Archive for the ‘Simplify Your Life’ Category
June 11th
Dumb Little Man is a site dedicated to providing “a handful of tips that will save you money, increase your productivity, or just keep you sane.”
Tired of dealing with endless emails every day? Does emailing back and forth seem to be most of your job now? This article will help you cut it back.
Here are a few other tips:
- Call instead of email.
- Check your email early in the morning, at noon, just before you leave the office. Try not to check during the rest of the day - leave it for work, meetings, socializing in person.
- Be brief in your email.
- If you use a Quo Vadis Agenda Planning Diary, you can note your priority emails for the week in the dashboard box or in Daily Notes. Take care of them first.
June 9th
In addition to more space for Sundays, a reader (and student) from New York City recently suggested that we add more time slots between 10-12 PM, when college students in particular are often still busy and scheduling plans. What do you think—could you use these extra hours? Let us know in the comments!
June 6th
Are you going on vacation this summer? Will your kids be traveling solo, or going away to camp? If so, you might want to check out Forms4Parents.com, a website created by New York based lawyer (and mom) Linda Kagan that can help you organize your child’s and your summer travel. Here, Linda talks about what you’ll need to get ready:
Summer is here. Our children will begin to travel with grandparents, on their own or with a teen travel organization, and likely to other countries.
To make the experience better for our children (and those daring enough to travel with them), it’s best to make sure the proper travel and medical forms are in place. That way, you’ll know that you won’t be called on suddenly to sign a medical authorization, and that your children won’t be stopped at the border because a notarized authorization is not in hand.
The key is having comprehensive information about your children’s doctors, allergies, medicines, special needs, insurance, etc. on the forms that will accompany your children as they (or you) travel. In addition, it always helps to have the family rules clearly outlined for your children and their brave caregivers to minimize the endless negotiations about which tv shows, computer games, bedtimes, chores they can watch and must do. You should also provide contact information for each parent.
To make it easier, I created a website that allows parents to create necessary travel, medical and other types of authorizations, as well as a Family Rules form, online in a matter of minutes. It’s called Forms4Parents.com, and it’s dedicated to helping you organize your child’s and your summer travel.
Happy travels!
May 29th
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?
May 13th
This morning at Slate, the editors tackle a topic that’s near to everyone’s hearts with a special report on procrastination. (Of course I read the whole thing before I started composing this post.)
My favorite piece: Emily Yoffe’s tale about trying to use online support groups and self-help books to stop procrastinating. Yoffe sounds like a woman after my own heart; “For me,” she writes, “Small tasks—getting the dry cleaning, checking the downspouts—have a way of inflating like helium, floating the day away.” Here’s her attempt to understand the psychology of procrastination:
Joseph Ferrari, a professor of psychology at DePaul University… divides us into two general behavior types: arousal procrastinators and avoidance procrastinators. Arousal procrastinators seek the excitement and pumping stress hormones of having to finish everything under duress. (I’m this type.) Avoidance procrastinators make their work the measure of their self-worth and so end up putting it off out of fear. (I’m this type, too.) I talked to Ferrari and discovered that after 20 years of studying us, his sympathy is wearing thin. “I don’t understand this, why they’re consistently like this. I don’t like cutting the grass, but I do it.”
In the end, the best advice comes from her 12-year-old daughter—stop taking so many breaks, and stop making excuses for yourself. Easier said than done, of course, but never mind…
May 9th
Did you know that the average person thinks around 60,000 thoughts each day? (Actually, it’s more complicated than that, but never mind.) According to Sharon Melnick, clinical psychologist and life coach, the key to success and accomplishment is to make sure those thoughts are directed positively, towards your goals. On her blog, she recently wrote about how to let go of things you obsess over.
The situation unfolded the way it did. That’s now a fact. But when you explain to yourself why it happened that way, you have made the situation to be a confirmation of a long held belief you have about yourself (e.g. I am not good enough; I’ll always be a “B+” kind of player; I’m a loser”, etc.)
To start moving forward, what you want to do is start to trace “what it means about YOU” that the situation happened the way it did. Write down on a piece of paper the explanation(s) you tell yourself for why the situation happened this way. With each answer you give, dig a little deeper to answer the question “and what does that mean about me?” This analysis will lead you to the root of what is making you ‘hold onto’ the situation. You want to see if you can come up with a personalized meaning that confirms your deepest fear or doubt about yourself.
The next step, of course, is to analyze the problem more objectively and stop blaming yourself… Easier said than done, of course, but that’s no different from most good advice.
May 5th
Back when I was in college, I was never particularly systematic about keeping track of homework assignments—I’d scribble notes to myself on various scraps of paper, or sometimes on my hand—but it seems today’s students are better organized.
Claire from Gig Harbor, Washington, recently wrote in to suggest that we add a column to the Academic Minister for writing down assignments… does anyone else agree? How do you keep track of your homework?
April 7th
Great post on Unclutterer about taking a good stern look at the knick knacks in your life… They lend interest to a house and give their owners pleasure, but when do they outlive their value? Here are the questions you should ask:
1. Why do I own this and choose to display it?
2. Does it represent who I am right now and the mood I want to create in my home?
3. Do I care for this object the best way I can care for it, or is it really just clutter?
4. Will my place be a better sanctuary or place of relaxation without this object in it?
April 2nd
Amateur professor and self-declared “findologist” Professor Solomon created a simple twelve-step method for finding things you’ve lost. According to him, “There are no missing objects, only unsystematic searchers.” Now Professor Solomon is making his 67-page book, “How to Find Lost Objects,” available online as a free PDF download. It may sound a little wacky, but many of his ideas aren’t far off the mark… I especially like Principle 6:
It is possible to look directly at a missing object and not see it. This is due to the agitated state of mind that often accompanies a misplacement. Go back and look again. It may be staring you in the face.
In college, I once combed through my entire dorm room piece by meticulous piece in search of a missing ID, only to find, when I got back around to my desk, that it was sitting right there in plain view, on top of my computer.
February 25th
Every once in a while, people write in and ask us to create virtual editions of our planners that are accessible online.
It’s something we’ve definitely considered over the past few years, but there are a couple of reasons we’ve never moved forward:
1. The layout of a paper planner wouldn’t translate well to a Blackberry or a PDA.
2. There are already plenty of low- or no-cost virtual planners out there.
3. Software design is obviously not our expertise in the first place.
The way we see it, there are still plenty of people out there who appreciate using paper planners—the smooth feel of the paper underhand, the physical pleasures of writing, the convenience of being able to flip through actual pages and see what lies ahead… As long as they’re around, we’ll continue to do what we do. Which is not to say we’re not constantly trying to think up more efficient layouts to help people organize their days!
Personally, I use a combination of paper and virtual methods: my Outlook calendar, with its automatic appointment reminders, is perfect for an absent-minded writer who sits at her desk for hours and loses track of time. On the other hand, I have no interest in owning a PDA (I’m already too addicted to email), and my paper planner is perfectly portable. Do I sometimes wish I didn’t have to record my appointments twice, or was able to look them up online? Sure. But there are plenty of practical chores I’d rather not have to do, either, and doing them hardly kills me…
