"As your attorney, I advise you to take a hit out of the little brown bottle....

[Spork]

- On water, what are some of your experts thoughts on PEX?  We installed it when we remodeled my house.  Any health risks? At the time the conventional wisdom was that it was ok.

I am pro-PEX. I'm not anti-copper, but PEX doesn't have a lot of downsides for a big cost differential.

The only possible anti-PEX thing I have seen:  Rats love the stuff.  I don't know if it is the material it is made of or if they're able to sense water inside.  My uncle had to re-plumb his entire house.  PEX was fully chewed through every 2-3 feet throughout the entire system.  But it is super easy to work with and you can do really long runs without stopping to make a joint.

[mm1970]

Okay, as an engineer...I've counseled a number of new engineers.

1. Listen to the senior engineers.  They (usually) know what they are talking about.
2. Learn time management.
3. Learn how to properly set up an experiment, document, parse and analyze the results, and present them to a "cold body reader".
4. You don't know what you don't know.  As you get more experience, the amount of knowledge you have goes WAY up.  But there's still a lot that you don't know.  Strive to learn it. But be humble.
5. Get a good system for documenting things.  If you don't have one, find someone who does and copy it.  You may think you can just remember stuff.  And maybe you can.  I could.  But...will you remember it 6 months from now?  Will you remember which drive or folder it is on?  And trust me, as you approach 40, you won't be able to remember as much stuff.  A system for remembering things will be essential.  It's been the difference between a successful older engineer and an unsuccessful older engineer.
6.  Don't be a dick.  Someday you might need to get another job.

7.  On learning from bosses - some times, you are going to get a new boss
- Figure out their strengths and weaknesses right away
- Use their knowledge.  If they are very good technically, learn from them.  If they are very organized, learn from them.  If they are very good with people, learn from them.  Don't try to learn organization from someone who isn't organized.
- Choose your bosses wisely.  If given the opportunity for a promotion, look up.  Are you confident in that person's ability to train you in the areas that you are weak?  Will they look after you?  If not, run.
- Don't model yourself after bosses who are jerks.  It's tempting to grab onto the coat tail of someone moving up.  But you never know, the guy might be moving up IN SPITE OF their personality, not because of it (see: don't be a dick)
- Learn which bosses are full of BS.  I wasted 6 months with a new boss, hearing him tell me in meetings how dumb my ideas were (while we struggled with 0 yield), until I woke up one day and realized, WTF? I've been in the industry for 10 years, and he's new to the industry. (Plus, he'd come up with these "great ideas" about 2 weeks after I brought them up.)  So, I just started solving problems on my own and presenting the results.

8. It's easier to get promoted within a company, where they know your skills (generally).  But if you want more money, you will probably have to job hop. It's good.  Gets you out of your comfort zone.  You learn new skills.

That's all I got.  Still need to read through all the others.

so number 5 how do you keep track of things? cause I am notorious for tossing it in the drawer of many things?

I wish I had the *right* answer.

It's a combination -
1.  We have several programs.  For official documents and approved process changes, we use the official company documentation system that goes through sign off and approval.
2.  For "things that happened" to lots that are running, we use our WIP system
3.  For minor decisions on projects, we use gmail (not the best)
4.  For summaries of experiments, we use our engineering drive.  Here's the tricky thing -everyone has their own "spot", so unfortunately, there are many many spots.

- For particular lot issues, we have a lot folder where we keep results.  Downside: if you ran "experiment X" you might not remember which lot. So that doesn't help.
- For particular process issues, we have a folder for each process area and piece of equipment
- For particular device issues, we have folders
- Our yield guy is really really organized, so he set up a system for tracking yield and failure analysis, so several of us adopted his folder system.  Everything in one place.
- For general info, the yield guy also created a centralized table - this was really great (for example, etch rates of every thing we etch on every tool)

The system is only as good as the people who use it.

I do like the idea that a previous person had of using an excel sheet.

I currently struggle with keeping track of all my projects.  I'm a paper person, and I still haven't found a good system on the computer.  And honestly we've laid off so many people that part of the issue is that I have too many projects.

[meerkat]

My system is to keep an Excel workbook with tabs for each year.  I keep an ongoing list of projects I've worked on with brief descriptions, dates, client names, and other notes.  It comes in handy when I get a new project and know that I've done something similar in the past, but don't know where to find it.  That's when I consult my spreadsheet.

Not an engineer but I do a variation on this as my daily to-do list. I have an excel workbook where the left-most tabs are "Annual Review Goals" and "Completed". The tab after that has today's date. Every day I make a new tab for today copied from yesterday's tab.

Annual Review Goals has a row for each item with a description of the goal in one column and what I did in the next column. So stuff on my list looks like this but in two columns:
Description: Work with [other department] to put together an FAQ of items frequently sent their way to cut down on wait times for approvals
Notes: Put together a list of things to run by Jane to begin creating FAQ, meeting planned for X date.
Description: Sit with other departments we frequently work with (to get a better idea of how their processes work).
Notes: Met with Bob on 2/24 about how [Bob's department] works. Planning to meet with Sally in May after they finish with [time and resource consuming project].

Completed I'll come back to. My daily tab has ongoing items at the top, then some blank rows, then outstanding items that I'm waiting on others for but don't want to forget about. Columns are Date Started, Due Date, Description, Notes. Due date is frequently left blank for open-ended items. For the outstanding items, the first part of the note is who I'm waiting on and for what.

Completed is similar to the daily tab except that there's an additional column to the left for Date Completed and it's a running list of what I've done. In theory I should always be cutting items from the daily tab and pasting them in completed, but I tend to only do it for bigger projects so it's more of a brag sheet than an all encompassing "what I did in this time frame" list. The idea behind this is that it'll be a lot easier for me to fill out my annual review. I've also got a folder called "Kudos" where I save thank you emails from coworkers or my boss.

This was inspired by bullet journals but I don't know how closely it adheres to actual bullet journaling. It has definitely kept me from losing track of to do items as easily.

[Apples]

Professional:
 - If you have a curbside mailbox, do not put your flag up when you have outgoing mail.  The mailman is coming to your box regardless.  All the flag does is alert potential thieves that something is in there.
 - Do not mail cash or gift cards.

Non-professional:
 - Be good to your pets.  You're literally their entire life.  Plus, it's remarkable how much a long walk with my dog improves my mood.
 - It amazes me how much that showing up to work on time, doing your job adequately, and having a good attitude impresses people.  Do it.  Don't complain.

I live in a rural spot.  We have a mailbox by the road.  We don't always have mail that comes to us everyday.  Does the mailperson really stop by our box anyway?  I figure they would just drive by.

[Rural]

Professional:
 - If you have a curbside mailbox, do not put your flag up when you have outgoing mail.  The mailman is coming to your box regardless.  All the flag does is alert potential thieves that something is in there.
 - Do not mail cash or gift cards.

Non-professional:
 - Be good to your pets.  You're literally their entire life.  Plus, it's remarkable how much a long walk with my dog improves my mood.
 - It amazes me how much that showing up to work on time, doing your job adequately, and having a good attitude impresses people.  Do it.  Don't complain.

I live in a rural spot.  We have a mailbox by the road.  We don't always have mail that comes to us everyday.  Does the mailperson really stop by our box anyway?  I figure they would just drive by.

They just drive by.

[Jtrey17]

I highly recommend OneNote. I love that you simply open the system and begin. And there's no need to save-love it! I use it for project management and for my personal yearly goals.

Okay, as an engineer...I've counseled a number of new engineers.

1. Listen to the senior engineers.  They (usually) know what they are talking about.
2. Learn time management.
3. Learn how to properly set up an experiment, document, parse and analyze the results, and present them to a "cold body reader".
4. You don't know what you don't know.  As you get more experience, the amount of knowledge you have goes WAY up.  But there's still a lot that you don't know.  Strive to learn it. But be humble.
5. Get a good system for documenting things.  If you don't have one, find someone who does and copy it.  You may think you can just remember stuff.  And maybe you can.  I could.  But...will you remember it 6 months from now?  Will you remember which drive or folder it is on?  And trust me, as you approach 40, you won't be able to remember as much stuff.  A system for remembering things will be essential.  It's been the difference between a successful older engineer and an unsuccessful older engineer.
6.  Don't be a dick.  Someday you might need to get another job.

7.  On learning from bosses - some times, you are going to get a new boss
- Figure out their strengths and weaknesses right away
- Use their knowledge.  If they are very good technically, learn from them.  If they are very organized, learn from them.  If they are very good with people, learn from them.  Don't try to learn organization from someone who isn't organized.
- Choose your bosses wisely.  If given the opportunity for a promotion, look up.  Are you confident in that person's ability to train you in the areas that you are weak?  Will they look after you?  If not, run.
- Don't model yourself after bosses who are jerks.  It's tempting to grab onto the coat tail of someone moving up.  But you never know, the guy might be moving up IN SPITE OF their personality, not because of it (see: don't be a dick)
- Learn which bosses are full of BS.  I wasted 6 months with a new boss, hearing him tell me in meetings how dumb my ideas were (while we struggled with 0 yield), until I woke up one day and realized, WTF? I've been in the industry for 10 years, and he's new to the industry. (Plus, he'd come up with these "great ideas" about 2 weeks after I brought them up.)  So, I just started solving problems on my own and presenting the results.

8. It's easier to get promoted within a company, where they know your skills (generally).  But if you want more money, you will probably have to job hop. It's good.  Gets you out of your comfort zone.  You learn new skills.

That's all I got.  Still need to read through all the others.

so number 5 how do you keep track of things? cause I am notorious for tossing it in the drawer of many things?

I wish I had the *right* answer.

It's a combination -
1.  We have several programs.  For official documents and approved process changes, we use the official company documentation system that goes through sign off and approval.
2.  For "things that happened" to lots that are running, we use our WIP system
3.  For minor decisions on projects, we use gmail (not the best)
4.  For summaries of experiments, we use our engineering drive.  Here's the tricky thing -everyone has their own "spot", so unfortunately, there are many many spots.

- For particular lot issues, we have a lot folder where we keep results.  Downside: if you ran "experiment X" you might not remember which lot. So that doesn't help.
- For particular process issues, we have a folder for each process area and piece of equipment
- For particular device issues, we have folders
- Our yield guy is really really organized, so he set up a system for tracking yield and failure analysis, so several of us adopted his folder system.  Everything in one place.
- For general info, the yield guy also created a centralized table - this was really great (for example, etch rates of every thing we etch on every tool)

The system is only as good as the people who use it.

I do like the idea that a previous person had of using an excel sheet.

