Month: April 2013

We all have phones that call that we should ignore. You know that time you gave them your phone number and since then they have call you to offer a service that you don’t want and regardless that you had request them that they please remove you from the list, they continue calling you.
Create a contact called IGNORE and add all those numbers. Next time you get a call from them your phone will tell you exactly what to do.
i.e. Since I use an iPhone you can also set an special tone for the ringtone (mine is a no noise one) and a special vibration (mine for this contact is none). The cool thing is that if I receive a call form this list of numbers, my phone don’t make a noise or vibrate. I only found out the next time I grab the phone.

Planning your weekly meals it is one of those things that aren’t that complicated, but that many people I have around don’t do. We go to do groceries ad get enough generic stuffs that we hope we will be able to make meals for the next seven days. Then every night we hope that we are going to get inspired enough to make those meals.
Most of the time that’s exactly the problem. We hope that after a full working day we will have enough brain power to think about a meal, prepare and cook. The reality many times is that our energy level is too low to make a good decision, so we grab a microwave solution or something that it is not necessarily the best of the options.
What I have learned is that when you plan the menu, your grocery shopping it is much more specific, and since you know what are you going to make the whole week you don’t really need much brain power to actually make the meal and you certainly had all the ingredients you need for the plate you are planning to cook. Also if you need to, you can move meals around but in general you know you will have all the ingredients and there is no need to really think anything, just cook.
i.e. I resist for years this idea and of course made poor choices constantly regarding our meals. Since I begin doing that, I have been eating much better meals and somehow had been able to save between 35% to 45% on our weekly grocery bill. So it has been really a great solution.

I am aware that I am not the only one that dislike in general the sound of their phone. I love the fact that the phone can vibrate instead of ringing like crazy. I honestly get annoyed by my own ring tone.
One of the solutions is to use the phone in “Vibrate Mode” all the time. The problem with this is that doing that you lose other sounds that the phone can make and you will like to have, like text messages or Calendar Alerts.
The solution for me was really simple, I install on my phone a NO SOUND Ringtone that I create on Garage Band. The ring tone it is simple, it had no sound. The advantage is that then I can keep my phone out of the vibrate mode most of the time, but the phone never rings, when a call came in the phone simply vibrate, but I can get sounds for Text Messages and other alerts.
Since I installed this I have rarely place my phone on vibrate mode, I don’t mind the rest of sounds, in many cases I appreciate them.