How to NOT Overbook Your Days

Who among us hasn't looked at the calendar at some point and said, "This is crazy! How did I wind up with so much to do in so little time?"

Janet Periat has been there. Janet's a fine writer and a neat person, too. And she recently wrote a column for CoastViews Magazine (which I edit) that I knew I wanted to feature here. If you relate to what Janet is saying, please go read the whole column; I've had to leave out some choice anecdotes in this excerpt.

As I write this, it is three days after Christmas. I woke up this morning still exhausted from the holiday onslaught, with few brain cells left. First thing I did was spill hummingbird food all down my front and flip out — in the front yard no less. I finally dragged myself inside so I could yell without censoring myself. While I knew that the level of anger I was experiencing was totally disproportionate to the severity of the mishap, I was so tired, all I could do was watch myself freak out. ...

Why do I think I can do more than I can? Why do I set myself up like this? Why do I believe that if I just try a little harder, I can get it all done? ...

As I look back at my plans for the last four months, they don’t look that crazy. All I had to do was serve as master of ceremonies for the Pescadero Arts and Fun Festival in late August; go on two back-to-back vacations in September (dumbest idea EVER, so tired we couldn’t enjoy the second); host a Halloween party for 20; host a two-week in-law attack — I mean, visit — over Thanksgiving; get oral surgery; shop, clean and decorate for Christmas; host a party for 17 at my house on Christmas Eve; clean up the party on Christmas Day and fix a special Christmas dinner for my sister and husband. Oh, and also complete the final edits on two books — and publish them — and write my columns while working on two new novels. Plus I started a new diet and exercise regimen in July. ...

I think my problem is two-fold: a hefty dose of denial regarding my abilities, coupled with the unplanned. I didn’t plan on rats chewing through the wires on my car and stranding me at home for a week in October. I didn’t plan on being sick for the remaining three weeks of October. Ditto on the toe surgery I needed two days after my oral surgery. ...

So as I head into the new year, I am going to ... write “Plan for the Unplanned” on every page. When I receive an invitation or make a date, I’ll look at my calendar closely. I won’t merely look at the day of the event; I’ll look at the entire month before and afterwards.

Note: Longer than usual extract used with permission of CoastViews.

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New Year's "Be On Time" Resolution Help: Cool Alarm Clocks

Poster from Oh, Dear Molly, via moderncat

Get a better alarm clock. By now, we all use the alarm clock on our phones to wake us up. But I’ve got a backup, as well. It’s a $15 Sony alarm clock, and it sits across the room. When it goes off, I have to get up to shut it. You know what that means? It means I’m up. — Peter Shankman, Eight Ideas for the Next Seven Days

Well, I'm writing this on Dec. 26, and we're now down to only six more days in 2011. But if you'd like to follow Peter's suggestion — and you don't want to rely on the cats — I've got some alarm clocks you might consider, other than Peter's Sony.




Punkt takes Peter's point a bit further, saying, "Why have your cell phone lying on your bedside table, when you can be woken up by a superb design object like the AC 01?" And it certainly is a great-looking clock, available in black, white and red. Some of the many places you can buy it are Design Public, A+R Store and The Lollipop Shoppe.




If you want the limited edition Punkt. for Japan clock — only 500 were made — I'm still seeing one here. "100% of the profits from the sale of the special edition clock will go to rebuild family homes and play areas in Maeami, a fishing village in the Tōhoku region which was swept away by the tsunami. The project is supported by ‘Architecture for Humanity,’ a non-profit design services firm founded in 1999." [via Switched On Set]




Newgate has a bunch of alarm clocks to choose from; this one is called the Regulator, and it comes in four different colors. [via Retro To Go]




Another traditional alarm clock is this Big Ben clock sold by L.L.Bean. Customers rave about how quiet it is.




There's also a smaller, folding Big Ben clock, which can serve as a travel alarm.




This wooden block alarm clock, from the Japanese company Lemnos, is a MoMA exclusive.




