how to organize your life

This is exactly what I was looking for, and I can't wait to try it.  If you're also feeling overwhelmed by your To Do list, maybe you'll find it useful, too.

Paul A. Klipp, agile and lean software development specialist

I have now spoken at two conferences about my time management solution, which is not original, but rather a collection of best practices from several approaches to personal productivity. The presentations were very well-received and I was often urged to document the approach, and so I will attempt to do so here.

From David Allen's Getting Things Done I learned that my brain is for processing, not storage. Most of the stress in my life, perhaps all of it, used to come from the nagging fear that there was something more important that I ought to be doing. From Tony Buzzan I learned that the best way to empty my brain on paper is a mind map. From Steven Covey I learned that I have many roles in life, and the most important are the easiest to forget when budgeting time. From Nick Cernis, the author of Todoodlist, I learned that visualizing my life can be fun. From David Anderson I learned to visualize my workflow and limit my work in process for faster task throughput times. Finally, from Francesco Cirillo, the creator of the Pomodoro technique, I learned to break myself of multi-tasking and the power of focus.

hyperbole and a half

My book group was considering this book, Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened, so I went to look at her blog, and I am in love.  Hilarious, self-deprecating and insightful.  Go here for the danger of a dinosaur costume, and enjoy!

what a seventeen-month-old baby already sees

I took my seventeen-month-old baby to the playground this morning, and she stopped in her tracks on the landing right before going down the slide to stare at a teenage boy, maybe sixteen or seventeen years old, who was rummaging through a trash can for something to eat.  I don't know what made her stop and stare, but at the end of it, she decided she was scared.  She didn't go to her usual winding tube slide and slid down the straight, open slide right into my arms instead.  What did she already detect at such a young age?  It makes me sad, and I hope that boy's future looks up.

On the other side of the tire swing was a man who had just come from surfing in the waves below and was changing into fancy work clothes behind his shiny Volvo.  When he emerged in his shiny shoes, I said, "Presto change-O" and wished him a nice day.  You'd never guess he was the surfer who had walked up the path just moments before.

What different lives.

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happiness by the numbers

Happify found me through this blog and asked me to be one of their beta users, and after trying it for a few months, I would definitely say it's worth trying.

They look at the science of happiness and offer exercises to check and improve your own levels of happiness.  You can choose a track to follow-- so you can work on whatever is important to you, whether it's fitness, family or career success, for example-- and change any time you want.

As a relatively happy person, I took a break from it after I finished one of their exercise series, thinking I didn't need it to be happy-- but when October became really stressful, I went back to happify and got myself back on track again.  It's a great tool to have in your arsenal that you might not need every day-- like meditation for some people-- and is a good reminder that we are in charge of our own happiness.

Here's an example of one of the articles you can read on their site (below).

Happiness by the Numbers: 8 Stats That Could Change Your Life

BY 

JESSICA CASSITY

What do the happiest people have in common? They have a handle on at least of few of these eight instant happiness boosters, some of which may already be elevating your mood.

6 or 7: The hours per day of socializing that leads to the highest levels of happiness

People who regularly spend about a quarter of their hours each day with family and friends are 12 times as likely to report feeling joyful rather than feeling stressed or anxious. The same Gallup poll found that people are happiest on weekends (no surprise there!), likely due in part to the amount of time spent with loved ones on these days.

46 ways to increase your happiness

I have been feeling pretty stressed lately (anyone else find October to be a stressful month?), and I found this article to be a great reminder.  I hope you're enjoying your October so far and that this can help increase your happiness, too.  (And maybe give you incentive to have more sex.)

Be Happy: 46 Proven Techniques to Increase Your Happiness and One Way to Get More Sex

By Brad Aronson   |   Posted in: Life Advice

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to be happier. Almost everyone loves being happy (and sometimes we desperately need to be happier), so why not see if we can find more of a good thing.

After a lot of research and testing, here are 46 ways I found to be happier.

By the way, most of these ideas are supported by science.

If you still need a reason to read this article, point #29 will help you get more sex.

