AMERICAN HOME part 2 - Never Too Young to Help

"Yes, boys and girls, every single one of you can help us win this old war! There are lots and lots of ways, and here are some that are right at your front doors!"

This is another reason why we're still having problems in Iraq. Kids these days don't wash and store their rubber beach balls, or take care of their metal lunch-boxes, keeping them clean and dry. KIDS, it's all your fault we're losing this old war!

The suggestions read:

You can help save rubber overshoes by cleaning, drying, and keeping them cool
Neatly placed clothes give you a lot more dressing speed if there's a fire
Rubber beach balls like to be washed and stored dry and cool for the winter
Help the war by taking care of your metal lunch-box, and keeping it clean and dry
Yes, a picnic stove from a big old tin can, holes cut for fire and a chimney!
In New York you can "adopt" a doll if you will always keep her very clean and well
Girl Scout fixes up old toys so other children won't need to buy new ones
New bicycles for juniors are "out," so tip-top care of yours is mighty important
Jimmy helps win the war by taking care of his raincoat so it will last longer

And, get this, the photographs are courtesy of Cleanliness Bureau. What is this magic bureau? Why do the Interwebs offer no information about it? All I can find is something online that says the Cleanliness Institute was started in New York in 1927 by Association of American Soap and Glycerine Producers, to tell women and children that they should be cleaner.

35 Suggestions for a Healthy Home

I'm pretty sure I've shared things from the Apartment Therapy book before. Although the fixing-up-my-apartment project continues [forever], after four months of borrowing the book from my library it's finally due. I have one more section that I've been meaning to share, and it's from the appendix. I've tried a bunch of this stuff, and it just seems good, so here it is:

35 Suggestions for a Healthy Home

When you wake up in the morning, make your bed. [I usually do now. I like it.]

Make sure the seat is down after you use the toilet. [I always do this. One time I actually left it open and Paley accidentally jumped into the toilet, because she usually jumps from the toilet seat to the sink, and didn't know to be careful. It was pretty funny and she got a bath right after I pulled her out. Poor cat.]

Always leave the shower curtain pulled across, so that it can dry and not mildew. [I try to remember this. It also makes my bathroom more colorful.]

Use your kitchen in the morning, even if it is only to have a glass of orange juice.

Take out the recycling when you leave home each morning. [I hate the environment so this doesn't apply to me.*]

Always include a thank you note with your rent. [I started doing this. I like it and will continue to do it. Now that I think about it, I bet it could just be a card that says "Thank You" with the check in it. What I've been doing is giving him an update on the apartment and telling him a little of what I'm up to. For example, this month I will update him on my painting project. Maybe I'll start doing just a blank thank you card for months that I don't have things to tell him about?]

Have your paper delivered. It is cheaper and more efficient.

Always go out of your way to say good morning to your neighbors on the street.

Pick up garbage in front of your building even if it's not yours. [Dilemma: I have a neighbor who is a collector. Of everything. I've heard his apartment is packed with stuff. He has two cars next to the house that are full of stuff too. I want to get rid of the junk on the side of our house, but I think he may be "saving" some of it. What to do?]

Before you leave the office, take five minutes to clean up your desk. [More relevant if you have a desk at work.]

On Fridays, take fifteen minutes and clear your desk, throwing out or filing all Post-Its, cards, or papers that are old.

Buy flowers for your apartment at least once a week on your way home from work. [I did this for a few weeks, but it gets kind of spendy on a student budget. Still, it brought life to my old little house. I wonder if the kitchen herbs will have the same effect? Eh. Probably not.]

Take off your street shoes when you come home. Use house shoes inside your home. [I started wearing house sandals. I like this and will continue to wear them.]

Hang your coat up right away when you come home.

Sort your mail right away when you come home.

Keep all coats, bags, and shoes by the front door. [Works better if you have an entryway, I would guess.]

Use the time just after you get home to run any local errands, such as dry cleaning, pharmacy, or laundry.

Check your messages right away and then erase the tape. [Huh. Do people still have answering machines?]

Return all your calls before dinner.

Use a cordless headset to make calls while you cook or straighten up your house. [ = Bluetooth?]

Don't let your refrigerator fill up with old food.

Always eat on a real plate with a real napkin.

Light a candle when you eat, even if you are alone.

Drink water.

When you are done, clean up and take this opportunity to clean your counters and table. If any counters or tables need oiling, do it right away.

Do all dishes before you go to bed.

Floss each night.

Don't make calls after 9 p.m.

Put all clothes away or in the laundry before going to bed each night.

Take a bath before bed if you have trouble sleeping.

Plan on at least 7 1/2 hours of sleep a night.

Buy good bedding. Invest in a good bed. [Someday.]

Get in bed early and read for 30 minutes.

Only have one book at your bedside at a time. Finish the books you start.

Give four parties a year.

Anyway, those are the 35. I almost felt like I should bold all of the ones that I'm doing and post it on Facebook. Doesn't it seem like one of those?

*Just kidding. Mostly. I did switch to earth-friendly dish soap and laundry detergent because of this book.

101 in 1001

One of Jessica's friends started doing this thing where you come up with 101 things you want to accomplish, and you try to do them in 1001 days.

Jess told us about it, and now all of the girls in our family are doing it together. We have a Google Docs document for it, and we've spent the past couple weeks coming up with our lists together so that we would be ready for 1 March, which was the day that we decided we wanted to start.

For more info about the project, you can visit this site, Day Zero, which gives some guidelines for setting goals (you know, specific, measurable, etc.), and links to a bunch of other people's lists.

Since we started on 1 March, we're working to complete our lists by 27 November 2011.

We divided our lists into categories, so that it would be easier for us to compare and do goals together, and to make it easier to balance our goals.

Everyone else chose 25 of their goals to work on in the next 250 days, but I didn't. Usually people edit their lists as they go; my sisters are changing the color of their items when they're in progress, and crossing them out when they're completed. On my blog I'll probably just blog about the things that I do complete, and maybe post updated lists a couple times.

Some people online put a lot of crazy stuff on their lists; visiting Africa, buying lots of expensive things, etc. I know that for about half of my 1001 days I'm going to be finishing my undergrad, and then for another year of it I'll most likely be doing my first year of law school. So I tried to be realistic about the things that I chose as goals. I think it will be a good 1001 days.

