’re working on your car, not going out on a date. Wear your old ripped jeans and a stained t-shirt. You might not get full of oil, but you also might (especially if you’re new to this).
• Turn on the radio to your favorite station. This doesn’t have to be boring – have some fun with it!
• Jack up your car. Make sure it’s solidly up there, too. Obviously, the last thing you want is the car to fall off the jack. You would be better off putting your car on a jack stand, but if you don’t have one, just make sure it’s solid. You won’t be pushing too hard on the car, but never take any chances.
• Throw a blanket down and crawl under there. Don’t be too scared.
• Locate the filter and the oil plug. The oil plug is just a lone screw and bolt that hangs a little low. It will be near the filter. Don’t know what the filter looks like? Look at the filter you bought, and look for a cylinder-type thing about the same size.
• Position an oil pan underneath the oil plug. This will take a little adjusting, especially if you are new to this, but put an oil pan or something to catch all that oil that you will be draining underneath the plug.
• Remove the plug. Grab a wrench and get that oil plug out of there. As you loosen it, oil will start dripping, and it will flow freely once you get the plug out of there. Pay attention to where the oil pan is so that you can catch as much as possible and keep the mess to a minimum.
• Let the oil drain out. Give it a minute to flow out of there. Once it’s slowed to an almost-stop, it’s empty.
• Put the plug back. You don’t have to crank it really tight, but make sure it’s on there good.
• Move the oil pan under the oil filter. Now that the car is empty of oil, you can pull the filter off. There will be some oil in there too, so be ready to catch it.
• Unscrew the oil filter. Lefty-loosey. Once it’s off, flip it upside down onto the oil pan so that it will drain out.
• Prep the new filter. Pull it out of the box, and dip your finger in the oil pan. Then run that oily finger along the rubber seal of the new filter.
• Put the new filter on. Righty-tighty. Just hand-tighten it. The rubber will make a nice seal with the engine, so it doesn’t have to be insanely tight.
• Remove the oil pan, blanket, and you from under the car. You’re done under the car, so get everything out of there.
• Let the car down. Jack it down so that you can finish the job.
• Pop the hood. You are about to put new oil in.
• Locate the oil tank. You’ll find it directly above where you were working, and it’ll probably have a picture of an oil can on it.
• Open it up and start pouring oil in. Use a funnel, preferably. Empty all that oil you bought into the engine.
• Put the oil cap back and close the hood. You’re done!
• Clean up responsibly. The oil filter can be thrown out (I’d toss it in a plastic bag first). The empty oil containers can go into recycling, but that oil needs to be disposed of properly, depending on your local laws. Likely, you’ll need to take it to the dump yourself. Pour the oil in the oil pan into an empty milk jug and take it down to the dump for disposing.
• Write down when your next oil change is due. I like to keep this in Evernote, but you can just as easily write it down somewhere you’ll remember. Jot down the date and the mileage on the car, then add 7,500 miles to that number. That’s the new mileage you need to watch for.

Easy, right? It seems like a lot of steps, but it gets very simple as you do it more often. This is the definition of a small goal, but it can really save you a hefty chunk of change in the long run. And knowing how to do basic maintenance on a car is never a bad thing.

One of my favorite posts to run into as the weekend begins is The Simple Dollar’s “Ten Pieces of Inspiration”. It’s a relatively recent series where Trent lists various things in his life that keep him going, from videos to stuff his kids do and so on. It’s fun, and it helps me find new things to inspire me as well.

So I thought for a minute: what inspires me on a regular basis? And more importantly, where can you turn for inspiration? When you are working towards a goal, you may reach a point where it seems like nothing is pushing you anymore. This can be a dangerous spot to be in, because everybody needs to recharge their batteries. Get some more juice out of your batteries by looking around you for inspiration. Here are some places I go:

My wife

I’m not just sucking up because she reads this (hi honey!). When my wife walks through my office and sees that I’m a little frustrated, she likes to remind me how proud she is of me for working hard. She picks up extra hours at the hospital, most recently knocking out a 2:00am-7:00am shift. She was the one who told me to quit my job and go back to running a business again. She supports me and the pursuit of my dreams, and she’s along for the ride sometimes.

What about you? The best sources of inspiration are the people closest to you. You are who you hang out with. Do you surround yourself with people that push you to be better, or do you socialize with people that like to crap all over your dreams?