Tiffany sells a number of alarm clocks, but this travel alarm is the only one using the Tiffany blue. [via Furniture Fashion]




And finally, while it doesn't have the elegant design (and easy-to-read clock face) of the other alarm clocks shown here, I couldn't resist showing you the Lego Star Wars Yoda Minifigure Clock.

Related Posts:
7 Alarm Clocks for A Gentler Wake-Up Call
Clocks With Character
Two Alarm Clocks With Fancy Scheduling Features
Alarm Clocks: Amusing, Beautiful, Practical - and Furry
5 Alarm Clocks to Get You Up and Running
Waking Up On Time: Five Alarm Clocks

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2012 Calendars: Final Fabulous Finds

Besides helping you keep track of appointments, calendars can benefit good causes. Here's one such calendar, and it's like nothing else you've seen: Gina Elise's Pinups for Vets. (And yes, this is all safe for work.)

The calendars can be ordered for yourself — or you can order them to be sent to a hospitalized veteran, or to an active-duty service member. Pinups for Vets is a non-profit organization, and Gina Elise says your purchases are tax-deductible. The funds from all purchases "help us improve Veterans' healthcare programs across the U.S." You can buy the calendars here. [via The Whatever Shopping Guide on John Scalzi's blog]




Other calendars appeal to me just because of the lovely design — like this clipboard calendar from Carlo Brito. One place you might be able to buy it is Nouvelle Nouvelle. [via Better Living Through Design]




Finally, if you'd like to see the whole year at once, take a look at this planner from Crispin Finn. [via Design Milk]

Related Posts with other 2012 calendar finds:
First Look: 2012 Wall Calendars
Helping Dogs and Cats in Need: 2012 Calendars for a Cause
Two Unique 2012 Wall Calendars
2012 Wall Calendars: Cats and Dogs — and More

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2012 Wall Calendars: Cats and Dogs — and More

I'm always on the prowl for good calendars this time of year — for the blog, of course, but also for my own gift-giving. While I'm personally looking for cat calendars — a cat calendar is my traditional Christmas gift to one friend — I appreciate the other cool calendars I find, such as this one: the 2012 Boston Buddies Rescue Calendar. What's not to like? It's got cute animal photos and nice boxes for writing in, and it benefits dog rescue work.




I found that Boston Buddies calendar through Lili Chin of Boogie's Blog, who has her own calendar: Boogie on Scooters. (Boogie is on the cover of the Boston Buddies calendar.)




Moving on to cats, here's the Cranky Cats calendar by Cindy Schmidt of Indigo Art. You can buy it from Cindy by sending her an email at queenofbugs@yahoo.com, or you can buy it at Cat Alley. (Photo provided by Cindy and used with permission.)




If you'd like a non-animal calendar, here's a 2012 calendar from Rethink Ink Design printed on "post-consumer waste recycled paper stock." The theme of this calendar is fresh, local foods. (Photo used with permission.)




For the minimalists who'd prefer no illustration at all, here's the 2012 calendar from Redstar Ink, also printed on recycled stock. [via Apartment Therapy]




While all the calendars I've mentioned so far were new finds for me this year, there are a number of calendars I've written about in prior years that now have a 2012 version available. This one is from Nakisha of Blue Dog Rose, but you might also like these:
- Classic Crop Circles
- Golden Retriever Rescue of the Rockies
- Hawaii Cats
- Kiva calendar
- Multifaith Calendar
- Nantucket Mermaid
- Nice Jewish Guys
- New Zealand photography calendars from Craig Potton
- Seva Calendar

Related Posts with other 2012 calendar finds:
First Look: 2012 Wall Calendars
Helping Dogs and Cats in Need: 2012 Calendars for a Cause
Two Unique 2012 Wall Calendars

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Two Unique 2012 Wall Calendars

Looking for a cool wall calendar? Into cats? How about Nedobeck's 2012 Fanciful Feline Calendar? For a small extra charge Don Nedobeck will sign the calendar, adding a first name and a drawing of a fat cat. If you like Don's work, you can also check out his Facebook page. (Photo provided by the creator and used with permission.)