Personal Development

1. See setbacks and obstacles as growth opportunities

   Jack Andraka was rejected by 199 research institutions before he found a home for his research and developed a breakthrough diagnostic cancer test (at age 15). Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Steven Spielberg was rejected from film school. It’s ok to fail and have challenges. Your failures are your best opportunities to learn. Hopefully, you can see them that way.

2. Let yourself be a novice

   No one begins as an expert. And, if you think about it, experts built the Titanic. A couple of students who didn’t know what they were doing built Google. Who would you rather be?

3. Don’t sweat the small stuff

   Before you get upset, ask yourself, “Will this matter tomorrow, next week or in a year?” If you get upset at someone who cut the line or a customer service representative or anyone else, you’re not hurting him. You’re only affecting your own happiness.

4. Don’t be a maximizer

   You can spend all day surfing the Internet to find the absolute best price on a new TV. Unless that is significant money for you don’t worry. Your gift doesn’t have to be perfect; it has to be thoughtful. Your house can be clean, but it doesn’t have to be immaculate.
   Very good is good enough.
   This saves time, which none of us have enough of, and it reduces stress.

the opt-out generation

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The original "Opt Out Revolution" article appeared in the New York Times on October 26, 2003, and it described well-educated, high-powered women who decided to leave the fast track to focus on raising their children at home instead.  The media had a field day with it, trying to figure out whether they were wasting years of the feminist struggle for equality in the workplace or if it, as they claimed, was a new, more balanced version of feminism.

Fast forward ten years, and it sounds like "The Opt Out Generation Wants Back In" (New York Times, August 7th).  They were confident as they walked out in their suits and heels as lawyers with prestigious firms and so on, optimistic that it would be a temporary break from their upward trajectory, but for most women, it has been more challenging than they predicted to reenter the workforce after a hiatus.

It's interesting to consider this when you have a new little one (or one on the way): how will you structure your family?  Who will take care of the child(ren)?  Who will pay the bills?  How will you also make sure your romantic/adult relationships thrive?

It's interesting to note that while it was more of a struggle to find work after time away, it sounded like none of the women regretted their decision.  Further, while some tried to return to their former fields (and usually took lower-level positions and lower pay), most of the women ended up going into more "nurturing" fields, such as education or the nonprofit sector-- and they were happier and felt more balanced.

I thought these articles were a nice reminder to not get too caught up in the rat race, to slow down and look clearly at the price we pay for success, and then to choose our forward movement with our values and priorities in mind-- but to also not be too idealistic and realize that when we choose what's important, other things will likely fall by the wayside.

And I guess that is the key.  We have such limited time in our quickly passing days, months and years, we have one shot at getting our children's childhoods right (no pressure), so we have to make sure we're actively choosing what we do with our time (and actively choosing what falls by the wayside).  We can define our own version of success and happiness and make that life a reality.

real conversations with a two-year-old as reenacted by a full-grown man

Hope you're having a great summer so far.  Here's a little video that I thought was pretty fun.  Enjoy!

drowning doesn't look like drowning

I just came across this article on Slate and thought it was really informative.  As summer approaches, let's hope being informed keeps us and our little loved ones safe.

A lifeguard keeps watch on opening day of the newly renovated McCarren Park Pool on June 28, 2012, in Brooklyn, New York.

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

The new captain jumped from the deck, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the couple swimming between their anchored sportfisher and the beach. “I think he thinks you’re drowning,” the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. “We’re fine; what is he doing?” she asked, a little annoyed. “We’re fine!” the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. ”Move!” he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not 10 feet away, their 9-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, “Daddy!”

How did this captain know—from 50 feet away—what the father couldn’t recognize from just 10? Drowning is not the violent, splashing call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew know what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, “Daddy,” she hadn’t made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for is rarely seen in real life.

my new challenge as a human being

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"Spread love everywhere you go.  Let no one ever come to you without leaving you happier."

     - Mother Teresa

russians doing good deeds

In case you needed a visual reminder that people are good, this is a nice one.  I guess there had been a lot of insurance fraud, so Russian cars are required to have dashboard cameras.  What people have been catching instead are lots of small, anonymous acts of kindness.

The translation of the title: Do something good.

Enjoy!