Twitter

Yes, I do like to spend a good amount of time conversing on Twitter. And while some people look to Twitter as a giant waste of time, others recognize it for being a place where you can socialize and network with people who are setting out to doing the same stuff you are. Looking to start a business? Get out of debt? Lose weight? Be a minimalist? These types of people are all over Twitter. You can follow a few of them and get all kinds of inspiration from the stuff they say and the links they share.

What about you? Do you have a Twitter account? If you do, are you just following celebrities? Try branching out and looking around for people who might be able to inspire you. Not only that, but it provides a great networking opportunity that can bring some serious benefits, bringing you closer to your goals.

In Treehouses and Poke The Box

I’m fascinated by the move to digital publishing and all that it offers. As a creative writer, I look forward to the opportunities that I might have to publish great content quickly and cheaply as time goes on. That’s why I subscribe to In Treehouses, which is a digital magazine devoted to the digital publishing industry. I also recently purchased Poke The Box by Seth Godin, a brilliant marketer who is now realizing the power of books in ebook form. These guys are transforming the way we look at words, while inspiring us along the way. Their work is what is fueling HustleLife Magazine, my free digital magazine project that launches next month.

What about you? Look long and hard at your goals. What people are out there doing what you want to be doing? Are they doing it differently? What can you learn from others that can fuel your passions and goals?

My Kindle

In the same vein as Poke The Box (which I read on my Kindle), I’ve got a handful of books on my Kindle that have been incredibly inspiring to me. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt is a beast of a book and I’ve been working on it for over a month (only about 35% through it), but I’m continually amazed by the resolve and work ethic of this guy. I’ll be writing a post about it when I’m done reading it in 2016. Another one is Decision Points by former President George W. Bush. Politics aside, Bush explains his actions and shows that there are plenty of sides to an issue, and it’s not as cut and dry as people make it out to be. He also shows that there is honor in admitting when you screw up, which he does (though not as much as certain people would like).

What about you? If you aren’t reading books, get going. There are people out there that can light a serious fire under your butt when you need it. Start with some good, well-written biographies and autobiographies. Go the free route and make it easy on yourself.

My ProBlogger post

In case you haven’t heard, I wrote a guest post last week for ProBlogger.net, one of the most popular blogging sites on the internet. It sent a tidal wave of traffic my way, but even better, The “I Can” Movement is boasting an 89% increase in subscriptions, and HustleLife Magazine is steadily growing – without a single issue being released. I gained about 70 new followers on Twitter and have had hundreds of new conversations. The post was tweeted over 475 times as of this writing, and it sits with 134 comments. The fruits of that post are there, and very obvious. I’ve enjoyed getting involved in so many conversations with so many smart and active people out there. Seeing these kinds of results are great for a guy who has been blogging for a few years now.

What about you? Where can you see the fruits of your labor? I bet they’re there, even if you can’t see them right away. Look at the results of your hard work. Look harder. You might be surprised, but they are there. Maybe they haven’t transformed your life yet, but celebrate them.

As you can see, there are plenty of places to go for inspiration. Need more? Start clipping notes in Evernote, follow some blogs, or watch some videos on TED. Inspiration is everywhere, you just need to find where yours is.

You know him: That Guy always forgets stuff. He’s always got that great idea, but never follows up on it. You make plans, but he forgets. He intends to do all this great stuff, but “never has the time”.

That Guy isn’t a jerk. He means well. He’s very thoughtful. But he’s one of those, “His heart’s in the right place, but his mind just isn’t”-type people. But for as nice as That Guy is, everybody’s annoyed by him.

(And of course, if you’re female, you might be That Gal.)

While being organized isn’t the be-all, end-all to this problem, it can certainly be a vast improvement to what you used to be. Getting yourself organized does a lot of pretty awesome things for you:

• It shows maturity to those around you. Yeah, you need to start acting your age. Kids forget stuff. That’s why teachers spent so much time when we were younger teaching us to write stuff down and keep track of whatever. Like everything else we did in school, we just learned enough to get the teacher off our backs. Now we’re stuck. But if you’re over the age of 17, you need to start getting organized in your life. It demonstrates that you’ve entered adulthood.
• You will actually find more time to do stuff. If you think you “don’t have time” to get organized, you’re dead wrong. I guarantee that you’ll find all sorts of time that you didn’t have before. Nowadays, I look back at my disorganized days and think, “Geez, how the heck was I so busy all the time? I didn’t do anything!” Keeping track of your time and what you are doing with it will uncover some surprises.
• People will actually want to make plans with you. Being proactive about your time will free up lots of time to spend with others, and since you’re remembering your plans now, people will be much more apt to make plans with you.
• You’ll get more stuff done. You might even be able to take on those other projects you’ve been meaning to get to! It’s like life optimization.
• You might even sleep better at night. If you’re the type whose brain can’t shut off at the end of the day because you’re so worried about this, that, and the other thing, this might be your key to getting out of it. That means you’ll be a little healthier to boot!
• Those great ideas can actually blossom into awesome projects. Now that you’ll remember your great ideas and have a central location for them, you’ll suddenly be able to develop them into stuff that could change your life!
• You might save some serious cash. A lot of wastefulness goes into things like grocery shopping and other types of spending. We’re going to start getting used to making lists!