Here is my list:

Creativity & Projects

1. Finish quilt started with Grandma.

2. Make mission albums (3?)

3. Make NYC/DC/Boston album

4. Make pepper jack cheese.

5. Make mozzarella.

6. Learn to dye yarn.

7. Knit 12 pairs of socks. (0/12)

8. Spin enough yarn to knit a blanket, or make progress towards knitting a blanket from yarn I've spun.

9. Build a nice personal website.

10. Choose music I like, and sync my computer and phone.

11. Make my blog into books.

12. Can fresh fruit at least once.

13. Sew two Amy Butler Weekender bags. (0/2)

14. Sew an Amy Butler Sophia bag

15. Make an Amy Butler puzzle quilt

16. Blog at least twice a week for three months. (0/24)

17. Order moo cards.

Education & Learning

18. Review my Italian grammar book, completing all assignments.

19. Read Harry Potter in Italian.

20. Read Postmortem in Italian.

21. Graduate from college.

22. Take the LSAT. (?/180)

23. Apply for law school. (?/?)

24. Read 25 books outside of school reading. (0/25)

25. Take the Photoshop, etc, workshops on campus.

26. Take a carpentry class and make something.

27. Watch the AFI top 100 movies. (0/100)

28. Check into the Honors program at the U, and see how many more classes I would need. If possible to graduate on time, include these classes in my schedule.

29. Take a painting class for at least a month.

Environment & Outdoors

30. Find 100 caches. (0/100)

31. Place 15 caches. (0/15)

32. Sew 250 morsbags. (0/250)

33. Go camping at least once per year.

34. Go on 10 bike rides. (0/10)

35. Learn to cook 3 things in my Dutch oven. (0/3)

36. Switch to earth friendly cleaning products.

37. Pre-measure laundry detergent into snack bags or little containers so that I don't have to take the whole thing.

Family & Friends

38. Write to G&G 1x/month

39. Send real birthday cards/personal messages.

40. Send at least fun 3 letters to the boys. (0/3)

41. Read a satisfactory number of Mom's recommended reading.

Health, Fitness, & Appearance

42. Lose 25 lbs. (0/25)

43. Run 10 5Ks. (0/10)

44. Run a 1/2 marathon (April 2009!)

45. Run a full marathon (October 2009!)

46. Keep a running diary or training log for one month (0/31)

47. Do a sprint triathlon.

48. Learn to walk comfortably in heels. If such a thing is possible.

49. Buy five pairs of shoes. (0/5)

50. Donate an old item of clothing from my closet every time I get a new one until my closet only contains things that I actually wear.

51. Spend a weekend preparing at least 4 meals to freeze- at least 6 times. (0/6)

52. Learn to do eye makeup. (MAC class? book? Lots of practice?)

53. Wear eye makeup every day for 1 month. (0/31)

54. Take a swimming class.

55. Have my eyebrows done professionally.

56. Laser surgery.

57. Buy a hat.

58. Do a beginner's snowboarding class.

59. Plan meals for one month. (0/31)

60. Try all of the meals from the Nordstrom Friends & Family Cookbook that I've been meaning to try and haven't. (0/78)

61. Attend 10 yoga classes. (0/10)

62. Start an herb garden for my kitchen.

63. Make an exercise playlist and put it on my little iPod.

64. Buy a pasta roller and make pasta from scratch.

House & Home

65. Paint my bedroom.

66. Paint my bathroom.

67. Paint my kitchen.

68. Acquire and learn 10 new games. (Including Rook.) (0/10)

69. Buy a wii.

70. Buy wii fit.

71. Buy Rockband.

72. Organize my papers into files.

73. Destroy papers that I don't need.

74. Cross stitch or embroider either a Jesus picture or a picture of a temple.

75. Build a bookshelf.

76. Learn to cook Chicken Tikka Masala and Naan

77. Organize my kitchen cupboards with plastic containers.

78. Paint my living room.

Money, Finances, & Work

79. Make a budget.

80. Save change.

Responsibility & Good Things

81. Buy a harness, leash, and stake so that Paley can do homework outside with me.

82. Make a sincere effort to not gossip for one month. (0/31)

83. Volunteer 100 hours. (0/100)

84. Oh, also, Red Cross certification class thing.

85. Upgrade my ham license to general class.

86. Find my place in Salt Lake to donate platelets and go at least 5 times. (0/5)

87. Organize and reduce e-mail so that there are 50 e-mails or fewer in my inbox and keep it that way for at least 4 months. (progress)

88. Finish Paley's shots.

89. File 2008 taxes by March 15.

Spirituality

90. Read every Ensign cover to cover for 12 months. (0/12)

91. Attend the temple 30 times. (0/30)

91b. Get married one of those times. (HA. Just kidding.)

92. Read my church books that I have and have not finished. (0/4?)

93. Read the Liahona cover to cover for one year. (0/12)

94. Determine genealogy goal and accomplish it.

95. Finish reading the Old Testament. (I'm to Proverbs.)

96. Graduate from Institute.

Travel & Places to Go

97. Do iFly.

98. Renew passport when it expires (June 2010.)

99. Attend the Rome temple dedication, if I can. If not, visit Italy.

100. See 5 plays. (0/5)

101. Take a trip with friends.

25 things about me!

Every time I see that another person has done a list of 25 things, I am a little bit confused.  People treat it like something new, but I feel like we already did this.

I checked on my blog for my list of 25 things.  Annnnnd, I couldn't find it.  (But I may have not looked closely enough.)

So just now I checked my old blog, from before Utah, before my mission, etc, and I found it! Except my list was of 50 things, instead of 25.  But it was totally popular in the same way.  

I wrote my list...

in March of 2004.

This isn't new, people.  It's been around for 5 years.

How to Commit Fraud

Tomorrow morning I'm taking my Accounting final. Early. We're allowed to use a 3x5 card with whatever we want on it, as long as it is in our own handwriting. I am, of course, writing as much as I possibly can on my card. (I'm using pigma micron 005 pens, which write .20 mm line width = tiny.) To keep things nice and legible, I'm writing four lines between each line on the index card.

