Here’s a bit of entrepreneurial advice that anyone can put to good use: instead of making a simple “to do” list to keep track of all the things you need to accomplish, organize your tasks into meaningful priorities or categories that will help you structure your day.
I got the BBC’s Planet Earth series for Christmas, a gorgeous set of documentaries shot in high definition and narrated by British naturalist David Attenborough. The production was expensive (each episode is rumored to have cost $3 million dollars to produce), but the series is far and away one of the greatest things I’ve seen on film—the only time I’ve ever wished I had an enormous flat screen television.
Our planet, as Attenborough says, “is still full of wonders,” and what I admire most about Planet Earth is the way it mixes stunning shots of natural beauty with a rather uncompromising view of what life is actually like: there is, on the one hand, the sheer animal joy of a polar bear emerging from her hibernation, zooming down the side of a mountain, and sloshing around in the snow. On the other hand is the quiet resignation of a caribou that’s been captured by a wolf, of a seal being eaten by a shark. Or my favorite scene thus far, of a group of African baboons wading uncomfortably through a freshly formed lake, holding their paws in the air and hoping that their heads don’t get wet (watch a clip from the American broadcast version, narrated by Sigourney Weaver, on Metacafe).
The holiday season is over, but I’d heartily recommend that you put it on your wish list for next year—or, if you can’t wait, order it from Amazon today.
Here’s one last post from Karen while she’s off on her vacation…
The mission of the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization is to explore, develop, and disseminate to professional organizers and related professionals organizing methods, techniques, approaches and solutions that will benefit chronically disorganized people.
May we suggest… a Quo Vadis Agenda Planning Diary! It is a good organizational tool to help people plan and set priorities, and eliminate clutter and chaos.
More from Karen…
There was a delightful article in the December 20, 2007 edition of the New York Times on labyrinths. Written by Anne Raver, it chronicles the experience of Pamela White, a garden designer, who built a labyrinth in the woods in Maryland.
This ancient form has been used for walking meditations in which those who enter shed their emotional burdens, fears, sorrow, and even evil spirits. According to Robert Ferre, a labyrinth builder and teacher in St. Louis, fishermen had a great belief in labyrinths. “They would walk the labyrinth before going to sea, to shed the evil spirits that sank their ships or made the weather bad.”
Labyrinths are easy to draw, find and research, as shown on the Labyrinth Society’s website, a good source of historical and practical information.
In the continued spirit of post-holiday reorganizing (I won’t say “resolutions”), here’s an interesting dieting tactic: Put your money where your mouth is. No, really.
Economist Richard McKenzie recently described a rather unusual incentive that he gave himself to lose weight. He signed a formal contract with a friend that required him to pay her $500 unless lost nine pounds within the next 10 weeks.
“After signing the contract, I was amazed at how the looming $500 payment affected my behavior,” McKenzie wrote. “While on my diet, I judged practically everything I ate in terms of how much it would ultimately cost me.”
(In the end, he lost 14 pounds.)
Here’s another one from Karen while she’s off on vacation—quite a contrast to the Fountain of Youth!
The Death Clock is the internet’s friendly reminder that life is slipping away…
In the spirit of post-holiday reassessing, reorganizing, and rearranging, I’ve been reading through a website that one of our readers recommended: organizingpro.com, the homepage of Texas based “Organizing Pro” Marcia Ramsland. Here, for example, are her 10 daily timesaving habits; they’re quite simple, but it’s advice that most of us could stand to hear again.
I especially like number 2 (spend a couple of minutes straightening up each time you leave a room or your desk), which points out, sensibly, “The less you have to put away, the less fragmented your life will be when you return.”
Karen’s on vacation this week, so I’ll be posting some of the material that she’s prepared. To get started, here are some simple, inexpensive tips that she collected to help skin look and feel better:
1. Discard old, used beauty products. People may transfer bacteria from their fingers to pots of face cream and makeup, possibly leading to the growth of micro-organisms.
2. Stop smoking – some dermatologists believe it promotes wrinkles and prematurely ages the skin.
3. More sleep, less stress – psychological stress may impair the skin’s barrier function, which keeps bacteria out and water in.
4. Wear sunscreen – Sunscreen, besides protecting from skin cancer, may inhibit sun-induced changes to the skin’s texture. Look for sunscreens that contain zinc oxide.
5. Wash your face at night. Doctors say that skin picks up environmental debris during the day. Washing every evening gives the skin a rest form exposure to possible irritants.
I grew up in West Lafayette, Indiana, a small university town in the northwestern part of the state. Neither of my parents is from the area, so I never got to know much beyond our town and its immediate surroundings.
When I was home last week for the holidays, however, I decided to go out driving. I picked my destinations on a random basis according to their names: Onward, Young America, Forest, and Russiaville (which, as I learned on Wikipedia, is pronounced “Roo-sha-ville”).
These tiny towns sprouted up along the railroad in the mid-19th century, and there’s not much left of them now. But it was still interesting to drive through and imagine what life was like for their inhabitants. Russiaville, just south of Kokomo, seemed like a prosperous community; Onward, with a lovely old boarded-up schoolhouse right near the center of the town, had clearly fallen on harder times.
Indiana countryside is flat and squarely partitioned into corn and soybean fields; it’s hardly what you’d call conventionally scenic. Yet even that had its meditative charm, the dusty fields, the occasional lonely brick farmhouse, a line of trees off in the distance…
Yesterday, while the rest of us were celebrating New Year’s Day, thoroughbred horses observed their collective birthday (well, their owners did, at any rate). Why? In order to simplify things at races, where they compete against other horses their own age.
In the Southern hemisphere, thanks to the reversal of the seasons, horses celebrate their birthdays on August 1.