Okay, so if we’re going to get organized, we need to make sure that it is easy to implement, doesn’t take a lot of effort to maintain, and that it takes advantage of lots of free tools that are at your disposal. While you could use a number of great tools, here are the ones that I think are most effective at getting this done:

• Set up your finances in ClearCheckbook. While ClearCheckbook is not perfect, it certainly is handy. The bulk of the internet world swears by Mint, but Mint doesn’t work with a few of my accounts, and I like to be able to manually reconcile my transactions. I feel like it keeps me on top of my finances better. So you can sign up for Mint, or you can use ClearCheckbook. Either way, you’re going to have a service that you can access from your phone (so you don’t have to carry around a checkbook anymore), and you can analyze your spending. I like ClearCheckbook for the spending limits that you can enter in, so we always have a snapshot of how we are keeping up with our monthly budget. This helps us plan our spending.
• Sign up for a Twitter account. Trust me on this. If you want to get involved with Twitter more, be my guest. But we’re using Twitter for one specific reason (see below).
• Get an Evernote account. I’ve long touted the wonders of Evernote in my daily life, and I continue to use it more and more. I use Evernote as a brain dump, where I can toss in articles that I find will be useful, organize receipts for my finances, and every little thought that I have can go into it. I have lots of different notebooks, but I set my default notebook as a “To Be Organized” notebook, which I review on a regular basis.
• Link your Evernote and your Twitter accounts for anytime notetaking. Ever out with friends and you get some brilliant idea that you won’t remember later? Or you are chatting with someone and they mention a book that you should read? When this happens to me, I can use my phone to quickly text a note into my Evernote account. You can learn how to set up your Twitter account and your Evernote account here, and now you have an insanely quick way to take down that great idea as soon as you think of it.
• Set up your Google Calendar. One of my other favorite services, Google Calendar may be one of the finest services that Google has ever put together. With Google Calendar, I have all birthdays, important dates, and things to do scheduled out, and I can have a specific event be sent to me as a reminder, either as a text message or an email, at a time of my choosing (five minutes before, one week before, 9 days before, etc.). This ensures that I won’t forget any important event. Plus, Google has added sports team schedules to it, so I’ll never miss a Packer game or a Brewer game throughout the year!

None of this should take more than an hour to set up. Once you start using it, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. Plus, your friends will no longer see you as That Guy (or Gal). Instead, you’ll be reliable, you’ll know what’s going on, and you won’t feel so stressed out when trying to remember anything. What’s your favorite tool for keeping things organized?

I remember the first scanner my family bought back in the early-to-mid-’90s. It was a little handheld thing that you slid across the picture yourself, and generally resulted in wavy, blurry pictures that looked terrible. Yeah, we didn’t use it much.

Flash to today: scanners are built into printers and the total package can cost around $50 or less, depending on where you get them. I have one, and I have seen multiple uses for it that have given me more than my money’s worth ($60 at the time of purchase). And before you tell me you have no use for one of these things, here’s a handful of reasons to get your hands on one:

1. Get rid of that filing cabinet/lockbox.

Okay, so you should still hang onto it for original copies of stuff that you need (i.e., birth certificates, etc.), but for bills that you need to hang on to, or random paperwork, it’s time to start scanning these things.

"What happens if my computer goes down and I lose everything?" Well, that’s why you pair it up with a good, free backup solution and you can let your house burn down to the ground, and you’ll still have copies of all your important paperwork. Plus, searching through your paperwork becomes infinitely easier. Ever sat in your file folder sifting through papers to try and find one little piece of information? Now you can have a bird’s-eye-view of all your paperwork at one glance, which save you a lot of time!

[Plus, if you keep a free Evernote account, you can make it even more searchable, and you can tag your documents, cutting that search time to mere seconds!]

