In a comment to Karen’s post about the ABP1, one of our readers asked for advice on how to manage forward planning with a day-per-page calendar format. Since both Karen and I use weekly planners, we don’t have many suggestions. Perhaps someone else can help?
What do you think? How do you manage your week when you take things one day at a time?
Should workplaces be “pet-friendly?” Would you be a happier, more productive employee if you could bring your dog to work?
Advocates say a pet-friendly workplace is a cost-free benefit to help employees maintain a life-work balance. Allowing pets at work helps reduce stress and boost morale, as employees take a break from the computer to play with one of the office dogs. And, when a dog starts wagging their tail you know at least someone is happy to see you!
On the flip side, people who don’t like animals, don’t want to brush hair off their clothes and furniture, and don’t want to endure endless begging for a piece of their lunch, or find their garbage has been nosed through thoroughly are less than thrilled with the idea of animals in the workplace.
Pet-friendly policies vary by company, but they usually include several basic components: the needs of people who have allergies or don’t want to work near animals should be accommodated; pets must be kept on a leash or under control; pets must be housebroken, and employees must clean up after their pet outside.
What do you think?
The first photographs from the NASA Mars lander, Phoenix, are back! You can check them out on this website.
In her 1952 spiritual autobiography, The Long Loneliness, Dorothy Day (1897-1980) described her early habit of keeping a diary: “When I was a child, my sister and I kept notebooks; recording happiness made it last longer, we felt, and recording sorrow dramatized it and took away its bitterness; and often we settled some problem which beset us, even while we wrote about.” Day maintained this habit, though somewhat irregularly, throughout her life.
Somes her reflections were prompted by happiness, sometimes by sorrow, but mostly her diary entries were an expression of her intense interest in life and her responses to what was happening around her.
The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, edited by Robert Ellsberg, has just been issued by Marquette University Press.
How cool is this: Karen just sent me a sample of a new product called Exafolio, a nifty little black binder that holds a Rhodia pad (or a President planner), offers 6 slots in which to file papers, and even has a couple of pen/pencil holders and some miscellaneous zippered pockets. I tote it around to meetings and feel like the slickest kid on the block.
It’s currently sold out at Pendemonium and Vickerey, but with enough interest, perhaps they’ll restock…
UPDATE: The Exafolio is no longer available at Pendemonium, as far as I can tell, but it’s back in stock at Vickerey!
I love this work doodle by El Toro!
What yours?
Gardening is not for the impatient. By now, most of my new plants are safely in the ground—day lilies, daisies, irises and the like—and after all of that hard work, how I’d love to see something in bloom! (My beloved tulips didn’t last long, sadly.)
This weekend, I was feeling particularly impatient, so I decided to go back and look at some photographs I took before I started. I may not have the luscious English garden of my dreams (and the fence is still falling apart), but it’s comforting to see how far I’ve come… even if a lot of it’s due to the ivy that I didn’t actually plant myself.
Once a year, representatives from Quo Vadis-U.S., Canada and France meet to discuss product development, innovations and customer feedback. Over the course of the year, I collect customer emails requesting specific changes and enhancements for Quo Vadis calendar year and/or academic editions.
In the past year, this is what I heard from Quo Vadis customers:
- more space for Sundays
- Executive – add a notes insert or notepad
- Space 24 – need a month-by-month planning calendar for next year as well as the current year
- begin academic planners on July 1, not the end of the month
- want to purchase online directly from us
- develop a zippered cover style
- want option to purchase a planner made from recycled paper
Anything else? Please let me know. This year’s meeting is scheduled for May 28-29.
I depend on my little Sapa X to help me organize my work-week, but when it comes to weekend planning, I don’t tend to do much more than jot down notes about parties and social engagements.
Many of our readers, however—students in particular—have requested more space for Sundays. Since we just got another email to this effect, I thought I’d reiterate a comment I posted here last fall… There’s good news for Sunday planners: Quo Vadis’s sister company, Exacompta, is currently in the process of finalizing a new format called the Horizon 7, which has a full seven days’ worth of planning space (8 am – 9 pm), a daily contact area, and space for more notes on each page. It’ll be introduced in the 2009 calendar year, so you don’t have to wait much longer!