Un Amore is an interesting company; owner Nicole Dinardo hand paints KitchenAid mixers! Even if you don't want your mixer painted, you may like the 2012 Calendar of Custom Un Amore Mixers. [via David Lebovitz]

Related Posts:
First Look: 2012 Wall Calendars
Helping Dogs and Cats in Need: 2012 Calendars for a Cause

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7 Wall Clocks That Are Easy to Read

If you'd had any of these clocks a few days ago, you'd have had another clock to reset for the end of Daylight Saving Time — but they're so nice, you might not have minded.

The one above is from Karlsson, which makes a large range of wall clocks. Karlsson is now owned by Present Time, and I first found the company's clocks on the Present Time web site. Present Time doesn't list this specific clock, but does have many others. I did find this specific clock on Amazon's stores in the UK and France — and Karlsson has dealers around the world.




Newgate is another company that makes a wide range of clocks, including this Brixton clock. [via Retro to Go]




This clock is made from recycled coffee cups!




Schoolhouse Electric describes this clock: "A faithful reproduction of the classic IBM indicator clocks found in offices, warehouses and schools during the mid-20th century." It's now hand-assembled in the Schoolhouse Electric factory in Portland, Oregon. [via Mark McClusky]




Another nice, simple — and colorful — wall clock comes from West Elm. [via Apartment Therapy]




Nova68 tells us: "This elegant and perfectly balanced wall clock was designed by Swiss industrial designer Max Bill in 1956." [via Better Living Through Design]




And finally, let's admire the wall clocks from Thomas Bai.

Related Post:
Keeping Track of Time: Six Simple Round Wall Clocks

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The Keep Calm and Carry On Kerfuffle

Once upon a time, there was an old WWII poster that was discovered by Stuart Manley, one of the owners of Barter Books — and now that poster is sold all over the place, as are other products with the same design, and many parodies of the original.

Maria Bustillos, writing in The Awl, explains how things evolved:

Stuart Manley could quite easily have filed for trademark protection back then, but he didn't. And when other businesses began selling Keep Calm products, mugs and beer mats and mouse pads and whatnot, he didn't go after any of them, though he did ask to be credited for his discovery by the many manufacturers who later made use of it.

Fast-forward to late March of this year, when ... Mark Coop, an ex-TV producer whose credits include "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?", succeeded in obtaining an EU trademark for the phrase "Keep Calm and Carry On."

Unsurprisingly, many people are unhappy about this, and a legal challenge is underway.

If you're in the market for some Keep Calm merchandise, you may want to read the whole article in The Awl, or the earlier article in The Telegraph. And you can also read what Mark Coop has to say.

You can always choose to buy your Keep Calm products either from Barter Books directly, or from sites that do credit the bookstore, such as Keep Calm London - which has its own take on the controversy.




Meanwhile, I have two new Keep Calm products to share with you — neither of which gives a nod to Barter Books, darn it. The first is this pacifier case.




And as someone who just returned from some travels, I appreciated this T-shirt and tote.

Related Posts:
Words to Live By: Keep Calm and Carry On
Keep Calm: An Update
Keep Calm and Carry On - and Variations Thereof
A Holiday Reminder: Keep Calm and Carry On
Keep Calm and Carry On: The Poster and Beyond
Keep Calm As You Get Organized

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Getting More Done — Or Not: A Short Reading List

Juggle icon, from the Noun Project, licensed under Creative Commons

Want some ideas on how to make the most of your time — ideas that don't rely on using the latest and greatest apps, but rather address how we think about managing our time? Here's some of what I've been reading lately that I've found inspiring:

1. 100 Ways to Get More Done, by Ozan Onay and Ash Fontana

I usually hate lists like this — but this one is so well done that it's the exception to my rule. (Thanks to web designer / developer Kevin Henney for the pointer!) I'm picking just one of the 100 items as an example — but I highly recommend the whole list. You probably won't agree with all of the suggestions, and some of them will be irrelevant — but you're likely to find a few real gems, too.