2. Replace the fax machine/snail mail and start sending documents via email.

Yeah, we all do it, but what about when you need to sign something? You can do what I do and keep a Photoshop version of your signature, or you can print out the document, sign it, and scan it right back in as a PDF. Then you can move the PDF file to your backed-up folder where it belongs and attach it to an email. Done and done.

I’ve used this one to replace the long snail mail process for student loan documents and other important forms. Just ask the representative or whoever if there’s an email address you can send the form to. Most are just fine with that.

3. Preserve your memories.

A year ago, I took it upon myself to undertake a huge project: digitizing my parents’ family pictures. They, like many families, had a huge box full of pictures that were never put into albums. Any time we wanted to look at them, it was this giant deal where we lugged the box upstairs and had to empty it out on the kitchen table or the living room floor. It took hours and it was a mess.

After researching different photo services, I settled on (not surprisingly) Google Picasa. While Flickr is a very popular photo sharing site, I felt that Picasa was more geared towards the average user and not the photo enthusiast. At the time, Picasa also was the one that had face recognition, so I could tag people in a picture quickly and easily.

Using Picasa, I was able to categorize photos into albums based on decade, tag the people in them, and then tag them with categories ("wedding", "baptism", "school picture", etc.). Now, someone who knows the family and wants to look at our pictures can go to my Picasa page and view pictures based on what decade, what activity, or grouped by the person in the picture. That’s pretty sweet. I captioned each picture with whatever was written on the back of the photo. Oh, and this is all free.

Why would I want to do that? We preserve our memories on one of the most perishable of materials: paper. If there’s a fire, your memories are gone. If you keep them in the basement and the basement floods, your cherished photos are ruined. Heck, even just letting a few years pass can deteriorate the pictures – especially old Polaroids!

Scanning them in gives them a higher-quality preservation. Plus, you can back them up easily in a number of ways. The archives of photos that I put together for my parents are on my hard drive, backed up with my Syncplicity account, in my Google Picasa account, and on a DVD that I gave them. That’s 4 different backups. Bring on the floods.

4. Expense tracking.

Here’s a quick and easy one: do you save receipts for any reason? Scan them and drop them in a folder on your hard drive or in your Evernote account. Then you can throw away those annoying little pieces of paper.

So there you go, four great reasons to invest in a scanner. It beats down on clutter and gives you the chance to protect and preserve anything important that’s on a piece of paper. What do you use your scanner for? Share with us in the comments below!

The world is abuzz about the pending iPad and it’s pre-orders. Everyone is talking about the Microsoft Courier. You love your iPhone/Droid/Blackberry. You constantly search around for bigger, better devices that will do almost everything in the world. In this “buy-buy-buy” haze, have you forgotten the love for your laptop?

A laptop is a versatile tool. When people talk about user experience on new gadgets, they distract people from an important point – you already know how to use a laptop. A laptop can fit in a small bag and go anywhere you want it to. It’s never as flashy or as impressive as one of these new gadgets, but are you just paying for the flashiness? The status? Aren’t we over that in this country?

Over the past few years of developing into the Nerd that you see before you today, I learned how to push a laptop to do almost anything. It boasts an impressive array of features that we’ve all forgotten about. Today, I want to remind you of all the things your laptop can do, and hopefully inspire some of you to hang on to that relic instead of swiping that credit card for another gadget purchase, or dipping into your hard-earned savings. But first, here are the specs on my laptop, so that you know I’m not talking about some super-laptop that you can’t afford:

This is a dual-core, 1.60GHz Toshiba Satellite laptop with 1.5GB of RAM. It has an 80GB hard drive. I bought it with Vista and downgraded to XP about a year and a half later. This setup cost me about $700 when I bought it in 2007, and a quick search on Newegg.com pops up a computer with twice as much memory and a hard drive FOUR times as large as mine for under $400. Honestly, this computer blows mine out of the water, and it cost almost half as much as I paid for mine.

So here’s the list, in absolutely no particular order. I sat down and jotted down all the things I can use my laptop for, so this is a “stream of consciousness”-type list. A quick editor’s note: I’m not dumb. This list assumes moderate maintenance (i.e., running CCleaner about once a week, having a free antivirus application running at all times), Windows XP (though you don’t need XP for most of this stuff), and a decent internet connection.

1. An e-reader

It’s the flashiest feature of them all right now – read books on a screen! The iPad will have books! Well, you don’t need to buy a new gadget for this necessarily. Barnes And Noble and Amazon both offer free software for reading books on your computer, so if you want to buy ebooks, go right ahead! Better yet, visit Project Guternberg and download over 100,000 free ebooks from the public domain if you want.