I currently struggle with keeping track of all my projects.  I'm a paper person, and I still haven't found a good system on the computer.  And honestly we've laid off so many people that part of the issue is that I have too many projects.

[mm1970]

I highly recommend OneNote. I love that you simply open the system and begin. And there's no need to save-love it! I use it for project management and for my personal yearly goals.

I tried OneNote for about 6 months.  Not sure why, but didn't really work for me. 

[boy_bye]

I highly recommend OneNote. I love that you simply open the system and begin. And there's no need to save-love it! I use it for project management and for my personal yearly goals.

I tried OneNote for about 6 months.  Not sure why, but didn't really work for me.

I kinda gave up on a "productivity system." I just rely on my intuition to determine the next most important thing for me to do and I tend to remember firm deadlines for my deliverables. We communicate mostly by email, so I keep all of them and just search when I need to remember things from the past.

Sounds rather slapdash, I know, but it's worked for me for twenty years (holy shit i have had a grownup job for twenty years) so I guess it's good enough.

[shelivesthedream]

I draw out my own 'month per page' calendar at the back of a medium (slightly larger than A5) Moleskine notebook. That gets all the macro stuff - deadlines, meetings, etc - that is time-based and requires other people. I rarely have more than two things scheduled on one day, but I can see the whole month at a glance when people ask me when I'm free for a meeting. At the front of my notebook is all the misc crap that accumulates - to do lists, project lists, ideas, doodles, jotting down things other people tell me... It has a pocket at the back for any paper other people give me but I don't tend to get or keep a lot of that. It comes everywhere with me when I'm working (freelance, I work from home and on client sites) and all the information goes in it. It's not particularly organised (I don't have an index or anything) but if I want to find something all I have to do is look in the notebook. Simples. When a page is no longer relevant I put a big cross through it so I know I can skip it when flicking through. When I run out of space I buy a new one and transfer any still-needed information to the new one.

[AlwaysLearningToSave]

I highly recommend OneNote. I love that you simply open the system and begin. And there's no need to save-love it! I use it for project management and for my personal yearly goals.

I tried OneNote for about 6 months.  Not sure why, but didn't really work for me.

I agree about OneNote.  I set up a complicated system and thought I'd love it but it fizzled out.  Tried again and it fizzled out again.  It seemed like trying to keep up with the OneNote system was more effort than it was worth.

I have struggled with finding a system to keep track of projects and hope more people chime in with systems that work for them.  I like Meerkat's Excel workbook idea.  That seems like it could hold promise for me.

I also struggle with prioritizing activities and holding myself to one project at a time-- email, visitors, phone calls, etc., easily throw me off and soon I am working on something I hadn't intended to be working on.  Any thoughts with how to deal with that issue would also be appreciated. 

[mm1970]

I highly recommend OneNote. I love that you simply open the system and begin. And there's no need to save-love it! I use it for project management and for my personal yearly goals.

I tried OneNote for about 6 months.  Not sure why, but didn't really work for me.

I kinda gave up on a "productivity system." I just rely on my intuition to determine the next most important thing for me to do and I tend to remember firm deadlines for my deliverables. We communicate mostly by email, so I keep all of them and just search when I need to remember things from the past.

Sounds rather slapdash, I know, but it's worked for me for twenty years (holy shit i have had a grownup job for twenty years) so I guess it's good enough.

Either I'm old (almost 46), or too busy (that's true), or have too much work...

but mostly I need to track things.  I forget things now, because there are too many things...

[boy_bye]

I highly recommend OneNote. I love that you simply open the system and begin. And there's no need to save-love it! I use it for project management and for my personal yearly goals.

I tried OneNote for about 6 months.  Not sure why, but didn't really work for me.

I kinda gave up on a "productivity system." I just rely on my intuition to determine the next most important thing for me to do and I tend to remember firm deadlines for my deliverables. We communicate mostly by email, so I keep all of them and just search when I need to remember things from the past.

Sounds rather slapdash, I know, but it's worked for me for twenty years (holy shit i have had a grownup job for twenty years) so I guess it's good enough.

Either I'm old (almost 46), or too busy (that's true), or have too much work...

but mostly I need to track things.  I forget things now, because there are too many things...

I'm almost as old as you, but I don't have kids and I work from home and my husband does a lot of cooking and housework, so I'm sure I have a lot less going on in general. :)

[GemJedi]

If you have a fire and the insurance adjuster asks if you had gasoline in the area where the fire began, don't just casually say no because nothing comes immediately to mind. Think back to every project you ever had where an oil lamp might have been filled, lighter fluid spills, solvents were used to clean paint brushes, cologne was spilled, work clothes stained with grease or oils. The only reason for this question is because a sample was taken and tested positive for accelerant, but they won't tell you that.

If they ask if you had the only key, they are trying to rule out anyone besides the insured having access. Did you change the locks when you bought the house? Did you get back the key you gave your ex? Do you have a garage door code that has been shared outside the family? Disclose all possibilities to avoid the insurer determining that you were the only one who could have started the fire. Vandalism is covered, intentional acts by the insured are not.

If the insurer wants to repair something that you want replaced, ask yourself if the repaired item is the same kind and quality as an unprepared item. Argue that.

In almost any case where the insurer hires an outside investigator, whether for cause and origin in a fire, or a structural engineer for other losses, they are looking for a basis to deny the claim. Hire your own expert at the same time, and you stand a better chance of heading off an erroneous denial based on a faulty report by an expert (who happens to only get hired by insurers).

Put all communications in writing. Adjusters will lie to your face and tell you something is not covered when in fact it is. They will deny telling you this later. If it is not in writing, it did not happen. People often assume the lie is true and stop asking for that item to be covered. Case closed if it was not in writing and they later deny telling the lie. If you write to the insurer, it goes into your claim file, and it is easier to prove their knowledge of a matter. The written letters in the claim file also establish a timeline for you to argue that the delays are attributable to the insurers actions rather than yours. If you write a letter and the adjuster will not respond in writing and insists on giving a verbal response, write a follow-up letter stating what was the adjuster's response. If they do not deny what you say, then a later reviewing court or jury will believe your recap rather than the insurers denial years later at trial.

After a fire, do not allow cleaning companies to take your fire damaged clothes and other personal property unless:
1-Their contract does not make you liable for unsuccessful cleaning
2-The insurer must state in writing that this costly (upwards of $30,000 some cases) will not count against your limit of coverage in the event the cleaning is unsuccessful. Otherwise the $30,000 will diminish your personal property limit and if your loss puts you at your limit, this attempt to mitigate damages will cost you and not the insurer.
3-Make the cleaning company give you an inventory of what they took immediately. You need this to make a claim for those items in the event it is determined some things were not cleanable.

Fire investigators look for missing expensive items as evidence of pre-knowledge of the fire. If you lose a pet or expensive guns, or family heirlooms, make sure to discuss those things in any recorded statements or examinations under oath or written communications with the insurer. While the insurer has a duty to investigate all facts, often in reality their investigation begins and ends with facts they can twist into denial. Force the good facts into the recored statement or examination under oath so there is a record of your pet dying, or family heirloom loss and how it affected you. If you want to explain something out and the person conducting the examination under oath says you can only answer the questions asked, argue and say on the record that you took an oath to tell the whole truth, and answering their limiting questions is not getting out the whole truth. They will shut up and let you talk. Demand a written transcript so you can make sure the court reporter was accurate and to make sure your answers read correctly. The policy says you have to sit and subscribe to the EUO. Subscribe means to affirm and sign, which you cannot do without the transcript. Your lawyer will appreciate having the transcript if they deny the claim.  Do not answer questions sarcastically, it does not come out the way you think in the transcript. Q. Did you start the fire? A. Yeah, I started the fire. Then I ask the client, why did you say you started the fire? His response was he was being sarcastic, like "yeah right, like I would start a fire."

[Noodle]

I highly recommend OneNote. I love that you simply open the system and begin. And there's no need to save-love it! I use it for project management and for my personal yearly goals.

I tried OneNote for about 6 months.  Not sure why, but didn't really work for me.

I agree about OneNote.  I set up a complicated system and thought I'd love it but it fizzled out.  Tried again and it fizzled out again.  It seemed like trying to keep up with the OneNote system was more effort than it was worth.

I have struggled with finding a system to keep track of projects and hope more people chime in with systems that work for them.  I like Meerkat's Excel workbook idea.  That seems like it could hold promise for me.

I also struggle with prioritizing activities and holding myself to one project at a time-- email, visitors, phone calls, etc., easily throw me off and soon I am working on something I hadn't intended to be working on.  Any thoughts with how to deal with that issue would also be appreciated.

I really like Workflowy for task and project management. I use it as a pretty basic to-do list but it's pretty powerful if you want to get fancier. I also like I Done This for tracking what I actually got done each day (some to-do items might take a few days to complete, so marking items complete on the to-do list doesn't necessarily capture what I do all day.)

In terms of focus, I tend to jump around too so minimizing interruptions is key. One of the best things I ever did was to turn off all the email notifications on my desktop and push email on my phone. I originally did it to keep embarrassing email headers (thanks,  Little Bro!) from popping up when I was presenting to my colleagues, and to keep my battery usage down on my phone, but it really helps me focus. I have gradually trained most of my colleagues to email first and set a time if we need to talk by phone, and that if the office door is closed someone had better be dead if you interrupt me, but otherwise visitors are fine.

[JustGettingStarted1980]

Type II Diabetes is 100% curable for the majority of adults [Note: Type I Diabetes is a different entity altogether]

Move your body daily -> by this I mean walk at least 1 hour a day just for the sake of exercise. If you can jog, do so. If you can run, do so.  If that is too high impact, swim/elliptical/cycling/aerobics is just fine. For an hour.

Avoid carbohydrates like the plague. Drink plenty of water. No sodas or diet sodas. No iced teas, unsweetened teas, or water alternatives. WATER, I repeat, WATER.

Avoid processed foods (anything that comes in a box, bag, or from most restaurants) is EVIL for you.

Cook from scratch. Heck, learn how to cook!

Lose the weight through a combination of the above.

Pharmaceutical companies LOVE Type II Diabetes because instead of curing themselves, patients seek simple "control" of their condition instead, which often requires a LIFETIME of 2 or 3 daily separate medications. This is entirely unnecessary if you take the above steps SERIOUSLY.

Disclaimer: This is not medical advice. This is simply a common sense approach to a very common diagnosis in modern western society.

[thd7t]

Okay, as an engineer...I've counseled a number of new engineers.