I just came across a kind of fun slide that I thought I would mention. It's a page of "Recent Financial Reporting Misstatements" and it was basically our class conversation about how to commit fraud. I guess a bunch of accounting professors won't really talk about fraud in classes, but mine does! He tells us he's teaching us how to commit fraud so that we know not to do it. "If you do it, you'll get away with it for awhile," he says. "But eventually you'll get caught."

So the deal is this: every year public companies have to issue financial statements. People who buy stocks use these financial statements to know how the company is doing, and how it will probably continue to operate, etc. The financial statements don't come out right right after the period that they represent, so even if anything serious changes between when the statements are from and when they're released (like a few months), they're even supposed to mention that. Because as someone buying part of the company, like, you deserve to know.

That's the whole point of this stuff. If you choose to invest in a risky company, that's totally your choice, and maybe you'll make a lot of money or maybe you'll lose a lot of money. BUT, you have to know accurate numbers so that you know which companies are risky or less risky so that you can make that informed decision about where to put your moneys.

But companies can do some shady stuff to make it look like everything is fine or good when it actually is not fine.

Like these things:

Recording revenue too soon. OH NO! The financial year is ending tomorrow and everyone is expecting us to make THIS much money and instead we only made this much money. Well, Joe has paid us for the big order of stuff we're delivering to him next week, so let's just go ahead and count it now instead of next week, since we already know we're going to have it for him next week anyway. And if we count it now then we'll be closer to what people are expecting. [In accounting, this is not okay.]

Boosting income with one time sales. Everyone expected us to make $$$, but we actually sold Suzie that big order, so this year we made $$$$$$. All of us here at the company know that Suzie just needed stuff once, and that our company is not really growing that much or doing any better than we usually do. Next year we'll be back to making $$ or $$$ or mayyyybe $$$$ if we're lucky. Definitely not $$$$$$ like this year. But we just won't really say anything about Suzie's order, or draw any attention to it, and everyone will think we had a great year, and that next year will probably be even better. And they'll buy our stock like it's crack cocaine. Or candy. [Also not fine. They have a fatty notes section at the end of the financial statements where you can say "welllll, we had a great year, but it was mostly business as usual except for Suzie's big one time order" and that way everyone knows that you actually are still the company that they think you are. Or that you're doing worse if you are. Or whatever. But you're not misleading people into thinking that you're making more money if it's actually a one shot deal.]

Shifting current revenue to a later period. People were expecting us to make $15 and we actually made $35, but next year is going to be rough. So instead of saying we made $35, let's only say we made $20. And then we can count the other $15 next year, because our main product is our chocolate chip cookie, and we know that chocolate chips are on back order everywhere for the next 6 months, so times are going to be rough, but if we just save that $15 and count it later, then it will look like we did fine next year too, no matter how things actually go. [Also misleads people. Like maybe your stock stays the same because you did what everyone expected, so you can buy up lots of stock and then declare your other revenue next time and you'll be way ahead, and the stock will go up, and that would be shady. So, you can't shift current revenue to a later period.]

Recording bogus revenue. Hey look, our contractor sent us a refund because he was able to get the part cheaper! Great! Let's just pretend we sold more of something! [Obviously not fine to pretend you made money when you didn't.]

Shifting current expenses to a later or earlier period. "Well, everyone expected us to make $50, but after we pay Bill for the paper clips we ordered, we'll only have made $40. Blast. Oh, I know! Let's just pretend I didn't actually mail the check to Bill and we'll count it tomorrow so that it's part of our next financial statements. That way we'll have made our $50, and we can just plan to make a little more to cover the paper clips next time." [Just pay for the paper clips now. Let your numbers be a little lower this time, and people may be unhappy, but then you won't have to worry about jail time. For shifting current expenses, anyway.]

Failure to record or improperly reducing liabilities. Liabilities are the things you owe other people. So this is like saying, "Look! We have $25!" and everyone thinks you sold $25 of whatever, but you don't tell them that you also owe the bank $25, and you maybe didn't sell anything at all. Or maybe you sold stuff but you didn't charge enough to make a profit. You could be saying, "Look at our great company! We have $25!" and actually you have a loan that you still have to pay off that's $50, and you're losing money. [Don't do this.] [Lose money OR commit fraud.]

Shifting future expenses to the current period as a special charge. Well, if we have more expenses, it will make sense that we have less money than people expected. So, let's just pretend we paid all of our electric bills for the rest of the year. We'll put it on our statements as "Electricity Fee" (or, you know, whatever) and then when we have to pay them later we'll just know that we already counted them. Or we'll count them again under their normal utility category. Similar to shifting revenue; it makes it look like you're making more or less than you actually are. [Bad idea.]

Interesting, huh. The magician clip art I actually copy/pasted from the slide because I thought that was kinda funny.

Things I Have Done

Whenever I go back and read my old blog from a long time ago, I roll my eyes because half of my posts are about how I really need to blog more, and I will soon. The other half are things like this.

I really never do these anymore, but this one looked like fun. I thought it looked fun when LJ did it back in November, I thought it looked fun when Cicada did it a couple days ago, and then when Kelly did today, I decided that everybody's doing it. Just once won't hurt. No one will know. I can stop whenever I want.

Mmkay, I've bolded everything I've done on this list.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band (Not the cool kind, but I did do the middle school kind)
4. Visited Hawaii (Maui.)
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland (Lots of times.)
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty (When I went during spring break this year, you could pay extra to go to the top of the base, but they weren't letting people go to the real top. We thought it was weak sauce, so we just walked around the bottom instead.)
18. Grown your own vegetables (Soorrrrt of. I had a garden during the summer.)
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train (London to Edinburgh)
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked (in Italy)
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon (but I'm doing the SLC 1/2 marathon in April 2009, and then hopefully a full one in October 2009)
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice (been to Venice, but no g$o$n$d$o$l$a ride)
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community (Charm.)
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelos David (We were in Florence on a Monday. Everything is closed on Mondays, so we saw the outside of the museum but not David.)
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma (All three.)
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy (CandyCane, my stuffed goldfish.)
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person (but I am planning on hiking it May 2009!)
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible (entire NT, yes, plus most of the OT.)
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous (lots of them, actually)
92. Joined a book club (Hm. I don't think I have. Book club, anyone?)
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee (wasp. Close enough.)
100. Read an entire book in one day

Also, interestingly, I notice that a couple things are different between the version LJ did and the version that Cicada and Kelly did. On LJ's version, 100 is reading a book, on Cicada's version it's having one cavity or less. Also, the gondola question in LJ's version is about Venice (which makes sense to me), and it's about Switzerland in the other version. Huh? Gondolas in Switzerland? And a couple other little things.

