Archive for July, 2008

Help for beleaguered brides and bridegrooms

Posted July 31, 2008 by
in Planning Tips | 2 comments »

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Few things, it would seem, are more stressful than planning a wedding: the guest list, the venues, invitations, catering, insurance (which, I just learned from a friend, you must buy if your ceremony’s being held on public land), the clothing, oh yes, and expenses… It sounds awful.

Fortunately, it seems, there are plenty of websites you can turn to if you want help organizing this stuff. I just met a woman who works for the company that runs OurWeddingDay.com, a subscription-based planning resource that offers task, address, and budget management tools, gift registries, local resources, web templates and hosting, and so on. There are also plenty of hints and tips and an online Q&A feature where you can chat with a wedding consultant. It sounds quite sensible.

Or you could just elope…

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theAbysmal Calendar

Posted July 30, 2008 by
in Editorial | Add your comment »

Do we need a new calendar?

Calendar reformers cite several problems with the Gregorian calendar:

- It is not perpetual. Each year starts on a different day of the week and calendars expire every year.

- It is difficult to determine the weekday of any of any given day of the year or month.

- Months are not equal in length nor regularly distributed across the year, requiring mnemonics (e.g., “Thirty days hath September..”) to remember which month is 28, 29, 30 or 31 days long.

- The year’s four quarters (of three full months each) are not equal. Business quarters that are equal would make accounting easier.

- Its origin is not religiously neutral. The same applies to month and weekday names in many languages.

- Each month has no connection with the lunar phases.

While it is impossible to solve all these and other issues in one calendar, theAbysmal Calendar gives it a good try! theabysmal400.gif

“This Calendar has been designed to suit the breadth of the world’s peoples and their cultures. It was developed to align us once again with the cycles of the Moon, the Seasons, and our physical selves accordingly.” 

Any other candidates?

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Accomplishing your goals

Posted July 29, 2008 by
in Planning Tips | Add your comment »

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Earlier this year I wrote about an economist who lost 14 pounds after giving himself a rather stringent financial incentive (he agreed to pay a friend $500 if he didn’t lose the weight).

Website 43 Things gives people a less draconian source of motivation for accomplishing their goals: some public encouragement. Simply sign up, list your goals, and connect with other people who have similar aspirations. You can track your progress as it happens, and cheer (and be cheered by) others.

There’s also a very cool feature that enables you to browse the most popular goals (lose weight, write a book), the newest goals (make ceramic, play “Twinkle, Twinkle, Light Star” on piano, as of this morning), and the most popular achieved goals (fall in love, get a tattoo).

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Habanas are here!

Posted July 25, 2008 by
in Where to Go? | 10 comments »

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I’ve got good news for North Americans who are curious about our new Habana notebooks. We just shipped a bunch of them (with white, 80g paper) to various retailers; both the Daily Planner and Art Brown should have them… I don’t see them listed online yet, but I’m sure you could call the companies and order them over the phone.

Habanas with Ivory paper won’t be ready till later on this fall. Also, as Karen mentioned earlier, we’re currently looking for a couple of Habana reviewers! If you’re interested, please send us a message with your name, phone, and blog or website. Thanks!

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Septanote v. Trinote: how do we price our planners?

Posted July 25, 2008 by
in Editorial | Add your comment »

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Here’s a query we recently received:

Love your Trinote weekly planner, but I was looking at the academic version (the Septanote) and noticed it is similar but more expensive. Why?

The reason the Septanote is more expensive than the Trinote is that our Hamburg, NY plant prints a lot more Trinotes than Septanotes—we can’t take advantage of the same economies of scale. The Septanote is getting more and more popular, though, so hopefully the price difference will narrow over time.

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Reviewers Welcome

Posted July 24, 2008 by
in Pens, Paper & People | 1 comment »

Lately, I have sent J. Herbin inks, Quo Vadis agendas, and Clairefontaine and Rhodia notebooks for some bloggers to review.  Here’s an inks review from a calligrapher on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Reviewers for our new Habana notebooks are welcome! If you’re interested, please send us a message with your name, phone, blog or website.  Thanks! herbin-inks.png

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Hamster Helpers

Posted July 22, 2008 by
in Planning Tips, Where to Go? | 1 comment »

The Hamster Revolution is chock full of practical advice on how to manage your email before it manages you.

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Here’s a tip: Receive fewer by sending fewer.

While email may be the quickest channel of communication, it doesn’t mean it’s the best channel. When you need to discuss something, talk. Face-to-face communication gives you the opportunity to gauge body language and voice inflection. Or, pick up the phone. It’s faster to speak than to write.  Words in writing can sometimes sound harsher or more sarcastic than intended.

Included in the book is a landmark case study that shows how 2,000 Capital One employees cut their email time by 23%. In a world where employees may spend up to 40% of their time writing and responding to email, that’s a great time savings.

If you need a time out from boring, crotchety, or bombastic emails, you can always take a break with Hamster Dance!

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The tallest wooden house in the world

Posted July 21, 2008 by
in Cabinet of Curiosities, Where to Go? | 1 comment »

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Have you heard about this crazy Russian skyscraper/house yet? Built by hand by ex-gangster Nikolai Sutyagin in the city of Arkhangelsk, it currently stands—incomplete—at 144 feet, and both townspeople and local authorities are threatening to make him take it down. (There was a story about the controversy in the Telegraph last fall, and you can watch a video about it here.)

I haven’t heard any further updates recently, but for the sake of creativity, coolness, and plain old peculiarity, I hope the house stays up…

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Pencils vs. pens… or, how to deal with changing schedules

Posted July 18, 2008 by
in Pens, Paper & People, Planning Tips | 3 comments »

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We recently got a very helpful tip from a reader named Ellie:

I have always had a problem with using pencils in planners because the lead rubs off onto other pages and it just looks messy. However, in some situations you don’t want to use pen because things change so much. My solution to this predicament was using Frixion pens, which come in a variety of colors and are completely erasable.

According to Ellie, JetPens.com has a big selection of Frixions and other erasable (and non-erasable) pens. “Some critique the Frixions for not having the strongest colors,” she writes, “but I don’t really mind. They also make highlighters, which I’ve recently tried and really like.”

Personally, I use ordinary ink and the oh-so-sophisticated scratch out method, but the Frixion certainly sounds like a tidier idea. Anyone else have suggestions? How do you ‘pencil in’ your appointments without, well… penciling them in?

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Distracted

Posted July 17, 2008 by
in Editorial, Planning Tips | Add your comment »

I spend my day battling distractions. For example, I have to resist (often unsucessfully) checking my email constantly. When I’m on the web, I skip from one link to another.

Constant distractions and interruptions–email, text messages, calls, appointments and meetings–make it hard to focus long enough to get a good chunk of work accomplished or do creative thinking.

Help may be on the way.

Maggie Jackson is an award-winning author and journalist known for her penetrating coverage of U.S. social issues. She writes the popular Balancing Acts column in the Sunday Boston Globe. Her work has also appeared in the NY Times and on the National Public Radio. maggie-jackson2.jpg

Her latest book, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, details the costs of our inability to pay attention. distracted.jpg

Jackson related how attention has begun to be mapped, tracked and decoded by neuroscientists who now consider attention to be a trio of skills: focus, awareness and “executive attention,” the ability to plan and make decisions.

To combat distractions, some pioneering companies are creating places or times for uninterrupted, focused creative thought. I.B.M. employees practice “Think Fridays” worldwide, avoiding or cutting back on email, meetings and interruptions. Other firms are setting aside unwired, quiet rooms.

How do you avoid or manage distractions?

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