1. Listen to the senior engineers.  They (usually) know what they are talking about.
2. Learn time management.
3. Learn how to properly set up an experiment, document, parse and analyze the results, and present them to a "cold body reader".
4. You don't know what you don't know.  As you get more experience, the amount of knowledge you have goes WAY up.  But there's still a lot that you don't know.  Strive to learn it. But be humble.
5. Get a good system for documenting things.  If you don't have one, find someone who does and copy it.  You may think you can just remember stuff.  And maybe you can.  I could.  But...will you remember it 6 months from now?  Will you remember which drive or folder it is on?  And trust me, as you approach 40, you won't be able to remember as much stuff.  A system for remembering things will be essential.  It's been the difference between a successful older engineer and an unsuccessful older engineer.
6.  Don't be a dick.  Someday you might need to get another job.

7.  On learning from bosses - some times, you are going to get a new boss
- Figure out their strengths and weaknesses right away
- Use their knowledge.  If they are very good technically, learn from them.  If they are very organized, learn from them.  If they are very good with people, learn from them.  Don't try to learn organization from someone who isn't organized.
- Choose your bosses wisely.  If given the opportunity for a promotion, look up.  Are you confident in that person's ability to train you in the areas that you are weak?  Will they look after you?  If not, run.
- Don't model yourself after bosses who are jerks.  It's tempting to grab onto the coat tail of someone moving up.  But you never know, the guy might be moving up IN SPITE OF their personality, not because of it (see: don't be a dick)
- Learn which bosses are full of BS.  I wasted 6 months with a new boss, hearing him tell me in meetings how dumb my ideas were (while we struggled with 0 yield), until I woke up one day and realized, WTF? I've been in the industry for 10 years, and he's new to the industry. (Plus, he'd come up with these "great ideas" about 2 weeks after I brought them up.)  So, I just started solving problems on my own and presenting the results.

8. It's easier to get promoted within a company, where they know your skills (generally).  But if you want more money, you will probably have to job hop. It's good.  Gets you out of your comfort zone.  You learn new skills.

That's all I got.  Still need to read through all the others.

Architect, here, but number one applies to many professions. Senior staff have decades more experience than young staff and were usually trained just as well. If they are good, they listen to the young staff, but usually, they already know whatever they're being "taught".

[asiljoy]

I highly recommend OneNote. I love that you simply open the system and begin. And there's no need to save-love it! I use it for project management and for my personal yearly goals.

I tried OneNote for about 6 months.  Not sure why, but didn't really work for me.

I agree about OneNote.  I set up a complicated system and thought I'd love it but it fizzled out.  Tried again and it fizzled out again.  It seemed like trying to keep up with the OneNote system was more effort than it was worth.

I have struggled with finding a system to keep track of projects and hope more people chime in with systems that work for them.  I like Meerkat's Excel workbook idea.  That seems like it could hold promise for me.

I also struggle with prioritizing activities and holding myself to one project at a time-- email, visitors, phone calls, etc., easily throw me off and soon I am working on something I hadn't intended to be working on.  Any thoughts with how to deal with that issue would also be appreciated.

I really like Workflowy for task and project management. I use it as a pretty basic to-do list but it's pretty powerful if you want to get fancier. I also like I Done This for tracking what I actually got done each day (some to-do items might take a few days to complete, so marking items complete on the to-do list doesn't necessarily capture what I do all day.)

In terms of focus, I tend to jump around too so minimizing interruptions is key. One of the best things I ever did was to turn off all the email notifications on my desktop and push email on my phone. I originally did it to keep embarrassing email headers (thanks,  Little Bro!) from popping up when I was presenting to my colleagues, and to keep my battery usage down on my phone, but it really helps me focus. I have gradually trained most of my colleagues to email first and set a time if we need to talk by phone, and that if the office door is closed someone had better be dead if you interrupt me, but otherwise visitors are fine.

OneNote is my jam, but I've found I use it much more at places that use the whole office suite. I'll send emails to it from Outlook, keep notes tied to meetings using the calendar feature, create to-do lists, etc. But I follow a KISS method. 3 tabs. One for to-dos, One for project stuff including an archive, and one for good-to-knows. I don't worry about keeping it super clean because I'm going to be the only one reading it and the search functionality works pretty well. My current work notebook is huge and gross to an outsider, but works well for me.

[GuitarStv]

Type II Diabetes is 100% curable for the majority of adults [Note: Type I Diabetes is a different entity altogether]

Move your body daily -> by this I mean walk at least 1 hour a day just for the sake of exercise. If you can jog, do so. If you can run, do so.  If that is too high impact, swim/elliptical/cycling/aerobics is just fine. For an hour.

Avoid carbohydrates like the plague. Drink plenty of water. No sodas or diet sodas. No iced teas, unsweetened teas, or water alternatives. WATER, I repeat, WATER.

Avoid processed foods (anything that comes in a box, bag, or from most restaurants) is EVIL for you.

Cook from scratch. Heck, learn how to cook!

Lose the weight through a combination of the above.

Pharmaceutical companies LOVE Type II Diabetes because instead of curing themselves, patients seek simple "control" of their condition instead, which often requires a LIFETIME of 2 or 3 daily separate medications. This is entirely unnecessary if you take the above steps SERIOUSLY.

Disclaimer: This is not medical advice. This is simply a common sense approach to a very common diagnosis in modern western society.

Really?  Removing all vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts, dairy, and whole grains from your diet is better?  Because all of these foods are high in carbs.  People often have no idea what they're talking about when they refer to 'carbs'.  I think what you mean is to avoid simple carbohydrates without fiber . . . so stuff like cookies, cake, sweetened drinks, sweeteners in general (sugar, brown sugar, icing sugar, syrups of all kinds, honey), white bread, white rice, etc.

I'm also a little confused about your 'no unsweetened tea' recommendation.  Could you elaborate on that?

[Kitsune]

Type II Diabetes is 100% curable for the majority of adults [Note: Type I Diabetes is a different entity altogether]

Move your body daily -> by this I mean walk at least 1 hour a day just for the sake of exercise. If you can jog, do so. If you can run, do so.  If that is too high impact, swim/elliptical/cycling/aerobics is just fine. For an hour.

Avoid carbohydrates like the plague. Drink plenty of water. No sodas or diet sodas. No iced teas, unsweetened teas, or water alternatives. WATER, I repeat, WATER.

Avoid processed foods (anything that comes in a box, bag, or from most restaurants) is EVIL for you.

Cook from scratch. Heck, learn how to cook!

Lose the weight through a combination of the above.

Pharmaceutical companies LOVE Type II Diabetes because instead of curing themselves, patients seek simple "control" of their condition instead, which often requires a LIFETIME of 2 or 3 daily separate medications. This is entirely unnecessary if you take the above steps SERIOUSLY.

Disclaimer: This is not medical advice. This is simply a common sense approach to a very common diagnosis in modern western society.

Really?  Removing all vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts, dairy, and whole grains from your diet is better?  Because all of these foods are high in carbs.  People often have no idea what they're talking about when they refer to 'carbs'.  I think what you mean is to avoid simple carbohydrates without fiber . . . so stuff like cookies, cake, sweetened drinks, sweeteners in general (sugar, brown sugar, icing sugar, syrups of all kinds, honey), white bread, white rice, etc.

I'm also a little confused about your 'no unsweetened tea' recommendation.  Could you elaborate on that?

Seconding the comment of 'really?', for the above-listed reasons.

What, exactly, is the problem with unsweetened tea? It's STEWED LEAVES.

[Gin1984]

Type II Diabetes is 100% curable for the majority of adults [Note: Type I Diabetes is a different entity altogether]

Move your body daily -> by this I mean walk at least 1 hour a day just for the sake of exercise. If you can jog, do so. If you can run, do so.  If that is too high impact, swim/elliptical/cycling/aerobics is just fine. For an hour.

Avoid carbohydrates like the plague. Drink plenty of water. No sodas or diet sodas. No iced teas, unsweetened teas, or water alternatives. WATER, I repeat, WATER.

Avoid processed foods (anything that comes in a box, bag, or from most restaurants) is EVIL for you.

Cook from scratch. Heck, learn how to cook!

Lose the weight through a combination of the above.

Pharmaceutical companies LOVE Type II Diabetes because instead of curing themselves, patients seek simple "control" of their condition instead, which often requires a LIFETIME of 2 or 3 daily separate medications. This is entirely unnecessary if you take the above steps SERIOUSLY.

Disclaimer: This is not medical advice. This is simply a common sense approach to a very common diagnosis in modern western society.

Really?  Removing all vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts, dairy, and whole grains from your diet is better?  Because all of these foods are high in carbs.  People often have no idea what they're talking about when they refer to 'carbs'.  I think what you mean is to avoid simple carbohydrates without fiber . . . so stuff like cookies, cake, sweetened drinks, sweeteners in general (sugar, brown sugar, icing sugar, syrups of all kinds, honey), white bread, white rice, etc.

I'm also a little confused about your 'no unsweetened tea' recommendation.  Could you elaborate on that?

Seconding the comment of 'really?', for the above-listed reasons.

What, exactly, is the problem with unsweetened tea? It's STEWED LEAVES.

I assume the issue is that it has caffeine.  Unsweetened tea in the south is iced black tea which has caffeine.

[JustGettingStarted1980]

Type II Diabetes is 100% curable for the majority of adults [Note: Type I Diabetes is a different entity altogether]

Move your body daily -> by this I mean walk at least 1 hour a day just for the sake of exercise. If you can jog, do so. If you can run, do so.  If that is too high impact, swim/elliptical/cycling/aerobics is just fine. For an hour.

Avoid carbohydrates like the plague. Drink plenty of water. No sodas or diet sodas. No iced teas, unsweetened teas, or water alternatives. WATER, I repeat, WATER.

Avoid processed foods (anything that comes in a box, bag, or from most restaurants) is EVIL for you.

Cook from scratch. Heck, learn how to cook!

Lose the weight through a combination of the above.

Pharmaceutical companies LOVE Type II Diabetes because instead of curing themselves, patients seek simple "control" of their condition instead, which often requires a LIFETIME of 2 or 3 daily separate medications. This is entirely unnecessary if you take the above steps SERIOUSLY.

Disclaimer: This is not medical advice. This is simply a common sense approach to a very common diagnosis in modern western society.

Really?  Removing all vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts, dairy, and whole grains from your diet is better?  Because all of these foods are high in carbs.  People often have no idea what they're talking about when they refer to 'carbs'.  I think what you mean is to avoid simple carbohydrates without fiber . . . so stuff like cookies, cake, sweetened drinks, sweeteners in general (sugar, brown sugar, icing sugar, syrups of all kinds, honey), white bread, white rice, etc.