Anyway. I should get back to studying...

Becoming cultured, part 2.5.

Okay, this is the last part of the book that I want to share. It's also from Chapter 4 of Discover Your Inner Economist by Tyler Cowen. This part isn't a list of ways to become cultured, though, it's just an interesting list of things that make paintings more valuable. Which sounds boring now that I've typed it, but I actually thought it was interesting.

"For better or worse, most people prefer art that makes them happy, or that they think will make them more relaxed. Look at market prices. Paintings with light colors sell better than paintings with dark colors. Happy portrait subjects sell better than widows. Horizontal pictures are easier to hang over fireplaces and sofas. Here are a few other market regularities:

1. Landscapes can as much as triple in value when there are horses or figures in the foreground. Evidence of industry usually lowers a picture’s value.
2. A still life with flowers is worth more than one with fruit. Roses stand at the top of the flower hierarchy. Chrysanthemums and lupines (seen as working class) stand at the bottom.
3. There is a price hierarchy for animals. Purebred dogs help a picture more than mongrels do. Spaniels are worth more than collies. Racehorses are worth more than cart-horses. When it comes to game birds, the following rule of thumb holds: the more expensive it is to shoot the bird, the more it adds to the value of a painting. A grouse is worth more than a mallard, and the painter should show the animal from the front, not the back.
4. Water adds value to a picture, but only if it is calm. Shipwrecks are a no-no.
5. Round and oval works are extremely unpopular with buyers.
6. An eighteenth-century Francois Boucher nude sketch of a woman can be worth ten times more than a comparable sketch of a man."

Hm. Neat.

Becoming cultured, part 2.

This is another of my favorite excerpts from Discover Your Inner Economist (which is still by Tyler Cowen). It is also from Chapter 4.

"The art critic tries to make the viewer a better person. This sounds good--after all, who is opposed to “better people,” or people who are better informed? But it is not necessarily the way to solve the problem which is fundamentally one of attention and interest. In contrast to the art critic, our Inner Economist starts with the recognition that our attention is scarce and works with that constraint. I therefore recommend the following.

1. In every room ask yourself which picture you would take home--if you could take just one--and why.

This forces us to keep thinking critically about the displays. If the alarm system was shut down and the guards went away, should I carry home the Cezanne, the Manet, or the Renoir? In a room of Egyptian antiquities, which one caught my eye? And why? We should discuss the question with our companion.

To put it crudely, we must force ourselves to keep on paying attention. Ranking the pictures focuses our attention on our favorites. It also focuses our attention on ourselves, which is in fact our favorite topic. Me, me, me. It sounds crude, doesn’t it? But if the “Me Factor,” as I will call it, is operating against the art rather than working with it, our love affair with museums won’t last very long.

Finally, it is fun to imagine ourselves as thieves. Theft is exciting, and we value objects more highly when we can think of ourselves as owning them. That is also part of the Me Factor.

Of course, we must ignore the carping of the sophisticates. Well-educated critics may claim that pictures cannot be ranked, value is multidimensional or subjective, or that such talk represents a totalizing, colonizing, possessive, post capitalist, hegemonic Western imperialist approach. All of those missives are beside the point. When it comes to the arts, dealing with the scarcity of our attention is more important than anything, including respecting the artists.

2. Pretend we are shopping for pictures on a budget.

We are probably better trained at shopping than looking at pictures. So we might do some basic research on the prices (e.g., surf the Internet or visit an auction house). How might $20 million be spent at the Met?

Or how about $500,000? The smaller budget forces us out of the market for major paintings and into niche areas. This exercise will again focus our attention, force us to clarify our intuitions, and improve the quality of our viewing. The shopping question puts the Me Factor, albeit unobtrusively, back at the center of the experience.

Viewing art at an auction house is useful for learning about prices. In New York City, November and May are usually the best times for advance viewings of auction material. But local auction houses hold viewings throughout the year. Typically the quality of the selection is worse than at a pre-culled art museum. Nonetheless it often makes for a superior viewing experience, if only because of the prices and the shopping and browsing mentality that the setting induces.

3. When visiting a blockbuster exhibit, skip room number one altogether.

There is too much human traffic, because people have not yet admitted to themselves that they don’t care about what is on the wall. Maybe you don’t care much either, but you will care more by relaxing the pretense.

[This tip reminded me of the big Monet to Picasso exhibit that I went to earlier this year. The museum girl who was letting us in told us about this! The reason we all had to wait was because the first room takes awhile to clear out. In the first room, people still think they want to read every sign by every piece. After the first room, most people stop doing that, and then the flow is much better.]

4. At the end of the visit, ask which paintings stuck with you.

Did you find yourself thinking back on the Munch, the Pollock, or the medieval tapestries? A week later ask the same question. Then go read about those artists or that period. That is a more useful procedure than reading about the art in advance.

These recommendations flow from the general principles from above. Our time and attention are scarce. Art is not that important to us, no matter what we might like to believe. So we should stop self-deceiving and admit to ourselves that we don’t just love “art for art’s sake.” Our love of art is often quite temporary, dependent upon our moods, and our love of art is subservient to our demand for a positive self-image. How we look at art should account for those imperfections and work around them."

Becoming cultured, part 1.

I'm reading a couple books right now. One is about renovating my apartment, and the other is called Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist (by Tyler Cowen).

The apartment book is interesting, and I'm getting a lot of ideas, which I hope to do something with when I someday have money. I'll someday post pictures, and I'm sure I'll tell about the book then also.

The Inner Economist book is clever, and I like it a lot. I already have a few parts that I want to share. Since I should probably go to work soon, I'll post one, and then I'll share more later.

This is from Chapter 4, which has kind of a "becoming cultured" theme, since that's something people want. (Or think they want.) I'll share part of the museums and art stuff later, but after he writes about that, he continues...