This is probably the feature I use the least, since you can’t compare the ease on the eyes of a book compared to an LCD screen. This is one place I think the iPad will fail, and why, if you’re a heavy reader, I actually would recommend getting a dedicated e-reader. The e-ink technology is much, much easier on the eyes.

2. A portable television

I’ve written at length about how you can use your computer as your television, and even hook it up to your TV. But also, for quick show-watching on the go, just visit a site like Hulu. I subscribe to a lot of shows within Hulu and they post to my queue the morning after they air. So, all I need to do is log in, go to my queue, and click “Play”. Boom.

If you’re looking to watch live sports, start getting to know TVAnts and StreamTorrent. Plus, this method ensures that you get out-of-market games, too.

3. A pretty good gaming machine

You hardcore gamers looking to play graphics-intensive games will probably want a powerful desktop, but laptops can handle quite a bit too. Plus, if you’re a casual gamer (like myself), you are just looking for simple games to pass the time, in which case, there are plenty of great gaming sites out there like this one.

4. Your new teacher

Miss college? Want to learn a new skill? There are lots of great places online to see and hear lectures and lessons taught by fine professors from all over the country. Looking for something a little more fun? Learn guitar (see link above) or build something cool at Instructables. There are endless possibilities for what you can learn through your laptop.

5. Your complete photo album

When I go to my grandmother’s house, looking through pictures involves emptying a cabinet full of old albums and sitting at the kitchen table while everyone crowds around them and tries to see what’s going on. Nowadays, all those pictures (and more!) can be stored on your laptop. Back them up to a site like Picasa (my favorite) and tag, organize, and share them with everyone forever.

Bonus tip: set your screensaver to pull pictures from the folder on your computer where you keep all your photos, and your monitor becomes an instant digital photo frame when not in use.

6. Your radio

Talk radio, comedy stations, music of all types and genres – internet radio is fantastic. Set up a Pandora station for customized listening goodness, or listen to hundreds of live radio stations on iheartradio.com. Take it with you.

7. Your complete music library

The local version of the previous tip. Imagine: no CD towers to buy, no cases to spend half an hour opening. Download music from iTunes or Zune Marketplace or Amazon. Store them on your computer (and back them up, of course). Rip your current CD collection and then pack away those discs in a bin somewhere. You can listen to any music at any time, anywhere. It’s a beautiful thing.

8. Your map command center

It doesn’t matter if you are biking, running, or driving a car – sometimes you just need directions. Now, you can type in any location or address into sites like Google Maps or MapQuest and you know exactly how to get anywhere. You no longer have a need for a big paper map that takes up half the front of the car. Just search, print, and move on.

9. Note-taker and organizer

If you want a laugh, look at my notes from high school and college: they’re messy and smudged (I’m a lefty), completely disorganized, and a total failure. Today, with services like Evernote, you can organize and tag your notes, and they won’t be smudged or unreadable. Heck, you can even just use a word processor to get the job done if you want. Just pull your laptop out of its bag and get to typing.

10. Complete database of knowledge, regardless of usefulness

Remember how embarrassing it was to go to a bookstore or a library and pick up one of those stupid “For Dummies” books? Now, you don’t need them. I’m amazed they’re still on the shelves at all. There is no longer an excuse for not knowing something. You can Google it, you can Bing it, you can even Ask Jeeves if you want. Get your plumbing/cooking/health questions answered just by typing your question into a search engine. For facts (mostly accurate), hit up Wikipedia.

11. Your calendar of events

I use Google Calendar, but you can use whatever you want. All the things going on in your life can be chronicled, and you can have reminders sent to you straight from your calendar. Stop missing those anniversaries/birthdays/whatever.

12. An address book

My mom kept an address book for years. When I needed a phone number, I needed to go to the closet, pull it out, flip to the section with the first letter of their last name, navigate through old, crossed-out addresses and skim through until I found what I was looking for. Now? I just sit at my laptop, open up Google Contacts, and use the search box to find the entry with the person I’m looking for. You can use Outlook or something else if you want. But have a backup of all your contacts, and you can search them easily at any time.

13. Your weather station

Hop on Weather.com and enter in your zip code at the top of the page – severe weather warnings, detailed forecasts of the next couple of days, and extended 10-day forecasts all come up. You can watch the live radar if you want. Do this stuff for monitoring the weather of your next vacation destination. Turn off the Weather Channel and put down the newspaper.