6. Avoid starting work with a nagging emotion or stressful distraction on your mind. If this sounds hard, just internalize the following truism: either you can deal with the matter right now, or you can't. If you can deal with it now then deal with it now. If you can't, then there's no harm in scheduling a later time to worry about it.

Surprisingly, this works no matter how substantial the emotion/stressor. Worried that your partner is being unfaithful, or that the mole on your arm may be cancerous, or that the Soviet Union is building missile bases in Cuba? Set a Remember The Milk task to stress out about it from 7pm to 8pm next Thursday, and get back to work.

2. Haven't Had Time to Blog, by Chris Brogan

This wonderful post is meaningful even to those who aren't bloggers and have no reason to start blogging; you can replace "Blog" with "Read" or "Write My Book" or "Get Organized" or "Exercise" — or anything else you don't feel you have time for. It's a short post, and here's a short excerpt:

I met with someone yesterday who said to me that he didn’t have any time to blog. Moments later, he told me what was happening on “Ice Loves Coco.” ...

We pick our paths. We decide what we make time to do.

3. Make sure you disappoint the right people, by Jon Acuff

Thanks to LeeAnne Jones for pointing me to this one, which has a great opening — and the rest of the post is just as good:

A few weeks ago, I was supposed to run in an event called “The Warrior Dash.” It’s a 5K obstacle course that involves mud, fire, water and Viking helmets. I’d signed up for it months ago. But 24 hours before the event, I decided not to go.

Why?

Because I’m trying to disappoint the right people in my life.

4. Hurry up, get more done, and die, by Mark Morford

Mark Morford's writings are certainly not to everyone's taste, but I liked his reminder that we really don't need to fill up every 30-second spot of free time with getting yet another small task done.

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It's OK to Give Up on a Book

Photo by Alan Cleaver, found on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons

I once gave up on a book after the first page. My local bookstore had a book club, and I bought the next month's book without really looking at it. But when I got it home and started reading, I realized immediately that the author's style was not for me. Fortunately, I was able to return the book.

That's the fastest I've given up on a book — and I have no hesitation in doing so. I just gave up on one book, which might have interesting content, because the typeface was so bad that it was painful to read. But usually I give up when I'm just not enjoying the content of the book.

Want some encouragement to stop reading "bad books" — books that seem bad to you? Here's blogger David Pierce, in a short extract from his Five Rules for Life:

We do so many things that don’t add any value to our lives or anyone else’s, and those things get in the way of that which is actually worthwhile. My favorite example is reading a book — if it’s bad, we still tend to finish it just because we’ve already invested time in it. Why not cut our losses, stop reading, and spend that time reading a better book? Being a quitter is not a bad thing - it’s a smart thing.

And Leo Babauta of Zen Habits says this in his post on How to Read More:

Give up on a book if it’s boring. Reading isn’t something you do because it’s good for you — it’s not like taking your vitamins. You’re reading because it’s fun. So if a book isn’t fun, dump it. Give it a try for at least a chapter, but if you still don’t love it, move on.

Scott H Young has a whole blog post entitled Know When to Stop Reading a Book. He includes ideas on how to make it easier to give up on a book — including getting books from the library, so you've not spent any money. One of my favorite parts of his post was a comment he added:

The lost opportunity cost from not putting a book down is often forgotten. When you put down a book, you aren’t just giving up the chapters you didn’t read, you’re also gaining the chapters of some other book you did read. With a world filled with thousands of books, far more than you could ever read, I think that opportunity cost needs to be taken seriously.

Finally, Miss Manners answers an etiquette question:

Question: A friend has lent me a book about a subject that is of interest to me. I am halfway through the book (more than 200 pages so far) and find it not very well written. Would it be impolite of me not to finish the book? My feeling is that I must finish the book in order to be truthful in saying that I did indeed read it.

Answer: Your friend is not going to quiz you. You need only return the book with thanks and, if possible, mumble that it had a good point or two. If not, you can always say that it is interesting to know what is being said in the field.

Do you ever give up on a book? How far do you go before giving up?