"Art museums are just one part of our culture and just one medium for becoming a cultural billionaire. Reading is no less a source of depth and inspiration; indeed it seems that more modern lives have been transformed by novels than by paintings or sculptures.

But how should we "attack" classic novels that seem boring on first inspection? One Amazon.com reviewer noted that William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury "...is like an ungrateful girlfriend. You do your best to understand her and get nothing back in return." Many other readers, perhaps less figuratively, feel the same way.

Keeping in mind our fundamental principles--the scarcity of time, attention, and giving a damn about art--here are a few tips for reading. The key is to keep ourselves involved, rather than to mimic the behavior of a literature professor at Yale. If people stay interested in a product--like their favorite computer game--they will put in the extra time to understand it better.

That said, try some combination of the following:

1. Read some middle or end chapters first. They may pique your interest. Don't obsess over sequence.

2. Read through the novel the first time, following each voice or character, skipping passages as you need to. Get interested in at least one character, even if the rest is a cipher. Then reread the book as a whole in order. This works especially well for multi-voice works such as Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.

3. Read the first fifty pages three times in a row before proceeding. Make sure you understand at least one part of the book.

4. Don't be afraid to skip over material and return to it later. This is necessary for the first fifty pages of Joseph Conrad's Nostromo. Material that destroys our interest in a book is negative, no matter how important its contribution to plot or character development. Since you're not oging to remember all of a book anyway, don't feel so guilty about skipping over some key parts. Laugh and cackle while you skip, if you wish.

5. Read through the book for the first time without stopping, but do not try to understand what is going on. Treat it as investment in the book, akin to driving to the bookstore, rather than as a forum for judgment. Then try the book again, but with some idea where matters are headed.

6. Start by reading some of the secondary literature on the tough book. Again the goal is to get ourselves interested. I don't like CliffsNotes, if only because they are boring and they deaden the works they summarize. But don't be afraid to "go low" when looking for help. Do not start with exalted literary critics unless you are persuaded they will be either involving or entertaining.

7. Take notes on the names and most important features of the major characters. Write these notes on the front leaf of the book or somewhere else accessible.

8. Give up. Recall the words of Samuel Johnson: "A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good."

Some combination of these tricks almost always works. Most generally, we enjoy reading most when we feel we are in control (there's that word again). Harold Bloom tells us, correctly, that we should read: "to strengthen the self, and to learn its authentic interests." It is hard to meet those ends if we go through the book feeling like hopeless idiots."

(That's from pages 62-63.) It's a good book. Tyler Cowen's blog looks good, too.

A couple days ago he posted this sentence about time management:

All people are equally good at time management, but some people are more willing than others to admit that they are doing what they want to do, while others maintain the illusion they wish they were doing something else.

And that's something to think about. Also, Tyler Cowen has an Ethnic Dining Guide blog, but it looks like it's all stuff in the DC area. Interesting guy.

Interesting NYT today...

I had some time in between class and work today, and I decided I would read the New York Times, which I sometimes do.

The New York Times is my favorite newspaper, because I think it covers a great range of news; there are always stories about what's going on, but there are also often stories about just random, interesting things. One time I read this story about these immigrants who would call this phone number and listen to a preacher in their like, obscure language, and it made it so that they could hang in there for the rest of the week. It kept them going. It was a pretty amazing story. Or another time, there was that story about the berries that made everything taste sweet. NYT, baby.

Anyway, today's paper was a real winner, I thought. Not that there was anything amazing amazing, but there was a lot of great stuff. I read a bunch of it, and skimmed some of it, and I clipped 3 little stories to share on here.

1. From the front page of the NYT, "H.M., Whose Loss of Memory Made Him Unforgettable, Dies". Anyone who has ever taken a psychology class has heard of this guy. He was always called H.M. for privacy, but his name was Henry Gustav Molaison. Basically, he was hit by a bicycle and had been having awful seizures. So he had this experimental surgery which would hopefully fix that, and like, it did. Exceeeppppt, he totally ended up losing the ability to make new memories. So for the next 55 years, everything he did it was like he was doing for the first time. The NYT says, "And for those five decades, he was recognized as the most important patient in the history of brain science." The article says he was patient and always willing to try stuff they had him do, "And yet every time [Dr. Milner] walked in the room, it was like [they had] never met." It was a neat article. They arranged to do final MRI scans hours after he died, and they're having his brain preserved, like Einstein's. Neat article.

2. The next article that I really liked was, "Strangers May Cheer You Up, Study Says," by Pam Belluck. This article was about a study that will be published in BMJ, which is a British journal. (Aha! I found it.) The article included a quote from Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis from Harvard Medical School, who was one of the authors of the study. He said, "Your happiness depends not just on your choices and actions, but also on the choices and actions of people you don't even know who are one, two and three degrees removed from you." The study shows that people who live close to you have a huge influence on your happiness, even without you being aware of it. Like through body language and stuff. "A next-door neighbor's joy increased one's chance of being happy by 34 percent, but a neighbor down the block had no effect. A friend living half a mile away was good for a 42 percent bounce, but the effect was almost half that for a friend two miles away. A friend in a different community altogether can win an Oscar without making you feel better."

The article also mentioned another study, "In a separate study of 1,700 Facebook profiles, they found that people smiling in their photographs had more Facebook friends and that more of those friends were smiling." Interesting.

3. The last article isn't really an article. It's just one of those little blips where they briefly mention what is happening in places around the world. The title was "Zimbabwe: Cholera Emergency" and I thought it was interesting too, mostly because I had no idea about it. The only thing I know about Cholera is that there is a book called Love in the Time of Cholera. Which I haven't even read. I sort of didn't realize it was still a big deal. It is to Zimbabwe, though. They've had 560 people die since August. They desperately need food, drugs, and equipment, and Dr. David Parirenyatwa (whoever that is) said, "Our central hospitals are literally not functioning." Sad! The International Red Cross sent 13 tons of medical supplies, like rehydration fluids, antibiotics, and clothes to protect the medical workers.

I looked up Cholera to see what it actually even is, and basically it's where you consume food or water that is infected with cholera vibrios bacteria, and it messes up your small intestine and you start having exhaustive diarrhea. It's one of the most "rapidly fatal illnesses known" according to Wikipedia. Without medical treatment people can die within 3 hours but typically they make it 18 hours to several days. The only way to survive is to have oral rehydration therapy.