14. Your professional presentation tool

Ever notice how you don’t see presentations done with big poster boards anymore? That’s because you just need to load that PowerPoint presentation and plug your laptop into a projector. It looks slicker, makes you look good, and was easy to do with your laptop.

15. Your new checkbook

Wave “bye-bye” to adding and subtracting errors. A complete money management system can be had on any laptop. Need to share it with your husband/wife? Use a free online service like ClearCheckbook or share a Google Doc. The math and tracking is done for you – all you need to do is enter in those transactions.

16. Call anybody, anytime – even by video

VoIP technology continues to advance. I run a Skype phone line with a little headset for business. Want to video chat with somebody like you see in the movies? Get a cheap little webcam and you can all you want. I used to video chat weekly with my then-girlfriend while she was in Taiwan. You can now talk to somebody and see them, regardless of where they are. Powerful stuff.

17. Keep in touch with all of your friends, all the time

High school reunions are becoming obsolete with sites like Facebook. We all know what we are doing, all the time. That’s lame sometimes, but it comes in handy. For example, I have friends all over the country, and I can stay a part of their lives through my communications on Facebook. When done correctly, Facebook can enhance your personal relationships, and you can share joys, sorrows, and laughs with people every day.

18. A retro gaming system

Here’s where the fun starts! Do you miss the Super Nintendo? How about classic Nintendo? Sega Genesis? Hop over to your favorite search engine and type in “SNES emulators” to find a program that will play old Super Nintendo games. Download it, then search for “SNES roms” to find and download the games. Plug in a USB controller and you’ll feel like you’re 8 years old all over again!

19. Sports/News Central

Whether you do it in an RSS feed reader or you just visit a site like CNN or MSN, the headlines are always updating and keep you in the loop at all times. Hit up ESPN for live scores of all of your games. Then, cancel your newspaper subscription. I mean, like, NOW.

20. Your recipe database

When I cook, I just put the laptop on the kitchen counter. I don’t need a shelf of cookbooks (although I do still have a few). You can store recipes in Evernote or use a service like Supercook to manage your inventory of recipes. It makes your cooking life a lot easier, and you never have to remember which recipe book that breaded chicken recipe was in.

21. Track your workouts

DailyMile lets you map and save your runs. DailyBurn allows you the ability to track any type of workout, and even track your nutrition levels. You don’t need to keep a paper notebook or print out a spreadsheet. Type it in, submit it, and move on with your life. Slick, slick, slick.

22. Business-builder

Build a website, run a blog, connect on Facebook/Twitter, design brochures, write copy… the list goes on. Take notes during your meetings with clients. A laptop computer offers the flexibility to work anywhere you choose, provided your business can pay those bills. A laptop, in my opinion, is an absolutely essential tool for business-building today.

23. Create CDs and DVDs

I remember back in 2000 when I first learned how to burn a CD. It took forever. Now, I use CDBurnerXP, but you can use just about anything. Put those home movies on a DVD. Make that mix CD for your friend (or that girl you like). It only takes a couple of minutes, and you can do it right from your laptop.

24. Stream home media anywhere in the house

XBox Media Center, now on the original XBox, PCs, Macs, and Linux machines. All your movies and music on any TV in your house, from your computer.

25. Portable CD/DVD player

Again, another invention that I am shocked is still on shelves: the portable DVD player. Instead, play this stuff on your laptop when sitting on the plane or when you’re supposed to be paying attention in class. Chances are, your laptop can handle any kind of DVD, too.

26. Your to-do list

Google Tasks or Remember The Milk, or about a dozen others. Ditch the paper to-do list and type it up in your laptop. Want to keep it simpler? Open up a little Notepad document and bang out your list.

27. The answers to your minor medical questions

I’ve always been a big fan of WebMD, but there are other ways to get medical questions answered, too. This is not a substitute for a doctor’s visit, of course, but it can help you diagnose minor situations instead of paying that co-pay to be told those lumps on your throat are just leftover food scraps. [Note: this is not a good tip for hypochondriacs.]

28. Your shopping mall, all the time

Want to buy anything? Put your shoes down. Stay in your pajamas. Open up your laptop and get to Amazon. Search for whatever you want, and they’ll have it. Oh, and it’ll be cheaper, too.

Okay, so some of these are obvious, but it helps to have them here. Your laptop is a remarkably strong piece of technology. I would think twice before you ditch it to use some fancy-looking thing that only does two or three things on this list.

What do you use your laptop for?