An article in Wired Magazine mentioned about personal metric devices to improve one’s health like the Nike+ipod kit which could keep track of all the details and the statistics of your capacity to run..For all it measured was the time your foot touched the ground. Now how could that have helped? How could mere statistics help?
Let us be honest. How many of us follow our chores sincerely, or let us say, on a given time when we are assigned a job ,given a deadline, when we are getting no extra incentive for our job, and most important ,when we are quite sure that there is no one observing us, how many of us do our jobs sincerely?
Well barring just a few I suppose the answer is quite obvious.
In 1920 the managing authorities at the Hawthorne Works factory also had the same query in mind when they decided to take some measures to improve production. They realized that the lighting at the place of work was not adequate. The lighting was improved. Now the workers could assemble the parts faster. With the speed of the work increased, the production increased. The authorities were satisfied, so they were given extra breaks. With greater breaks their efficiency further increased.
After some time the management decided to go back to the original working conditions. But to their amazement they found that the changes had not affected the quality of the work. The production was still high. What could have been the cause? And they realized the extra lighting had done the trick. The workers felt they were under constant vigilance. So even after the changes in work conditions were withdrawn, the workers continued to work at the same pace. It was here that the idea originated .The Hawthorne effect as it was named ,originated from the idea that any phenomenon being observed will change just by the act of observation. This was also called the “observer effect”.
This fact holds true even while handling our finances. How many of us spend compulsively? Most of us, and how many of us really need the things we purchase?
If we keep a track of our purchases we realize that most of the times we end up buying stuff, we do not need. Instead of brooding over or justifying our expenses, just keeping a track might help.
Today our problems have been simplified for all of us. Our solutions are just a click away. If you are facing difficulties in managing your finances ,the solutions are right here. We have online aggregation sites to help us
Quicken Online: They maintain interactive charts where all your transactions are categorized automatically, thus providing an overall perspective of your expenses.
They maintain a record of your monthly expenses.
Just imagine all your average expenses for any particular category can be accessed in a jiffy, giving you the ratio of your income to your expenses. This curbs unnecessary expenses thus focusing on one particular category. Isn’t that wonderful.
We can see all our accounts in one place. No more multiple passwords to be remembered
It is 100% free.
They maintain your online banking information which includes keeping a check on your investments, credit cards payments and your loans.
Yodlee moneycentre: Lost track of your expenses? Is your budget getting out of control? Or do you fear your financial information can be hacked? Well Yodlee moneycenter is your solution. All your information is safeguarded by latest security technology, and is password protected. It maintains reports which are pre-categorized for you to watch, and analyze your expenses. It sets your budget and your spending limits. So you see, your financial power lies in your hands.
Mint.com: Are you trying to categorize your expenses and going crazy? Well stop worrying. Let Mint.com do it for you. It is a budgeting site which automatically categorizes and graphs all your expenses the moment you spend .Just a glance, and you know how intelligently you have spent. Safe and secure it has been widely acclaimed.
So we see, these sites act like custodians of our finances. They watch where we spend, and that helps us in curbing unnecessary expenses. We learn to keep track of our expenses, start spending sensibly and end up saving money And after practicing this kind of a curb, we become vigilant.
Just like the Nike+ipod users who wish to keep running and improving their statistics even after they have discontinued using a gadget,. Which kept a constant watch on them.