Related Post:
Book Lovers: Stop Reading Books You Don't Like

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Mourning the Death of Steve Jobs — and Learning From Him

The soon-to-be-released Steve Jobs biography

I just spent a lovely two weeks in Paris and Rennes — lovely until the last morning, just hours before I flew home, when I got the news that Steve Jobs had died.

I've long been an Apple fan, because Apple products are such a delight to use, and make me so much more productive. As an organizer, I recommend investing in quality for the tools you use all the time, and my computing tools certainly fall into that category. On this trip, I had Steve's products with me — an iPhone and an iPad — and they served me well. On that last morning, they let me connect with others who were grieving, as I was.

In reading all the memorials, and listening to Steve's words again, I was struck by how much of what he said (and what others have said, in those memorials) resonates with themes I've often touched on here.

1. Good tools are a worthwhile investment.

I've already commented on this, but I love what Nancy Nall wrote about this topic. She starts with the story of a long-ago nightmare flight back home from Paris, and ends her story this way:

As we winged our way to Ohio, I asked myself if I’d have paid $200 to avoid the previous 24 hours, to get on a nice Air France or Pan Am jet at Orly and get off at Port Columbus, skipping Alitalia and the nonfunctioning toilets and the angry passenger and the train to the plane and all the rest of it, and thought: Oh, hell yes.

Years later, as I was contemplating the purchase of another computer, I learned that formatting a floppy in MS-DOS required me to type…

FORMAT drive: /C

…plus some other stuff, and if I got so much as a comma or space in the wrong place, it wouldn’t work. And if I bought the PowerPC Mac laptop I was considering, I would face a simple question: This disk is not formatted. Would you like to format it?, followed by a yes/no click option.

The Mac was a few hundred dollars more than the PC. I remembered the lesson of Alitalia. I clicked Yes, and haven’t looked back.

2. Focus; learn when to say no.

Steven Levy of Wired wrote about Steve's comeback at Apple:

He ... simplified Apple’s product line to four computers — consumer and pro versions of desktop and laptop. “Focus does not mean saying yes, it means saying no,” he explained.

And here's another quote, this one from a conversation BusinessWeek Computer Editor Peter Burrows had with Steve in 2004. In that conversation, Steve was talking about where Apple's innovation comes from. He mentioned a number of things, including this:

And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We're always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it's only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

And on Fast Company I found this story from Mark Parker, about his conversation with Steve when Parker was named CEO of Nike:

I said, "Well, do you have any advice?"

He said, "No, no, you're great." Then there was a pause. "Well, I do have some advice," he said. "Nike makes some of the best products in the world — products that you lust after, absolutely beautiful stunning products. But you also make a lot of crap."

He said, "Just get rid of the crappy stuff, and focus on the good stuff."

3. Be a perfectionist — but only on the things that matter.

Steve was well known for being demanding on Apple employees, insisting that every last detail on Apple products be outstanding. But I love this story from John Gruber:

After the WWDC keynote four months ago, I saw Steve, up close. ...

His sweater was well-worn, his jeans frayed at the cuffs.

But the thing that struck me were his shoes, those famous gray New Balance 993s. They too were well-worn. But also this: fresh bright green grass stains all over the heels. ...

Surely, my mind raced, surely he has more than one pair of those shoes. He could afford to buy the factory that made them. Why wear this grass-stained pair for the keynote, a rare and immeasurably high-profile public appearance? My guess: he didn’t notice, didn’t care. One of Jobs’s many gifts was that he knew what to give a shit about. He knew how to focus and prioritize his time and attention. Grass stains on his sneakers didn’t make the cut.

4. Spend your time wisely.

As Steve famously said in his Stanford commencement address:

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.

And he also said:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, some day you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Steve made his choices right up to the end, according to a story by Charles Duhigg in the New York Times, which reads in part:

Over the last few months, a steady stream of visitors to Palo Alto, Calif., called an old friend’s home number and asked if he was well enough to entertain visitors, perhaps for the last time. ...

Most were intercepted by his wife, Laurene. She would apologetically explain that he was too tired to receive many visitors. ...

