Buzz
Having trouble sticking to your goals? Visual cues can make a difference. Personal finance expert Trent Hamm recommends using graph paper to visualize your progress.
Visual reminders are effective because they make your goals more tangible. It’s rewarding to know you’ve saved by packing a lunch, but it’s even more motivating to see that progress on paper. This is why gamification works so well. Hamm explains his method for visualizing savings goals:
I'd take a sheet of graph paper with 100 squares across and 100 down, marking one square each time I saved $10 and set that aside. Whenever the account earned another $10 through interest, dividends, or growth, I'd mark another square. Over time, I could see the squares fill up...Each little square gets filled countless times each week, and as you fill more squares, your sense of success grows while the distance to your goal gets smaller.
It may sound silly, but small strategies like these work by making your goal feel more immediate and less abstract. If keeping a savings habit is a challenge, it’s worth a try—it’s as simple as a sheet of graph paper.
Read Hamm's complete article at the link below.
Image courtesy of PicJumbo.
