HOW ADVISORS FOOL YOU (AND WHAT YOU CAN DO)

You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.
--- George W. Bush

We're surrounded by companies and people who want to make money by fooling us. Look anywhere. The fine print taketh away. Restrictions apply. Supplies are limited. Previous investment performance is not indicative of future returns. Object magnified to show the fine detail. Limited time offer. Some terms and conditions apply. See dealer for details. Subject to credit approval. Excludes Hawaii and Alaska. New customers only. Subject to change without notice. May not be as illustrated. Penalties for early termination. Batteries not included.

We respond by becoming skeptical and cynical. We don't believe the claims and we don't know who to believe.

Congratulations! You Won $1,000,000.00

Did you ever receive a letter saying you won a million dollars? The first time, you might have believed. You at least wanted to believe. Did you tell someone excitedly and have them laugh at your gullibility? As you dug deeper, you realized the fine print said that's how a letter to you might look if you won by entering the contest. The fine fine print showed that your chances of winning were basically zero and that the contest was running for months and months. You also noticed the bulk mail stamp.

Won't get fooled again.

One To One

Folks are basically decent

Conventional wisdom would say
But we read about the exceptions
In the papers every day
--- Rush, Second Nature

Companies likely meet the letter of the law but perhaps not the spirit. You can find countless examples of shocking behaviour in Ellen Roseman's blog and at Consumerist. When you're dealing with an advisor, it's tough to gauge how much they know and if they truly have your best interests at heart.

I see life insurance proposals that are incomplete to the point of being misleading. Or assumptions distort the results. Or apples get compared with mangoes. Or no comparison is made with other options. Or the fine print has been left out.

Your Solution

You're not helpless. Here's what you can do: ask for a copy of the details.

Even if you don't think you'll understand them. Even if you're not planning to get a second opinion.

You're really after the advisor's reaction. Is the advisor willing to comply? If not, what are the "reasons"? How long does the advisor take to reply? Did you really get what you requested? Were pages left out?

Be sure to ask for this information by email along with a copy of what you've already been shown. What the advisor does may delight or disturb you. At least you'll know now.

The fine print taketh away. So does the lack of fine print.

Links

• How to evaluate a proposal from an advisor
• The fineprint taketh away ... except in life insurance
• image courtesy of Miroslav Nagy

Podcast (3:47)

direct download | Internet Archive page

Toodledo does more than Remember The Milk

You can't risk forgetting tasks. Maybe you’re a student back in school or a business wrapping up your fiscal year. Either way, you need a system to remember.

Last year, I looked at web-based task managers and picked Remember The Milk (see The Friendly Way: Remember The Milk and Everything Else). This year, I didn’t renew. What happened?

I switched to Toodledo instead. Here’s why.

Remember The Milk (RTM)

RTM feels friendly. You almost feel like organizing. The clean interface deceives you with its hidden power but never feels intimidating. You can even use RTM offline with Google Gears and synchronize when you’re back online. You can add tasks by email, voice (using Jott or Dial2Do), or your iGoogle homepage. You have access via your mobile phone. Some features are available only in the Pro version which costs a modest $25 US/year --- peanuts for you but bananas for mascot Bob T Monkey.

So why switch?

Subtasks
In real life, a task may have several steps or subtasks.

Say you want to brush your teeth but can't. You ran out of toothpaste because you didn't use an organizer before. You first need to buy toothpaste. Maybe you floss before brushing. Here's your task list

Brush teeth

a. buy toothpaste

b. floss

Get the idea? A simple sequential hierarchy helps.

RTM users have asked for subtasks since 2005. Nothing has been done and there's no workaround. Other organizers have subtasks, which puts RTM at a competitive disadvantage, but nothing was done last year.

If you’ve ever managed a project, you know there are tasks within tasks within tasks. For a big project, you might use Microsoft Project, but that’s excessive for most of us.

Enter Toodledo
What a weird name. It’s easy to say but hard to read and type toodledo.com. Your eye sees “too”, “led” and “do” but tooledo isn’t the name. Maybe the creators were being clever and converted “to do” into “toodle do”?

Get past the name and you’re confronted with a cluttered, ugly interface. It looks like the work of engineers rather than designers. Yet there isn’t a handy search box to help you find tasks easily. Functionality over elegance.

But what functionality! Toodledo has subtasks if you upgrade to Pro for just $14.95 US/year. Here's their comparison of To Do lists.

Toodledo has a timer which helps you track time painlessly. You may have allocated 30 minutes for something and find that your estimate was grossly off. This sytem lets you see how much time you really spent. You can't access tasks offline, but there's a workaround: you can print your tasks as a booklet by folding a normal page in a clever way. You can create goal chains, a technique Jerry Seinfield uses to keep writing jokes.

Which Suits You?

You can use most features of web-based task managers for free. This helps you pick the right one for you. Do you prefer Remember The Milk, Toodledo or something else?

Links

• The Friendly Way: Remember The Milk and Everything Else
• Comparison of online organizers (Toodledo.com)
• Jerry Seinfield's productivity secret (lifehacker.com)
• Getting Things Done (GTD): Three Big Lessons
• Faster: How to deal with the rat race

Podcast (4:57)

direct link | Internet Archive page