Other Strategies for Adding Humor to Your Life

I was looking at the same article I just posted the quiz from, and the page before the quiz is a list of ways to add humor to your life. This may also be of interest to someone.

Innovations in Clinical Practice: A Source Book (Vol. 5)
Waleed Salameh "The effective use of humor in psychotherapy." (p. 169)

Other Strategies for Adding Humor to Your Life. Draw cartoons (without worrying about their artistic value) about situations, persons, or events which you find to be particularly humorous. Create humorous collages. Take an art or photography catalog (or even your own family album) and make up humorous captions for each picture. When you come home every evening, try to remember at least one funny event that happened during the day. Write it down and share it with friends and family. Practice "International Dyslexia" by creating new words or onomatopoeias that cannot be found in dictionaries. Ask your friends to tell you their favorite jokes and tell them yours.

Find some time to be alone, sitting in your most comfortable position, relaxed, and breathing soundly. Close your eyes and bring up a humorous experience. Visualize the event as concretely as possible, and allow yourself to fully relive and enjoy it in all its details and with all the feelings you experienced at that moment. Make a date with yourself to repeat this experience on a regular basis by bringing up the same event, constructing a cassette tape of the experience, or picturing other humorous events you have been involved in. Keep in mind that all of us have had happy, humorous experiences, even if we are sometimes more prone to remember negative happenings.

List five facts or life situations you frequently experience and which you find to be absurdly humorous. For example, why can't public telephones return change, or why do some envelopes have a caption on the top right corner saying, "Place stamp here"?

Make written notes of humorous car stickers you notice as you drive. Some examples are "Plumbers do it with a flush," "Teachers do it with class," "Fishermen have all the angles," "Quilters do it warmly," "Chemists get better reactions," "Chess players are better at mating." Start your own "...do it with..." sequence.

Think of a problem that has been bothering you. Think of one sentence which you could use to define your problem in a humorous vein and write it down.

Don't be afraid to share with others the spontaneous humorous associations or scenarios that cross the freeways of your mind. Of course, some of what you find humorous may not be humorous to others because different individuals have predilections for different humorous genres. It is okay for some people to feel that some other people's humor is not okay.

With your co-workers, friends, or colleagues, start a humor support group. Your group can share jokes and success stories on the constructive applications of nondestructive humor used with oneself or others. Each group member can also share with the group an embarrassing episode that he or she has lived, simply relating what happened with out censuring the event in any way. The sharing of embarrassing episodes promotes group cohesiveness, encourages members to be less self-conscious, and brings home the message that we are all imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. Additionally, the group may enjoy experimenting with improvisational comedy sketches, miming, or other humorous performances.

Start the day with a zing. As soon as you get up in the morning, make a habit of calling up a good friend and exchanging humorous repartee with him or her. This will get you perked up and humorously ready for the day. You can also call any of your friends during the day (especially those who are unhappy and need to laugh) and leave humorous messages on their answering machines. Examples include imitating various dialects or funny advertisements, remembering private jokes, sharing new jokes, and so on.

Make funny lists to exaggerate, stretch, and spoof some of your own problems, fears, and behaviors. You may find that writing such comical lists is not only a lot of fun but can also help you deflate and gain perspective on hitherto insurmountable or disquieting concerns. And, who knows, you may find out about things you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask. Examples include "ten things I must remember to do to fail my exams," "twelve recommendations that would virtually squelch my chances of ever getting a promotion," "five things I must remember to do to spoil my relationships with others," "ten favorite anxieties I can't live without," "twelve worries I want to indulge in from now until death do us part," "five myths I want to keep believing about myself so I can enjoy depression," "seven myths and seven realities about my fear of success," and "three reasons why undue guilt is good for me."

You can also take the Humorous Sentence Completion Blank test which I have included on the next two pages. [NOTE: the Humorous Sentence Completion Blank test was my last blog post, found here]

Although I abhor swimming in wet cement...

Today I scanned an article that I thought was kind of interesting, called "The Effective Use of Humor in Psychotherapy". I didn't read the whole thing because obviously I was working, but there was a funny part that caught my attention.

Here is the quiz for your enjoyment. (PS, it's from 1986, so this is sort of like an old school meme!)

Innovations in Clinical Practice: A Source Book (Vol. 5, p. 170-171)

TABLE 4: HUMOROUS SENTENCE COMPLETION BLANK

INSTRUCTIONS: Please complete the sentences below with the first spontaneous response that occurs to you. Since this is not a scholastic performance test, there are no right or wrong responses. The only requirement is that you make complete sentences and that your responses reflect your spontaneous reaction to each item below. Please wait for the signal to begin. [Actually, don't, because my blog will not emit any signal.]

1. Although I realize roosters cannot lay eggs, I _________________________
2. While I know I cannot count all the raindrops, I _________________________
3. Although it is vain to build castles in Spain, I _________________________
4. Given that winter follows fall and summer follows spring, I still _________________________
5. Squirrels store their nuts, and I _________________________
6. When the lights are on but nobody is home, I _________________________
7. While it is apparent that chickens do not have lips, I _________________________
8. It is widely known that tickling provokes pleasant vibrations, yet I _________________________
9. Bankers do it with interest, and I do it _________________________
10. Martial artists do it for kicks, and I _________________________
11. Although others make hay while the sun shines, I still _________________________
12. Ever dog has his or her day, and every frog _________________________
13. When I am happy as a lark, I _________________________
14. While research has proven that real men or women don't eat quiche, I _________________________
15. Athletes go for the gold, and I _________________________
16. Due to the fact that I remember some people's names, I _________________________
17. The early bird gets the worm, and I _________________________
18. When I wake up in the morning, I insist _________________________
19. Although I acknowledge that a stitch in time saves nine, I _________________________
20. Some dress for success, yet I _________________________
21. When all else fails, my saving grace _________________________
22. If misery is optional, then joy _________________________
23. Since I stopped going to the circus as often as I used to, I _________________________
24. If Virginia is for lovers, New York for muggers, and Los Angeles for uncertains, then _________________________
25. If I could be either John Wayne, Mae West, Elvis Presley, Tarzan, or Lily Tomlin, I _________________________
26. When I'm singing in the rain, I _________________________
27. The most important difference between pirates and buccaneers is _________________________
28. When m y mother calls to inquire about my last visit to the zoo, I _________________________
29. When I think about counting all the hairs in some people's beards, I _________________________
30. Although I abhor swimming in wet cement, I _________________________
31. All good things must come to an end, yet at this moment my heart _________________________

Brown Bag Lunches

I've decided (for like the 7th time) that I want to be one of those people who actually uses their inbox for incoming email. Right now I have like 4000 messages in my inbox, some from July 2004. Most people haven't even had gmail since then. Anyway, I started by deleting Facebook alerts, and Geocaching.com alerts, and Williams-Sonoma emails, and that kind of stuff. I'm finding lots of treasures, and I'll probably post a few things on here.