I'm also a little confused about your 'no unsweetened tea' recommendation.  Could you elaborate on that?

Yes, you hit the nail on the head with your description of which "simple carbs" to avoid. And I think you understood perfectly well what I meant (really? who thinks of vegetables as "carbs").

In regards to unsweetened teas/caffeine/fluids you put in your body that are not water. My point is that WATER is what your body needs, not all these alternatives to water.  I know folks that drink 6-7 cups of coffee per day, or 5-7 cups of tea or what-not, and the end result is the caffeine messes with your metabolism, your water balance, in ways that aren't all that healthy.

In regards to simple stewed tea leaves vs unsweetened processed tea in a bottle or juice-box, please refer to my comments on "processed foods" above. No offense intended to simple cup of traditional tea with water :)

[Kitsune]

Type II Diabetes is 100% curable for the majority of adults [Note: Type I Diabetes is a different entity altogether]

Move your body daily -> by this I mean walk at least 1 hour a day just for the sake of exercise. If you can jog, do so. If you can run, do so.  If that is too high impact, swim/elliptical/cycling/aerobics is just fine. For an hour.

Avoid carbohydrates like the plague. Drink plenty of water. No sodas or diet sodas. No iced teas, unsweetened teas, or water alternatives. WATER, I repeat, WATER.

Avoid processed foods (anything that comes in a box, bag, or from most restaurants) is EVIL for you.

Cook from scratch. Heck, learn how to cook!

Lose the weight through a combination of the above.

Pharmaceutical companies LOVE Type II Diabetes because instead of curing themselves, patients seek simple "control" of their condition instead, which often requires a LIFETIME of 2 or 3 daily separate medications. This is entirely unnecessary if you take the above steps SERIOUSLY.

Disclaimer: This is not medical advice. This is simply a common sense approach to a very common diagnosis in modern western society.

Really?  Removing all vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts, dairy, and whole grains from your diet is better?  Because all of these foods are high in carbs.  People often have no idea what they're talking about when they refer to 'carbs'.  I think what you mean is to avoid simple carbohydrates without fiber . . . so stuff like cookies, cake, sweetened drinks, sweeteners in general (sugar, brown sugar, icing sugar, syrups of all kinds, honey), white bread, white rice, etc.

I'm also a little confused about your 'no unsweetened tea' recommendation.  Could you elaborate on that?

Yes, you hit the nail on the head with your description of which "simple carbs" to avoid. And I think you understood perfectly well what I meant (really? who thinks of vegetables as "carbs").

In regards to unsweetened teas/caffeine/fluids you put in your body that are not water. My point is that WATER is what your body needs, not all these alternatives to water.  I know folks that drink 6-7 cups of coffee per day, or 5-7 cups of tea or what-not, and the end result is the caffeine messes with your metabolism, your water balance, in ways that aren't all that healthy.

In regards to simple stewed tea leaves vs unsweetened processed tea in a bottle or juice-box, please refer to my comments on "processed foods" above. No offense intended to simple cup of traditional tea with water :)

Enh. I don't like water a lot (uninspiring to drink, so I drink less of it than I should) but I love fresh (unsweetened!) mint tea, or iced mint tea. I'm also a big fan of the 2pm cup of earl grey, because I swear, it's therapeutic. Oh, and infused water is fantastic - pour cold water over fruit trimmings (strawberry hulls actually work really well for this, with fresh mint) or herbs, or a slice or two of ginger, or a few slices of lemon, or whatever, and you wind up with a lightly flavored beverage that's completely unsweetened  but tasty.

I will agree with you that bottled iced tea tastes like crap. And the unsweetened kind tastes like it's trying to strip off your tastebuds. Blech. *shudder*

[CheapskateWife]

- On water, what are some of your experts thoughts on PEX?  We installed it when we remodeled my house.  Any health risks? At the time the conventional wisdom was that it was ok.

I am pro-PEX. I'm not anti-copper, but PEX doesn't have a lot of downsides for a big cost differential.

The only possible anti-PEX thing I have seen:  Rats love the stuff.  I don't know if it is the material it is made of or if they're able to sense water inside.  My uncle had to re-plumb his entire house.  PEX was fully chewed through every 2-3 feet throughout the entire system.  But it is super easy to work with and you can do really long runs without stopping to make a joint.

My folks had a contamination issue with their PEX in an under-sink installation.  The sink in question was installed in the center of an island, and therefore involved a penetration through the slab.  Pest control company came through and treated for termites around perimeter and at all slab penetrations.  The chemical treatment for the termites was placed in the cavity around the PEX and the tubing absorbed the chemical, thus contaminating the water that came through the PEX to the faucet.  Over time the concentration has dissipated but they still have regular testing done once a year to determine if the water is now safe to use.  5 years later, and it is still testing hot.

[GuitarStv]

Type II Diabetes is 100% curable for the majority of adults [Note: Type I Diabetes is a different entity altogether]

Move your body daily -> by this I mean walk at least 1 hour a day just for the sake of exercise. If you can jog, do so. If you can run, do so.  If that is too high impact, swim/elliptical/cycling/aerobics is just fine. For an hour.

Avoid carbohydrates like the plague. Drink plenty of water. No sodas or diet sodas. No iced teas, unsweetened teas, or water alternatives. WATER, I repeat, WATER.

Avoid processed foods (anything that comes in a box, bag, or from most restaurants) is EVIL for you.

Cook from scratch. Heck, learn how to cook!

Lose the weight through a combination of the above.

Pharmaceutical companies LOVE Type II Diabetes because instead of curing themselves, patients seek simple "control" of their condition instead, which often requires a LIFETIME of 2 or 3 daily separate medications. This is entirely unnecessary if you take the above steps SERIOUSLY.

Disclaimer: This is not medical advice. This is simply a common sense approach to a very common diagnosis in modern western society.

Really?  Removing all vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts, dairy, and whole grains from your diet is better?  Because all of these foods are high in carbs.  People often have no idea what they're talking about when they refer to 'carbs'.  I think what you mean is to avoid simple carbohydrates without fiber . . . so stuff like cookies, cake, sweetened drinks, sweeteners in general (sugar, brown sugar, icing sugar, syrups of all kinds, honey), white bread, white rice, etc.

I'm also a little confused about your 'no unsweetened tea' recommendation.  Could you elaborate on that?

Yes, you hit the nail on the head with your description of which "simple carbs" to avoid. And I think you understood perfectly well what I meant (really? who thinks of vegetables as "carbs").

People who know what carbohydrates are.  :P

Specifically, you're concerned about simple carbs without fiber.  Fruits and vegetables are made up of simple carbs, but the inclusion of fiber changes the way your body processes them.

Carbs, fat, protein . . . there are the fundamental building blocks of nutrition.  Saying that one of them is bad for you is like saying that you should give up breathing for health (because some air might contain pollution).  Don't suck on a tailpipe, but keep breathing regularly.  In the same way . . . don't suck down processed sweets, but keep eating plenty of carbs.

[Spork]

- On water, what are some of your experts thoughts on PEX?  We installed it when we remodeled my house.  Any health risks? At the time the conventional wisdom was that it was ok.

I am pro-PEX. I'm not anti-copper, but PEX doesn't have a lot of downsides for a big cost differential.

The only possible anti-PEX thing I have seen:  Rats love the stuff.  I don't know if it is the material it is made of or if they're able to sense water inside.  My uncle had to re-plumb his entire house.  PEX was fully chewed through every 2-3 feet throughout the entire system.  But it is super easy to work with and you can do really long runs without stopping to make a joint.

My folks had a contamination issue with their PEX in an under-sink installation.  The sink in question was installed in the center of an island, and therefore involved a penetration through the slab.  Pest control company came through and treated for termites around perimeter and at all slab penetrations.  The chemical treatment for the termites was placed in the cavity around the PEX and the tubing absorbed the chemical, thus contaminating the water that came through the PEX to the faucet.  Over time the concentration has dissipated but they still have regular testing done once a year to determine if the water is now safe to use.  5 years later, and it is still testing hot.

I am totally not a plumber and don't really know code... but I thought you were not supposed to use PEX for slab penetrations.  I.e, I have normally seen it tied to copper for the underground portions.  But: good to know that PEX can absorb/pass chemicals.

[Miss Prim]

Retired microbiologist here.  You have what's called normal flora on and in your body.  This is the normal to you bacteria that you carry that is important to keep as normal as possible.  Antibiotics should be used sparingly because it can change your normal flora.  Don't insist on an antibiotic if your Dr. doesn't think you need it. 

If you think you have the 'flu, get to the emergency room or urgent care.  They will order a 'flu test and depending what type it is, they can prescribe Tamiflu or one of the other antivirals that works for your type of 'flu.  You must get it within 48 hours of developing symptoms and it will make your symptoms less severe.  Also, I would recommend getting a 'flu shot every year.  It may not prevent you from getting the 'flu, because it is an educated guess as to what will be circulating from the previous years 'flu, but it can help with the severity of the 'flu if you get it.

I never use soaps with anti-bacterials in them because I feel this contributes to antibiotic resistance.    Remember, you want to keep your normal flora normal.  Just be sure and wash your hands fairly often and don't touch your face, especially your eyes.  My dad just died from septicemia due to cellulitis of the face probably because he had dementia and allergies and was always rubbing his eyes.  With that said, he was 84 and I'm sure his immune system was not good.  Don't worry unnecessarily about getting bacterial infections if you are not immunocomprimised.  People are so scared about superbugs and they are present, but most of the people that get them have been in a hospital or nursing home and their immune systems are low either due to age or other diseases.  Still, you have to be vigilant about anything that looks like it could be infected, meaning swelling and redness of a wound that extends out or a high fever with or without a stiff neck. 

I am not a Doctor, but these are just some of the observations I have made over the years in my field.  Don't take this as medical advice.  And,  have your kids vaccinated!  We were seeing a rise in Pertussis because of anti-vaxers and don't believe what you read on the internet.  You do not want your kids to have these diseases anymore. 

                                                                                                        Miss Prim

[CheapskateWife]

I am totally not a plumber and don't really know code... but I thought you were not supposed to use PEX for slab penetrations.  I.e, I have normally seen it tied to copper for the underground portions.  But: good to know that PEX can absorb/pass chemicals.

It is entirely possible that you are correct about the PEX not being permitted in that application.  Its going to be a very expensive problem to fix.  Just wanted to share their lesson learned so others wouldn't make the same mistake. 

[RedmondStash]

Great thread.

Professional writer and editor here.

