What would it take to change your life for the better? It may be less than you think—we’ve got mini-makeovers to help you upgrade everything from your workout to your weekend. #12: Ditch the Internet slang.

Photo: Thinkstock

Yes, we live in a 140-character world, thumbs furiously tapping out terse missives. But consider an e-mail received recently by O magazine's editor in chief: "susan: hows it goin?? Annny chance you might know some peeps that could get a screenplay 2 production?"

The chances of this e-mail being taken seriously, of course, are south of zero. Literacy speaks volumes; all these disposable little messages themselves send messages—about you. So we humbly suggest: When faced with the choice of writing "because" or "becuz," "for" or "4," opt for elegance. Spell out words, end sentences with periods, consider the comma. Oh, and one exclamation point will do.

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What would it take to change your life for the better? It may be less than you think—we’ve got mini-makeovers to help you upgrade everything from your workout to your weekend. #10: Shake yourself awake tomorrow.

Photo: Courtesy of LARK

Billed as the "un-arm clock," LARK is a sleep system in which you program wake-up times into your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, slip on the wireless wrist band, and then hit the sack. When it's time to rise, the band wakes you with gentle vibrations. The best part? If you and your partner are on different schedules, it rouses only the person who needs to get up, as there's no audible alarm.

Available at lark.com
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1. You probably can say it in 140 characters.

2. If you already know it's going to make you angry, don't click.

3. There's a Tumblr for that.

4. Even though I haven't met all of my Facebook friends, I love that they always remember my birthday.

5. If all else fails, watch Marcel the Shell With Shoes On.

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

What would it take to change your life for the better? It may be less than you think—we’ve got mini-makeovers to help you upgrade everything from your workout to your weekend. #8: Three sites that make tracking your finances a breeze.

Photo: Thinkstock

Mint.com
Create budgets, set savings goals, and monitor where the dough goes, with this money manager that syncs automatically with your bank, credit card, investment, and loan accounts.

Manilla.com
A virtual and secure file cabinet with unlimited storage, Manilla allows you to go paperless while streamlining banking, magazine subscriptions, loyalty reward programs, and utilities.

Pageonce.com
If you want to manage your Netflix queue and pay
                                                                               your credit card bills on the same screen,
                                                                               head to this popular mobile app.

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Suze Orman answers your top money questions

I have this idea. I've had it for a while. It's a good one. Are you ready? A trampoline amusement park. You're probably thinking, "I want to go there." And you might also be thinking, "Lawsuit waiting to happen." And to that I say...well, it's possible that you're right. The thing about my trampoline amusement park is that I think it would be a fun place to visit, but that doesn't mean I have any desire to invest in real estate or equipment or liability insurance or even, for that matter, the time it takes to do a Google search showing me I would apparently have a number of competitors.

Do deadlines make you feel like you're unwillingly starring in an action movie and you have to choose between the red wire and the green wire while a giant clock menacingly ticks off seconds? Well, what if instead of controlling a bomb, those wires were connected to something that would release colorful balloons and confetti from the ceiling and shower everyone around you with joy just in the nick of time?

That second option is the idea behind the Twitter feed Kickstarter Hero (@ksr_hero), brainchild of Kickstarter developer Tieg Zaharia. Kickstarter is a site where you can back creative projects ranging from the functional (an incredibly simple smartphone stand) to the whimsical (an inter-species dance performance) to the downright inspired (this vertical garden is a recent favorite). Projects only get funded if 100 percent of their request is pledged by backers, so Kickstarter Hero catalogs the ones that need a little extra boost—"anything that may have fallen through the cracks," Zaharia says—and calls attention to them before their fast-approaching deadlines. There's a built-in thrill to helping someone make their creative idea into a reality, but getting to feel like Keanu Reeves in Speed while you do it? Well, we think that's worth at least $5.