Right now I'm going through newsletters that I got from eHealthCompete, which used to be our fitness website for the first year that I worked at Ancestry.


I thought this was kind of a fun email. I'm cutting out the good part to post here. It's a list of tips for brown-bagging awesomely.





Here are some tips for better brown bag:


Splurge: If you are brown-bagging to work, you are automatically saving money by not eating out. So by all means, make your food more enticing than the local fast-food chain's. Make prosciutto, tomato and basil sandwiches, or pick up a roasted chicken in the deli and pack a portion for lunch.


Grilled Thrills: Nothing adds more flavor than grilled foods. Add grilled veggies (onions, zucchini, and eggplant) to your lunch kits. You can bag them separately then add them to a normal sandwich to make it extraordinary. Especially good with goat cheese.


Lunch-Pooling: Form a lunch-pool at work with 4 other persons. On one day of the week, one person makes lunch for all. It's easier to make 5 of the same lunches at once than to make 5 different ones every morning. Plus, it adds variety (just make sure you all share the same tastes in food).


Zip Those Chips: Instead of costly pre-made single serving packs, use sealable plastic bags and even mix up your favorites. Some of them, like those tasty bean chips, vegetable chips and garlic bagel chips, don't come in single server packs.


Stop the Sog: If you are using moist vegetables or condiments, bag them separately then add them to a sandwich at lunch. No more yucky bread.


Fast Food Packets: Next time you eat fast-food (and we know you do), pick up extra packets of ketchup, mustard, salt, pepper, salsa, etc. They are handy for adding flavor to your meal. Condiments can make a sandwich soggy, so adding them fresh from the packet will make your meal tastier.


Condiment Heaven: Explore new condiments on your sandwich. Sun-dried tomato spread, horseradish, Chinese mustard, spreadable goat cheese and Caesar salad dressing are unique alternatives.


If your only problem with taking a brown bag with you is that you forget your lunch then drop your car keys in the bag. You'll never get to work without them

My Web Presence

Something I really do love about Google Analytics is that you can see the search terms people used to find your blog.

For a long time I've seen certain keywords. People find my blog all the time by searching for "list of things to be thankful for", "thankful list", and "list of things that make me happy" and those sorts of phrases. Today I decided to take a look at my site over the past year. Here are some of the things I've found:

Most popular blog entry: Things I'm Thankful For (201 visits)
Ted Mosby is a Jerk (196 visits)
Black Fur hats (172 visits)

There's a big drop off here,
Why I Hate Poetry (92 visits)
Save the Whales (88 visits)
Netflix Free Month (85 visits)

On Google, my blog comes up...
as the 5th result (out of 11,900,000 results!) for... list of things to be thankful for
as the 4th result for... i hate ted mosby
as the 14th result for... ted mosby
as the 8th result for ... how to repair a busby hat [which is interesting because my blog has nothing about that]
as the 4th result (of 2,100,000) for ... tall black fur hat
as the 6th result for ... bearskin bamboo cage [ooookay.]
as the 7th result (of 528,000) for ... hate poetry

Some interesting search keywords that have led people to my blog include:

- "20, 23, 28, 14, 17, 22, 11"
- "difference between treated and untreated wood" [undoubtedly from the post about visiting the Man Mall and building my garden box]
- "i ordered from threadless [looking for testimonials? Threadless often has good stuff. Go for it!]
- "sun-in" permanent hair color reaction [definitely from my post about Jess and I dying our sister's hair]
- "supposed to snow next week"
- "sweet lifestyle" she has a [I love that this brought up my blog, but I'm not sure why it did...]
- +waterproof +shuffle -swimman -otter +superglue [my site is totally otter free.]
- a birthday poem for someone who has died
- accidentally dyed black help [AWESOME.]
- baby leeches
- can a store owner lock you in a room because she owns the store [whaaaat?]
- cats like poprocks [also, pop rocks and cats, and poprocks for cats] [aww, poor Abby]
- do artichokes have strychnine
- do those giant tomato plant really work on tv
- exercises to strengthen spleen [Wanna buy tickets? (To what?) To the spleen show!]
- funny poems about dads who have died [sad...]
- geocache naked [also, geocaching naked and naked geocaching]
- growing cannabis with beans
- homemade duct tape mannequin
- i keep touching my nose stressball
- joy of killing a mondo size fly [I just feel so much...joy!]
- my students hate poetry what can I do [aw! sad! poor teacher!]
- pee holes [?]
- personal finance poems [do these exist? Here is a personal finance haiku: Saving money now/ I put money in the bank/Somehow it will grow.]
- should I get a male or female psychologist
- squeezing balls to make a guy pass out [yikes]
- strange feeling in fingers, when I touch things they feel like plastic [watch out, yo, numbness in fingers is a symptom of diabetes]
- twitter lame [plurk is so much better]
- why do people like machu picchu [because it's awesome]
- why lady like body of other lady
- will duct tape ruin clothes
- yam + jokes [I yam so happy you are Googling yam jokes!]

I think those were the most random ones.

Anyway, how bout everyone else? What has been your most popular entries? What random keywords have brought people to your blog?

Institute Retreat - Successful Goal Setting

This was the second handout that we got at the time management workshop by Sister Smith.