For fiction: You have the right to change your contract before you sign it. Your publisher has the right not to agree to your changes. Keep an eye out for any clauses that make you liable for costs that *would be* incurred, instead of that *are* incurred, because that "would be" conditional phrase can mean that if someone sues the publisher about your work, the publisher can settle with them and make you foot the bill even if you would have won the case had it gone to court. Don't be so desperate and intimidated that you'll sign anything; do read over your contract seriously, and find online resources to help you parse and interpret it. A lot of contracts have really heinous clauses benefiting the publisher. You can even write up your own contract and send it to the publisher instead of taking the one they sent you. Again, they can turn it down or modify it. And also make sure there's a good reversion-of-rights clause, so the publisher doesn't just automatically hold rights to your work forever.

For resumes: If you're not a professional editor, hire one, or bribe an editor friend to look over your resume. There are tons of potential grammatical mistakes and structural inconsistencies that most people are unaware of. A good editor will catch and fix those.

For freelance contract work: You can modify contracts with agencies too. You can modify any contract that's put in front of you, before you sign it. The agency has the right to refuse your changes, so there is a risk that the contract will fall through. But they want you to make money for them, and it puts them in a bad position to have to tell a hiring manager who wants you that negotiations fell through, so you're in a stronger position than you realize. The big change I make to all my freelance contracts is crossing out any non-compete clauses that stipulate that I can't work for the client through another agency for X amount of time after the contract has ended, even though the agency does not guarantee me work after the contract has ended. Basically, they're trying to limit my future employment opportunities without offering me anything in return. The agency reps always get alarmed when I cross out that clause, and fuss about how I can't do that, but I always do it, and I always win in the end.

[boy_bye]

Following on from what I wrote above ... at work, there's no need to jump on every single task someone asks you to do. This is how people end up working 12 hours days and hating their lives. I have found that it works far better to focus on things that you know to be important, and either let others do the other tasks or just let them go undone. Just because someone in your company thinks it's important, doesn't mean it's important. Once you reach a certain point in your career, you should be deciding this for yourself.

Also, don't wait for your boss to notice how hard you've been working and ask for a raise. You need to advocate for yourself. That includes taking all your vacation days, leaving the office on time, and basically taking the freedom you want rather than waiting for someone to give it to you. If you are excellent at your job you will totally get away with it.

(I wrote more about this here on my blog: Career Planning With Your Middle Finger.)

[merula]

If you have a fire and the insurance adjuster asks if you had gasoline in the area where the fire began, don't just casually say no because nothing comes immediately to mind. Think back to every project you ever had where an oil lamp might have been filled, lighter fluid spills, solvents were used to clean paint brushes, cologne was spilled, work clothes stained with grease or oils. The only reason for this question is because a sample was taken and tested positive for accelerant, but they won't tell you that.

If they ask if you had the only key, they are trying to rule out anyone besides the insured having access. Did you change the locks when you bought the house? Did you get back the key you gave your ex? Do you have a garage door code that has been shared outside the family? Disclose all possibilities to avoid the insurer determining that you were the only one who could have started the fire. Vandalism is covered, intentional acts by the insured are not.

If the insurer wants to repair something that you want replaced, ask yourself if the repaired item is the same kind and quality as an unprepared item. Argue that.

In almost any case where the insurer hires an outside investigator, whether for cause and origin in a fire, or a structural engineer for other losses, they are looking for a basis to deny the claim. Hire your own expert at the same time, and you stand a better chance of heading off an erroneous denial based on a faulty report by an expert (who happens to only get hired by insurers).

Put all communications in writing. Adjusters will lie to your face and tell you something is not covered when in fact it is. They will deny telling you this later. If it is not in writing, it did not happen. People often assume the lie is true and stop asking for that item to be covered. Case closed if it was not in writing and they later deny telling the lie. If you write to the insurer, it goes into your claim file, and it is easier to prove their knowledge of a matter. The written letters in the claim file also establish a timeline for you to argue that the delays are attributable to the insurers actions rather than yours. If you write a letter and the adjuster will not respond in writing and insists on giving a verbal response, write a follow-up letter stating what was the adjuster's response. If they do not deny what you say, then a later reviewing court or jury will believe your recap rather than the insurers denial years later at trial.

After a fire, do not allow cleaning companies to take your fire damaged clothes and other personal property unless:
1-Their contract does not make you liable for unsuccessful cleaning
2-The insurer must state in writing that this costly (upwards of $30,000 some cases) will not count against your limit of coverage in the event the cleaning is unsuccessful. Otherwise the $30,000 will diminish your personal property limit and if your loss puts you at your limit, this attempt to mitigate damages will cost you and not the insurer.
3-Make the cleaning company give you an inventory of what they took immediately. You need this to make a claim for those items in the event it is determined some things were not cleanable.

Fire investigators look for missing expensive items as evidence of pre-knowledge of the fire. If you lose a pet or expensive guns, or family heirlooms, make sure to discuss those things in any recorded statements or examinations under oath or written communications with the insurer. While the insurer has a duty to investigate all facts, often in reality their investigation begins and ends with facts they can twist into denial. Force the good facts into the recored statement or examination under oath so there is a record of your pet dying, or family heirloom loss and how it affected you. If you want to explain something out and the person conducting the examination under oath says you can only answer the questions asked, argue and say on the record that you took an oath to tell the whole truth, and answering their limiting questions is not getting out the whole truth. They will shut up and let you talk. Demand a written transcript so you can make sure the court reporter was accurate and to make sure your answers read correctly. The policy says you have to sit and subscribe to the EUO. Subscribe means to affirm and sign, which you cannot do without the transcript. Your lawyer will appreciate having the transcript if they deny the claim.  Do not answer questions sarcastically, it does not come out the way you think in the transcript. Q. Did you start the fire? A. Yeah, I started the fire. Then I ask the client, why did you say you started the fire? His response was he was being sarcastic, like "yeah right, like I would start a fire."

Hi GemJedi. Are you in Claims, or did you just have a really really bad experience? (Either way, from an insurance person, I'm sorry.)

I agree with your general advice to be as complete as possible with your communication with the insurance company, but it's not because they're all trying to cheat you. Denying a claim in bad faith is a heck of a lot more expensive in terms of money and reputation than just paying it.

On the part I bolded, claims adjusters are human, they generally have a really large case load, and they are more often than not trying to interpret a legal contract without a law degree. They're going to make mistakes. It's easy to remember a time when their mistake was in the company's favor, but I've also seen errors in the insured's favor. Like, a lot of them. As an example, I (as an underwriter) got called into my manager's office to explain why my account had a $100,000 loss from peril X. "I have no idea; I put a Peril X exclusion on the policy." Claims adjuster had paid the loss without realizing Peril X was excluded, and closed the file.

This goes back to my earlier advice to read your policy. If your claims adjuster tells you something isn't covered, ask them to tell you where in the policy it says that. Then read the policy yourself and see if there's anything in another part that changes that. (Or, if you don't want to do this yourself, hire a coverage attorney, but those are expensive.)

[AlwaysLearningToSave]

I highly recommend OneNote. I love that you simply open the system and begin. And there's no need to save-love it! I use it for project management and for my personal yearly goals.

I tried OneNote for about 6 months.  Not sure why, but didn't really work for me.

I agree about OneNote.  I set up a complicated system and thought I'd love it but it fizzled out.  Tried again and it fizzled out again.  It seemed like trying to keep up with the OneNote system was more effort than it was worth.

I have struggled with finding a system to keep track of projects and hope more people chime in with systems that work for them.  I like Meerkat's Excel workbook idea.  That seems like it could hold promise for me.

I also struggle with prioritizing activities and holding myself to one project at a time-- email, visitors, phone calls, etc., easily throw me off and soon I am working on something I hadn't intended to be working on.  Any thoughts with how to deal with that issue would also be appreciated.

I really like Workflowy for task and project management. I use it as a pretty basic to-do list but it's pretty powerful if you want to get fancier. I also like I Done This for tracking what I actually got done each day (some to-do items might take a few days to complete, so marking items complete on the to-do list doesn't necessarily capture what I do all day.)

In terms of focus, I tend to jump around too so minimizing interruptions is key. One of the best things I ever did was to turn off all the email notifications on my desktop and push email on my phone. I originally did it to keep embarrassing email headers (thanks,  Little Bro!) from popping up when I was presenting to my colleagues, and to keep my battery usage down on my phone, but it really helps me focus. I have gradually trained most of my colleagues to email first and set a time if we need to talk by phone, and that if the office door is closed someone had better be dead if you interrupt me, but otherwise visitors are fine.

OneNote is my jam, but I've found I use it much more at places that use the whole office suite. I'll send emails to it from Outlook, keep notes tied to meetings using the calendar feature, create to-do lists, etc. But I follow a KISS method. 3 tabs. One for to-dos, One for project stuff including an archive, and one for good-to-knows. I don't worry about keeping it super clean because I'm going to be the only one reading it and the search functionality works pretty well. My current work notebook is huge and gross to an outsider, but works well for me.

Perhaps my problem with One Note was that I didn't KISS.  Too many tabs, etc., made it hard to get a whole-forest picture of my workload.

I've started looking at Work Flowy and so far I like it.  Thanks for the recommendation!  It seems more intuitive than OneNote and the way it nests pages is appealing to me.  If you want to see the forest you can zoom out a few levels and if you want to see the trees, you can zoom in.  I think using @tags and #tags plus search feature will help me KISS-- they will replace the need for the too-many tabs and pages I needed in OneNote.  I hope Work Flowy is the answer I've been looking for!

[With This Herring]

As a short-time (6 years in public accounting) CPA who has done a lot of taxes:

• DON'T DAYTRADE PARTNERSHIPS IN YOUR TAXABLE ACCOUNT!  ANYTHING WITH "LP," "LLP," OR "MLP" IN THE NAME SHOULD BE BUY-AND-HOLD ONLY.  If you have a broker who trades for you, tell him these things are off the table for short-term turn-arounds!  Each partnership you hold at any point during the year generates a Form K-1 that must be included in your tax return.  Some software can import them if you download them from the internet, but not all can.  Any partnership you sell during the year must have each sale that was reported by your broker on the 1099-B MANUALLY ADJUSTED by using numbers from inside the K-1.  It is a pain in the behind.  If you bought and sold 20 partnerships in a year, that can add multiple hours of time to the preparation of your return.
• I've also heard that you shouldn't casually buy partnerships with your retirement accounts, as they are not considered true stocks (even if they are publicly traded), and you could face tax issues.  I have not dealt with this personally, though, so just do your research before making this kind of investment in a retirement account.
• Throw all your envelopes that come in with "IMPORTANT TAX INFORMATION" on them into a box labeled "TAXES" and save it for your tax prep.  If you have someone else prepare your taxes, they will want ALL pages of the 1099-Combined, not just the first page with the dividend summary on it.  Don't lose your W-2, and don't lose your 1099s.
• Don't go to H&R Block or Liberty Tax for tax prep.  They just don't train their staff well enough to make sure you end up with a halfway accurate return unless yours is dead simple (in which case you are better off doing it online for free).
• Even though you have a CPA/family friend/IRS-registered preparer do your taxes, YOU will be the one who is responsible for the accuracy of the return and for any extra taxes and penalties if it is botched up.  Don't encourage the preparer to fudge your deductions to reduce your taxes (or lie outright to the preparer about them).  The preparer can help you talk to the IRS, but they won't end up penalized unless the government catches them in a pattern of preparing bad returns.  Look through your return before it is filed to see if you understand where the numbers originate (Does that wage number look right?  What about that interest income?).
• If you aren't going to prepare your own taxes and don't understand it well enough to look over someone else's work and say "yeah, that's decent," try to go somewhere with more than one person so that they can check each other's work.  Tax Season is a stressful time, and mistakes happen for the best of preparers.
• While the CPA exams are a pain to pass, don't assume that every CPA knows what he/she is doing.  Testing is no substitute for good, long experience and problem-solving ability.  I have met incompetents with the CPA license.
• If you own a business, even if it is incorporated, the government will come after you personally for unpaid employment taxes, especially those you withheld from your employees' paychecks.  This is one of the things that will pierce the corporate veil and put your personal assets on the line.  You can cheat your vendors like a scumbag and then just let your business go bankrupt, but Uncle Sam will collect his due.
• If you own a small business and your business accountant does not prepare your personal returns, you must tell your accountant if your spouse has a separate business.  For Obamacare purposes, the two businesses must be combined to consider if you are good on employee health insurance or need to pay a penalty.

As someone who worked at an office:

• If you are sending communications outside the office and you know that your grammar and spelling are not consistently excellent, have someone who DOES have those skills proofread what you send out, especially for really important stuff.  "I respectively request that you consider our proposal," does NOT mean what you think it does, and the spell-checker on the computer won't catch that wrong word.  If you are sending out a major report, have someone else check it no matter how good you are.
• For bosses: If one person is consistently slacking at work, spending hours doing nothing (a week reorganizing their office?  When everyone else takes minutes?), and actively INCREASING the work burden on others, please just fire that person.  Don't give them six more months, don't hold them "until the end of Tax Season," don't try bumping them from project to project so that someone else has to deal with them...  Just can them.  That person drags down the entire office.  Why do the rest of us work 55 hours a week when that person is visibly playing computer games, engaging in long personal calls, and falling asleep?  When you haven't fired this person, the rest of us are assuming that you have been blackmailed.
• If someone else has been signing off your name on work as completed, start keeping a record of every time you see it.  You don't know when you might need it.

General:

• From talking to a friend who worked at one, never go to a place that primarily does quick oil changes, even for oil changes.  He had so many stories ranging from oil drained and not replaced to other parts of the vehicle being broken by workers and no one told the vehicle owner.
• For students and test-takers: Get a good night's sleep of eight-plus hours EVERY NIGHT before school/class/tests.  Not just on the night before the test, but on the night before any school day.  When you are well-rested, you learn during class and you don't need to study nearly as much to get the material down for the test.  You will be better at concentrating to solve problems as well.  If you have a lot of after-school activities that are keeping you up late, quit them or cut them down as much as you can.
• For knitters and crocheters: Go right ahead and rip those rows out if you botched them up.  It helps to stick a twist tie or something through the place you want to stop ripping first, however.

Thank you to all the IT people saying "Seriously, make backups!  And keep your main using profile and admin profile separate!"  I needed this reminder.

*snip*

I have struggled with finding a system to keep track of projects and hope more people chime in with systems that work for them.  I like Meerkat's Excel workbook idea.  That seems like it could hold promise for me.

I also struggle with prioritizing activities and holding myself to one project at a time-- email, visitors, phone calls, etc., easily throw me off and soon I am working on something I hadn't intended to be working on.  Any thoughts with how to deal with that issue would also be appreciated.

At my old accounting firm, I used to keep an Excel workbook.  The main tab was a full list of all clients my main boss had in column 1, client ID #s in column 2, columns for current project, project deadline, notes on current project, notes on client, whether their return was already extended, to whom I had delegated work, etc.  Setting this up as a table meant that I could quickly sort for related clients, nearest deadlines, stage of project, etc.  When I might have current work going for 20 - 40 clients (including little individual returns during Tax Season, so not as big an issue as it sounds), this helped me keep track of on which of the many doctors' returns we were missing property tax information for his vacation home.

Other tabs included:

• More detailed notes on projects and clients that had odd stuff happen
• List of client tax return years that were good examples of how to deal with X complicated form or situation
• General to-do list of odd items that didn't neatly fit under one client

Also, if I had clients who regularly forgot to do time-sensitive things (such as taking inventory at December 31), I set recurring reminders on my Outlook calendar to tell them to do those things.  Reminders were also helpful for odd tax forms that did not fit neatly into the normal filing schedules.

For others demanding your time: I found it helpful for my timesheet to write down the exact time as soon as the phone rang or admin said "Mr. Bob is here to see you."

I would tend to prioritize projects by deadline, but I would sometimes bump up small projects (just to get them off my plate), and I would make sure to request needed info early for all projects.

[Kris]

Type II Diabetes is 100% curable for the majority of adults [Note: Type I Diabetes is a different entity altogether]

Move your body daily -> by this I mean walk at least 1 hour a day just for the sake of exercise. If you can jog, do so. If you can run, do so.  If that is too high impact, swim/elliptical/cycling/aerobics is just fine. For an hour.

Avoid carbohydrates like the plague. Drink plenty of water. No sodas or diet sodas. No iced teas, unsweetened teas, or water alternatives. WATER, I repeat, WATER.

Avoid processed foods (anything that comes in a box, bag, or from most restaurants) is EVIL for you.

Cook from scratch. Heck, learn how to cook!

Lose the weight through a combination of the above.

Pharmaceutical companies LOVE Type II Diabetes because instead of curing themselves, patients seek simple "control" of their condition instead, which often requires a LIFETIME of 2 or 3 daily separate medications. This is entirely unnecessary if you take the above steps SERIOUSLY.

Disclaimer: This is not medical advice. This is simply a common sense approach to a very common diagnosis in modern western society.

Really?  Removing all vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts, dairy, and whole grains from your diet is better?  Because all of these foods are high in carbs.  People often have no idea what they're talking about when they refer to 'carbs'.  I think what you mean is to avoid simple carbohydrates without fiber . . . so stuff like cookies, cake, sweetened drinks, sweeteners in general (sugar, brown sugar, icing sugar, syrups of all kinds, honey), white bread, white rice, etc.

I'm also a little confused about your 'no unsweetened tea' recommendation.  Could you elaborate on that?

Exactly.  Avoid refined carbs.  But not all carbs are equal.

[asiljoy]

I highly recommend OneNote. I love that you simply open the system and begin. And there's no need to save-love it! I use it for project management and for my personal yearly goals.

I tried OneNote for about 6 months.  Not sure why, but didn't really work for me.

I agree about OneNote.  I set up a complicated system and thought I'd love it but it fizzled out.  Tried again and it fizzled out again.  It seemed like trying to keep up with the OneNote system was more effort than it was worth.

I have struggled with finding a system to keep track of projects and hope more people chime in with systems that work for them.  I like Meerkat's Excel workbook idea.  That seems like it could hold promise for me.

I also struggle with prioritizing activities and holding myself to one project at a time-- email, visitors, phone calls, etc., easily throw me off and soon I am working on something I hadn't intended to be working on.  Any thoughts with how to deal with that issue would also be appreciated.

I really like Workflowy for task and project management. I use it as a pretty basic to-do list but it's pretty powerful if you want to get fancier. I also like I Done This for tracking what I actually got done each day (some to-do items might take a few days to complete, so marking items complete on the to-do list doesn't necessarily capture what I do all day.)

In terms of focus, I tend to jump around too so minimizing interruptions is key. One of the best things I ever did was to turn off all the email notifications on my desktop and push email on my phone. I originally did it to keep embarrassing email headers (thanks,  Little Bro!) from popping up when I was presenting to my colleagues, and to keep my battery usage down on my phone, but it really helps me focus. I have gradually trained most of my colleagues to email first and set a time if we need to talk by phone, and that if the office door is closed someone had better be dead if you interrupt me, but otherwise visitors are fine.

OneNote is my jam, but I've found I use it much more at places that use the whole office suite. I'll send emails to it from Outlook, keep notes tied to meetings using the calendar feature, create to-do lists, etc. But I follow a KISS method. 3 tabs. One for to-dos, One for project stuff including an archive, and one for good-to-knows. I don't worry about keeping it super clean because I'm going to be the only one reading it and the search functionality works pretty well. My current work notebook is huge and gross to an outsider, but works well for me.

Perhaps my problem with One Note was that I didn't KISS.  Too many tabs, etc., made it hard to get a whole-forest picture of my workload.

I've started looking at Work Flowy and so far I like it.  Thanks for the recommendation!  It seems more intuitive than OneNote and the way it nests pages is appealing to me.  If you want to see the forest you can zoom out a few levels and if you want to see the trees, you can zoom in.  I think using @tags and #tags plus search feature will help me KISS-- they will replace the need for the too-many tabs and pages I needed in OneNote.  I hope Work Flowy is the answer I've been looking for!

Haven't used Work Flowy, and at risk of sounding like a salesman, but OneNote has tags. It comes with a bunch of defaults, but you can add your own too.

[FLBiker]

Following on from what I wrote above ... at work, there's no need to jump on every single task someone asks you to do. This is how people end up working 12 hours days and hating their lives. I have found that it works far better to focus on things that you know to be important, and either let others do the other tasks or just let them go undone. Just because someone in your company thinks it's important, doesn't mean it's important. Once you reach a certain point in your career, you should be deciding this for yourself.

Also, don't wait for your boss to notice how hard you've been working and ask for a raise. You need to advocate for yourself. That includes taking all your vacation days, leaving the office on time, and basically taking the freedom you want rather than waiting for someone to give it to you. If you are excellent at your job you will totally get away with it.

Both great pieces of advice.  I heard someone say recently than when I work on things coming to me via email (rather than my own todo list), I'm working on someone else's priorities.

And I am very careful about taking time off / leaving on time.  Just this morning, two people were in my office, talking about a meeting we need to have.  Someone suggested Friday at 4:30, and I asked how long they expected the meeting to be.  We're meeting Tuesday @ 10.  It's absolutely not a can't-wait type issue.