Successful Goal Setting

Top Ten Reasons to Establish Written Goals for Your Life

10. Written goals strengthen your character by promoting long-term perspective.
9. Written goals allow you to lead your life as opposed to simply managing it.
8. Written goals provide internal and consistent motivation.
7. Written goals help you stay focused - to concentrate on what's most important.
6. Written goals enhance your decision-making ability.
5. Written goals simultaneously require and build self-confidence.
4. Written goals help you create the future in advance.
3. Written goals help you control changes, to adjust your sails, to work with the wind - rather than against it.
2. Written goals heighten your awareness of opportunities that are consistent with your goals.
1. The most important benefit of setting effective goals, is the person you become as a result of the pursuit.

7 Reasons People Don't Set Goals

1. They have not yet accepted personal responsibility for their lives.
2. They fear criticism.
3. They don't know how.
4. They don't realize the importance of goals.
5. The curse of early success.
6. Fear of failure.
7. Fear of success.

Highly Effective Goals Are:

1. Written.
2. Stated positively.
3. Time-Bound (I will...by Dec 31st, 2010).
4. Challenging and reasonable.
5. Consistent with your ambition and desires.
6. Specific and measurable.
7. Thoroughly planned.
8. Tracked. (Chart, graph, track online, fill in the bubble, calendar, etc.)
9. Performance goals, not outcome goals. (Base your goals on personal performance which you can control.)

The Goal Setting Workshop

Step 1: Brainstorm your dreams/Ideal lifestyle (no limitations, 50+ goals to cover next 25 years).
Step 2: Prioritize (choose 5 goals to focus on for the next year).
Step 3: Convince yourself (what are tangible/intangible rewards of accomplishing your goals?).
Step 4: Plan on paper (what has to happen for you to accomplish your goals...be specific).
Step 5: List available resources.
Step 6: List potential obstacles.
Step 7: Identify ways to overcome obstacles.

Tips for Success

1. Review your written goals regularly.
2. Get a mentor for important goals. (get direction, advice, ideas, motivation, etc.)
3. Be accountable to someone-- tell someone about your goal & deadlines.
4. Be balanced- set goals in several areas. (spiritual, physical, financial, career, family, recreation, travel, community service, education)
5. Create a "triumphs" journal. (create a list of things you have accomplished in the past)
6. "Visualize" your goal as already accomplished. (screen saver, pictures, goals book, etc.)

Resources:
"Success is Not an Accident" Tommy Newberry
"The Success Principles" Jack Canfield
www.joesgoals.com (website to track goals, habits, provides reports, etc.)
www.maintainfit.com (tracks running, swimming, hiking, biking, and walking)

Institute Committees Retreat - Time Management Workshop

This weekend I went on a retreat with all of the people who are on committees at the University of Utah Institute of Religion. It was a lot of fun. Saturday morning we had workshops, and one of them that I attended was on time management. (I can use all the help I can get!) We got a couple handouts that I thought other people might appreciate.

Time management

"You can't make more time--only better choices"

[Since it was it quotes, I wondered who said it. I looked it up online, and I think it's by Tommy Newberry, who wrote a book called Success is Not an Accident.]

Goals:

Minimize wasted time

Work smarter

Reduce stress

Experience peace

Vital Time: The quantity of time you invest in principle-based, goal-directed activities.

Vital Time Tactics

[She said a lot of these we may have heard before, but if we don't actually do them, then knowing them won't do us any good.]

1. Overcome procrastination

Procrastination, which is the delaying of higher priority tasks in favor of lower priority ones, is more responsible for frustration, stress, and underachievement than any other single factor.

[Am I a feeler or a doer? Be a doer! JUST GET STARTED. Try putting blocks of personal time into your schedule so that you're not tempted to do the stuff you want to at times when you really need to be doing something else.]

2. Organize your workspace
Most disorganization tends to come from indecision, not being able to decide if a piece of paper or some other information is important or not, and if it is, what to do with it.

3. Handle reading material effectively
When you are reading or reviewing correspondence, stand up. Your mind will stay more focused and alert and you'll get done much faster.

4. Handle everything once, and only once

Don't pick up the same task, the same piece of paper, or even the same phone call twice. Pick it up, take care of it, then bring it to a close and go onto the next one.

5. Delegate

Choose the best people. Knowing when to delegate, whom to delegate to, and how to delegate will come more naturally with continued practice. Delegating jobs that neither you nor anyone else wants to do [?] it's delegating, it's assigning.

6. Control your phone calls

Don't be a slave to the phone. Use it as a tool. Ignore it completely if you are involved in an important task. When you call somebody leave a call back time as well. [She suggested we turn our cellphones off sometimes. Like when we're working on a paper, or whatever. I guess studying at the library is a good idea, because I get no reception there. Not that I get a ton of phone calls anyway.]

7. Manage interruptions

Designate specific times for interruptions. Put a hotel "do not disturb" sign on your door, or move your work to a place where you won't be disrupted. [She said when we are interrupted while focusing on something, studies show that it takes 20 minutes to get back to being focused and totally productive. She said if you're interrupted 3 times during an hour...]

8. Batch similar tasks

Set aside certain days to do similar tasks such as work, homework, errands. Save errands and do them all at once, or in a specific area of town.

9. Block out chunks of time

The more important your work becomes the more important it becomes for you to develop blocks of time where you and work on serious projects without interruption. [She suggests we plan our week, and then also, even more importantly, plan your day the night before.]

10. Run masterful meetings

Know the purpose. Is the meeting absolutely necessary? Develop a written agenda. Prepare for the meeting. Lead the meeting effectively.

Use the extra time you've freed up to:

- Spend quality and quantity time with those you love
- Work on important goals and plans
- Simply rest, relax and rejuvenate

Schedule quiet, unbroken blocks of time.

Join the 5 o'clock club [She said they've studied this, and people who are up at 5 am accomplish more between then and 8 or 9 am than the people who get up at 8 or 9 am will accomplish in their entire day.] [These sorts of things always kind of make me wish that I didn't work nights, because what do I even compare that to?]

Block out 3-4 hours once a week.

Create places/spaces where you won't be interrupted.

Assignments:

1. Determine how much your time is currently worth. How much do you want it to be worth?

2. Make a list of your top 3 highest payback activities, both personally and professionally.

3. Keep a log of your time for the next 2 weeks (use 15 minute increments).

4. Brainstorm 20 ways you can specifically improve your personal time management.

"No matter who you are your progress and ultimate success in life will depend more on what you do with the 24 hours you're given each day than on any other single factor."

[This is also from Newberry. I checked.]