[lemanfan]

For freelance contract work: You can modify contracts with agencies too. You can modify any contract that's put in front of you, before you sign it. The agency has the right to refuse your changes, so there is a risk that the contract will fall through. But they want you to make money for them, and it puts them in a bad position to have to tell a hiring manager who wants you that negotiations fell through, so you're in a stronger position than you realize. The big change I make to all my freelance contracts is crossing out any non-compete clauses that stipulate that I can't work for the client through another agency for X amount of time after the contract has ended, even though the agency does not guarantee me work after the contract has ended. Basically, they're trying to limit my future employment opportunities without offering me anything in return. The agency reps always get alarmed when I cross out that clause, and fuss about how I can't do that, but I always do it, and I always win in the end.

The bolded part is actually true in most negotiations - usually the counterpart is under some kind of pressure to complete the deal - bosses, spouses, their own ego... there is almost always room to adjust the deal to be fair.

[GreenSheep]

Also, don't wait for your boss to notice how hard you've been working and ask for a raise. You need to advocate for yourself. That includes taking all your vacation days, leaving the office on time, and basically taking the freedom you want rather than waiting for someone to give it to you. If you are excellent at your job you will totally get away with it.

It's sad that it's come to this... people who leave work on time and take their allotted vacation days are "getting away with it." I have several friends in the business/engineering/consulting world who don't seem to think that it's possible to NOT answer emails after hours or on the weekend or to leave work on time. And the idea of taking a vacation makes them cringe because of all the prep work and all the make-up work before and after. Sad.

[Kitsune]

Also, don't wait for your boss to notice how hard you've been working and ask for a raise. You need to advocate for yourself. That includes taking all your vacation days, leaving the office on time, and basically taking the freedom you want rather than waiting for someone to give it to you. If you are excellent at your job you will totally get away with it.

It's sad that it's come to this... people who leave work on time and take their allotted vacation days are "getting away with it." I have several friends in the business/engineering/consulting world who don't seem to think that it's possible to NOT answer emails after hours or on the weekend or to leave work on time. And the idea of taking a vacation makes them cringe because of all the prep work and all the make-up work before and after. Sad.

I had a colleague tell me that at an old job ('You used all your vacation?? I can't believe you get away with that' is more or less a direct quote). And I just looked at him blankly and was like 'it's part of my compensation package. I'm not getting away with anything; it's what we negotiated and what is actually owed to me. Any vacation time I don't use is an un-negotiated gift to the company, and if I wanted to give the company my resources, I'd buy stock'. This was in hearing of a few other people.

Miraculously, that year, people in my department actually took all their vacation. The world didn't end. Sometimes, people just need their perspective re-calibrated.

[GreenSheep]

One thing that has helped me in several areas of life is the idea of small, deliberate changes that build on themselves. Here are a couple of examples, but it can apply to so many other things in life. Finances, for sure, but everyone here probably already knows that! :-)

Running: I started running on the day I graduated from college, using a "couch potato to 5K" plan I found online. It had me starting with running for something like one minute, walking for two, and repeating for 20 minutes or so. I wasn't overweight or out of shape (well, maybe I was more out of shape than I thought), but it was a big day when I got to 5 minutes of solid running. Since then, I have run two marathons, and I continue to run for an hour straight each time I go out.

Nutrition: You don't have to overhaul your diet overnight. You do have to realize that changing what you eat is not a temporary fix but a lifestyle change that needs to be permanent in order to have lasting effects. For some people diving in head first works best, but for others, changing just one thing at a time can make a big difference without making you feel deprived, and over the next few years, you'll find that your tastes change and your health improves. Start by just adding one vegetable a day to whatever your normal daily food intake is. Then add another one. Or a piece of fruit. Or a small handful of nuts. The healthy things will start to crowd out the unhealthy things, and before you know it, you'll be doing much better overall.

A little advice based on my profession:

When you go see a doctor, take with you a list of your health problems, surgeries you've had, medications you take, allergies, and family medical history. Also have some idea of how much you smoke or drink so you don't have to sit there and do the math when you're asked. Carry this list with you in your wallet (or wherever) at all times so it will already be with you if you ever have to go to the ER. (It's also helpful to give this list to your family or trusted friends so they can help if you're ever in a situation where you can't speak for yourself.) Even if you can remember the name of the one allergy you have on any given day, you may not be able to remember it when you're hurting and stressed, and you certainly won't be able to tell anyone if you're unconscious. Do not rely on the hospital or office computer system to "remember" all this stuff for you. Computer systems have downtime or simply malfunction, and even if everything is working fine, you'll save everyone a lot of time if you can just tell them. It's also good for healthcare staff to be able to confirm that whatever is in the computer is consistent with what you actually have. I've come across charts that contained medical problems or surgeries or allergies that the patient never had. Computer entry errors happen.

Do not pee right before you go see a doctor if there's even the remotest possibility you'll need to give a urine sample! You'll save yourself a lot of time!

Consider getting one of these: roadid.com It's a little rubber bracelet on which you can have them write your name, phone number of a loved one, medical history, allergies, etc. in case you are ever unconscious and in need of help. It was developed for cyclists, but I wear one all the time in case I get hit by a car while running, randomly pass out somewhere, have a medical problem while I'm traveling, etc. (The only time I have ever had to use it was when I locked myself out of my house and had to borrow a neighbor's phone to call my boyfriend to come home and let me in. I don't have his number memorized, thanks to my cell phone, which was inside the house, but it sure would have been necessary to know his number that day if I hadn't had it strapped to my wrist!)

[boy_bye]

Also, don't wait for your boss to notice how hard you've been working and ask for a raise. You need to advocate for yourself. That includes taking all your vacation days, leaving the office on time, and basically taking the freedom you want rather than waiting for someone to give it to you. If you are excellent at your job you will totally get away with it.

It's sad that it's come to this... people who leave work on time and take their allotted vacation days are "getting away with it." I have several friends in the business/engineering/consulting world who don't seem to think that it's possible to NOT answer emails after hours or on the weekend or to leave work on time. And the idea of taking a vacation makes them cringe because of all the prep work and all the make-up work before and after. Sad.

I had a colleague tell me that at an old job ('You used all your vacation?? I can't believe you get away with that' is more or less a direct quote). And I just looked at him blankly and was like 'it's part of my compensation package. I'm not getting away with anything; it's what we negotiated and what is actually owed to me. Any vacation time I don't use is an un-negotiated gift to the company, and if I wanted to give the company my resources, I'd buy stock'. This was in hearing of a few other people.

Miraculously, that year, people in my department actually took all their vacation. The world didn't end. Sometimes, people just need their perspective re-calibrated.

Yeah it blows my mind, too. My workplace just adopted flex-time (aka unlimited vacation) and I'm sure it's going to result in most people taking LESS vacation than when we had an allocated number of days .... but not me :D

[mm1970]

I highly recommend OneNote. I love that you simply open the system and begin. And there's no need to save-love it! I use it for project management and for my personal yearly goals.

I tried OneNote for about 6 months.  Not sure why, but didn't really work for me.

I kinda gave up on a "productivity system." I just rely on my intuition to determine the next most important thing for me to do and I tend to remember firm deadlines for my deliverables. We communicate mostly by email, so I keep all of them and just search when I need to remember things from the past.

Sounds rather slapdash, I know, but it's worked for me for twenty years (holy shit i have had a grownup job for twenty years) so I guess it's good enough.

Either I'm old (almost 46), or too busy (that's true), or have too much work...

but mostly I need to track things.  I forget things now, because there are too many things...

I'm almost as old as you, but I don't have kids and I work from home and my husband does a lot of cooking and housework, so I'm sure I have a lot less going on in general. :)

Yes!  I am nearing the end of my 2nd year as PTA fundraising VP.  I have not volunteered to continue in this role, nor have I volunteered to take on one of the other 5 or 6 open roles.  (In fact, at least 5 or 6 of us have not signed up for next year, as it's exhausting).  I was chatting with my neighbor (also not volunteering next year).  My co-VP and I have agreed to take on *some* of the duties.  I will run 2 major fundraisers, she'll do another one.  That still leaves a few small ones and the big auction.

My neighbor said "I don't think I'm organized enough to run such a big event".  I said "don't be so hard on yourself.  You totally are.  Most of us are.  What we *aren't* is organized enough to do that AND everything else."  My neighbor owns and runs a non-profit part-time, is an instructor 2x a week at a local university, and has 3 kids.  I have a full time job and 2 kids, one in baseball and music and one who is a toddler.  Toddlers are exhausting.  Plus the meal planning and cooking and scheduling, and trying to lose a few pounds.

There's not enough brain power to do *ALL* that.  I'm fairly sure that we've had a shift in the last 5 years.  When I look back at the people running the PTA when we were in kindergarten, it was mostly parents who either only worked PT or did not work at all.  As their kids got older and they went back to work, they scaled back or dropped out of the PTA.  It's hard to use all your brain power for so many different things.  I look around at the board now, and most people work > 35 hours a week at jobs.  Or they have toddlers!  Or both.

[mm1970]

Also, don't wait for your boss to notice how hard you've been working and ask for a raise. You need to advocate for yourself. That includes taking all your vacation days, leaving the office on time, and basically taking the freedom you want rather than waiting for someone to give it to you. If you are excellent at your job you will totally get away with it.

It's sad that it's come to this... people who leave work on time and take their allotted vacation days are "getting away with it." I have several friends in the business/engineering/consulting world who don't seem to think that it's possible to NOT answer emails after hours or on the weekend or to leave work on time. And the idea of taking a vacation makes them cringe because of all the prep work and all the make-up work before and after. Sad.

I had a colleague tell me that at an old job ('You used all your vacation?? I can't believe you get away with that' is more or less a direct quote). And I just looked at him blankly and was like 'it's part of my compensation package. I'm not getting away with anything; it's what we negotiated and what is actually owed to me. Any vacation time I don't use is an un-negotiated gift to the company, and if I wanted to give the company my resources, I'd buy stock'. This was in hearing of a few other people.

Miraculously, that year, people in my department actually took all their vacation. The world didn't end. Sometimes, people just need their perspective re-calibrated.

My old company had one particular group of "hard chargers" and such.  Charging vacation if you leave 2 hours early for an appointment, etc.

One of two of my coworkers in that group actually routinely canceled their vacations (or delayed them) at the last minute due to "emergencies" - (that weren't emergencies).  This happened MULTIPLE TIMES.

I had only been in my group for about a year when I got called to jury duty.  Right before Christmas.  And about 3 weeks before a deadline.  My boss went through all these hoops telling me to get out of jury duty.  For this totally important deadline.  It was a made up deadline. 

I didn't make up lies to get out of jury duty.  I was selected, sat on the jury for 2.5 weeks, all while finishing up a class at the uni, and working a bit (after hours and on the 1 day a week the judge was off).  We made the deadline but the world didn't end!  (I did get sick as a dog though, right after. Was out for a week.)

I would never never cancel a vacation.

[Secretly Saving]

If you have a fire and the insurance adjuster asks if you had gasoline in the area where the fire began, don't just casually say no because nothing comes immediately to mind. Think back to every project you ever had where an oil lamp might have been filled, lighter fluid spills, solvents were used to clean paint brushes, cologne was spilled, work clothes stained with grease or oils. The only reason for this question is because a sample was taken and tested positive for accelerant, but they won't tell you that.

If they ask if you had the only key, they are trying to rule out anyone besides the insured having access. Did you change the locks when you bought the house? Did you get back the key you gave your ex? Do you have a garage door code that has been shared outside the family? Disclose all possibilities to avoid the insurer determining that you were the only one who could have started the fire. Vandalism is covered, intentional acts by the insured are not.

If the insurer wants to repair something that you want replaced, ask yourself if the repaired item is the same kind and quality as an unprepared item. Argue that.

In almost any case where the insurer hires an outside investigator, whether for cause and origin in a fire, or a structural engineer for other losses, they are looking for a basis to deny the claim. Hire your own expert at the same time, and you stand a better chance of heading off an erroneous denial based on a faulty report by an expert (who happens to only get hired by insurers).

Put all communications in writing. Adjusters will lie to your face and tell you something is not covered when in fact it is. They will deny telling you this later. If it is not in writing, it did not happen. People often assume the lie is true and stop asking for that item to be covered. Case closed if it was not in writing and they later deny telling the lie. If you write to the insurer, it goes into your claim file, and it is easier to prove their knowledge of a matter. The written letters in the claim file also establish a timeline for you to argue that the delays are attributable to the insurers actions rather than yours. If you write a letter and the adjuster will not respond in writing and insists on giving a verbal response, write a follow-up letter stating what was the adjuster's response. If they do not deny what you say, then a later reviewing court or jury will believe your recap rather than the insurers denial years later at trial.

After a fire, do not allow cleaning companies to take your fire damaged clothes and other personal property unless:
1-Their contract does not make you liable for unsuccessful cleaning
2-The insurer must state in writing that this costly (upwards of $30,000 some cases) will not count against your limit of coverage in the event the cleaning is unsuccessful. Otherwise the $30,000 will diminish your personal property limit and if your loss puts you at your limit, this attempt to mitigate damages will cost you and not the insurer.
3-Make the cleaning company give you an inventory of what they took immediately. You need this to make a claim for those items in the event it is determined some things were not cleanable.

Fire investigators look for missing expensive items as evidence of pre-knowledge of the fire. If you lose a pet or expensive guns, or family heirlooms, make sure to discuss those things in any recorded statements or examinations under oath or written communications with the insurer. While the insurer has a duty to investigate all facts, often in reality their investigation begins and ends with facts they can twist into denial. Force the good facts into the recored statement or examination under oath so there is a record of your pet dying, or family heirloom loss and how it affected you. If you want to explain something out and the person conducting the examination under oath says you can only answer the questions asked, argue and say on the record that you took an oath to tell the whole truth, and answering their limiting questions is not getting out the whole truth. They will shut up and let you talk. Demand a written transcript so you can make sure the court reporter was accurate and to make sure your answers read correctly. The policy says you have to sit and subscribe to the EUO. Subscribe means to affirm and sign, which you cannot do without the transcript. Your lawyer will appreciate having the transcript if they deny the claim.  Do not answer questions sarcastically, it does not come out the way you think in the transcript. Q. Did you start the fire? A. Yeah, I started the fire. Then I ask the client, why did you say you started the fire? His response was he was being sarcastic, like "yeah right, like I would start a fire."

I find this whole thing depressing.  It seems so manipulative on the side of the insurance company.  Thanks for all of the good tips though.  Hopefully no one I know will ever need to use them!

[Letj]

Fantastic thread. Posting to follow.

[CATman]

As an insurance adjuster I would say take all of that with a grain of salt. It sounds like it was written by either a disgruntled claims adjuster or someone who had a bad experience.

As a claims adjuster myself I can tell you we're not out to screw anyone out of anything. I commonly call out structural engineers when I need to determine if a repair can safely be made to a structural component or if a replacement is needed. Such as in the case of a tree striking a rafter/truss.

I would never knowingly lie or deceive anyone because it's both unethical and illegal.

As in every profession there are good eggs and bad, but I always try to help people see that just because someone may be delivering you news you don't want to hear, it doesn't mean they're automatically ripping you off.

[GemJedi]

I am an attorney representing insureds in presenting claims and litigating denied claims.

I have seen structural engineering reports disclaim knowledge of hidden construction, but then opine that there is no structural damage from a tornado and large tree falling into a home.

I have seen an engineering report give an opinion that water in the street was higher prior to a picture taken by a neighbor, and likely overtopped the door, therefore the water it admitted coming up the inside drains was not the sole cause of the sewer and drain backup for which the business had paid a premium for a separate endorsement, and the insurer therefore invoked the exclusion for the covered cause not being the sole cause. We presented photo evidence that the water in the street was backup from the storm sewer and was therefore also sewer backup under the endorsement. Insurer denied and courts agreed that internal backup was not sole cause of loss, and backup in street was a flood under the exclusion despite being sewer backup under the endorsement. They relied on old cases where there was no separate endorsement and water in the street was indeed a flood. We asked for law to recognize that in this case what seemed like a flood was actually a covered loss, otherwise all backups of sewers and drains create what is commonly called a flood, and there can therefore be no coverage for sewer and drain backup.

Do I seem disgruntled?

[going2ER]

A little advice based on my profession:

When you go see a doctor, take with you a list of your health problems, surgeries you've had, medications you take, allergies, and family medical history. Also have some idea of how much you smoke or drink so you don't have to sit there and do the math when you're asked. Carry this list with you in your wallet (or wherever) at all times so it will already be with you if you ever have to go to the ER. (It's also helpful to give this list to your family or trusted friends so they can help if you're ever in a situation where you can't speak for yourself.) Even if you can remember the name of the one allergy you have on any given day, you may not be able to remember it when you're hurting and stressed, and you certainly won't be able to tell anyone if you're unconscious. Do not rely on the hospital or office computer system to "remember" all this stuff for you. Computer systems have downtime or simply malfunction, and even if everything is working fine, you'll save everyone a lot of time if you can just tell them. It's also good for healthcare staff to be able to confirm that whatever is in the computer is consistent with what you actually have. I've come across charts that contained medical problems or surgeries or allergies that the patient never had. Computer entry errors happen.

As a parent of a child who takes numerous, uncommon medications, for uncommon illnesses you may want to actually have a printout from the pharmacy of all the medications and their dosages. I know that on my pharmacy receipts I can see what perscriptions have been filled there and usually have one in my purse for emergencies. Even if it is a routine medication, medical staff do not always believe that you take that medication or that you know the dosages. plus if they want to confirm with your pharmacy it has their name and number on it, saving them time.

[sol]

As a claims adjuster myself I can tell you we're not out to screw anyone out of anything.

Maybe you're not, but you employer sure is.

Insurance companies are for-profit businesses with an obligation to their shareholders to make as much money as possible.  They maximize profit by collecting premiums without paying out claims.

So when they are presented with a claim, they have several options.  They can pay it unchallenged, or they can spend money to try to figure out how to pay less.  If they think they will save money by challenging it, they always will.  And the shareholders say thank you.

Sometimes that challenge is just an offer to repair rather than replace.  Sometimes they lowball the value.  And sometimes they will fight tooth and nail to void the entire claim.  It all depends on the cost of the claim vs the cost of fighting it vs the cost of future premiums.

Lawyers are very effective at deterring most claimants, just send a nasty letter and most people will simply give up, and it's cheap to send those letters.  They count on the fact that most people don't or won't read and understand all of the details in their policy, particularly when hospitalized or grieving or homeless or whatever, so they can dissuaded from pursuing the full value they are due by a strongly worded legal threat.

My experiences with insurance companies have always been pleasant when they owe me less than I have paid them.  In the few cases when they have owed tens of thousands of dollars, they have tried every dirty trick in the book to screw me. 

Insurance companies rank right up there with music industry and oil giants on the list of world's most despicable organizations.

[Squirrel away]

(3) According the the World Health Organization, anxiety affects something like 25% of workers worldwide (not sure how many REs).  The choice of treatment for anxiety has been undergoing change. Old-school types are still using benzodiazepines like alprazolam, lorazepam, clonazepam and diazepam. (You can bring your anxiety from doctor to doctor and eventually one will offer you lots and lots of these pills.) BUT - benzodiazepines are not so great.  In addition to shutting down anxiety, they shut down lots of other parts of your brain.  In fact they work on GABA, a diffusely spread neurotransmitter whose primary role everywhere in the cortex is to turn stuff off.  Benzodiazepines are a dimmer switch for your brain.  When you dim your brain, you lose the ability to learn, to grow and to move past the anxiety.  People on benzodiazepines are more likely to have motor vehicle accidents and old people on these drugs fall over and get hurt 3-4x more often then old people not on these drugs. So what is the alternative? I would suggest you invest in some solutions by doing about 6 - 10 weekly sessions of manualized cognitive behavioral therapy. If you can't find that or you really want to take a pill, try an anxiolytic antidepressant like Prozac, Zoloft or Effexor. Leave the benzodiazepines out of your medicine cabinet. 

I was prescribed benzodiazepines a few times and I believe they caused me to have migraines. I'm wondering if taking them was related to my having vertigo too. I went to my doctor and to the hospital and they weren't particularly helpful. They checked my hearing and said it was perfect and gave me some exercises to do for the vertigo, but I'm still getting migraines.

Does anybody on here have any remedies for migraines? Earlier this month I worked out how many painkillers I have been taking and it was ridiculous so I wanted to find another solution.

What has worked for me so far is making sure I eat regularly even if I have nausea when I feel a migraine coming on. I also have had some success with putting an ice cube or ice cream in my mouth and touching it to the roof of my mouth, it sounds weird, but it seems to work.

Any other tips?

[Axecleaver]

Vitamin D and calcium, if you're deficient or borderline, will help migraines. Stop all aspartame intake for two weeks, this is linked to recurring headaches. Additional benefit of stopping hunger pangs between meals.