He had only so much energy for farewells. The man who valued his privacy almost as much as his ability to leave his mark on the world had decided whom he most needed to see before he left. ...

Mostly, he spent time with his wife and children. ...

As news of the seriousness of his illness became more widely known, Mr. Jobs was asked to attend farewell dinners and to accept various awards.

He turned down the offers. On the days that he was well enough to go to Apple’s offices, all he wanted afterward was to return home and have dinner with his family. When one acquaintance became too insistent on trying to send a gift to thank Mr. Jobs for his friendship, he was asked to stop calling. Mr. Jobs had other things to do before time ran out.

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Life's Too Short to Fold Fitted Sheets

Are you a harried, overwhelmed mom — who thinks your homemaking skills don't compare favorably to other moms you know? Then you're the intended reader for this book.

Most parts of this book had nothing to do with organizing; I skipped right over the sections about selecting a color palette and choosing simple recipes for entertaining, for example. However, Lisa Quinn also writes about clutter, perfectionism and things it's not worth spending time on — all themes of this blog. So I thought I'd share a few gems with you.

First, there's this theory:

We don't slave over all this domestic drivel for our families our ourselves; we do it for the other moms. For us, the Mommy Competition is on, and dammit, we're going to win. ...

What if we manic moms stopped obsessing over the unnecessary? What if we realized that our value doesn't depend on what other people think? What if we stopped being control freaks? What if we put down the glue gun and got back to our lives? ...

It's my assertion that the real key to happiness is getting rid of your inner control freak, redefining what's real and important in your life, and the lowering your standards for everything else.

And of course this one resonated with me:

There will never be enough vacuum-pack bags, shoe racks, or color-coded plastic bins if your real problem is too much stuff. The amount of time, effort, and money that people spend trying to organize their garbage is unbelievable.

And while this may not be true for everyone, it's true for many:

Don't even think about a "Sell" bin. You are never going to get around to selling all that junk. It will sit there for years. Ask for tax receipts from thrift stores, so you can write off the donation on your taxes.

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Helping Dogs and Cats in Need: 2012 Calendars for a Cause

Lots of animal rescue groups, humane societies and similar organizations create calendars as part of their fundraising. And most of them feature photos of the animals in question — which is fine, and often adorable if you've got a good photographer. But I was delighted to find the French Bulldog Village 2012 Rescue Calendar with its totally different approach: whimsical illustrations by artist Olga Gonorovsky. And the interior images are every bit as charming as the cover is. [Image used with permission]

This is your standard wall calendar, with images on the top and date blocks on the bottom for writing in your appointments. I saw the December page, and noticed that Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Christmas and Kwanzaa are all listed.





And these calendar photos, included here under a license agreement with photographer Klara Hanincova, PhD, show how creative you can get with the photographic approach. This is the 2012 Firefighters and Shelter Pets calendar from the New Rochelle Humane Society in New York. A limited number of calendars will be available, and the Humane Society asks that you send in your order by Sept. 25, for delivery in mid-October.

Klara blogged about the photo shoots; the January image shown above is retired firefighter (and current Humane Society volunteer) Bill Spinelli with Champagne, an American Bulldog/American Stafford Terrier mix. The blog posts are fun; I enjoyed reading about the firefighters and the cats and dogs — and looking at more really cute photos. Klara obviously had a lot of fun working on this calendar!

Animal shelters and rescue organizations do such important work; if you need a 2012 wall calendar, I hope you'll consider one of these — or one by another such organization.

Related Post:
First Look: 2012 Wall Calendars

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First Look: 2012 Wall Calendars

As we move into autumn, you might want to begin thinking about 2012 calendars. I'm already seeing some interesting ones, including the SusyJack writable grid calendar shown above.




And then there are the many calendars at RedBubble, a site sort of like CafePress or Zazzle; it allows people to take their images and easily create cards, posters, t-shirts, calendars and more. There's a huge calendar selection, so you're quite likely to find something you like. And the site's nicely designed; you can easily see all the pages in each calendar, not just the cover.

The pelican calendar from Lisa Kenny might be my favorite. But Little Cotton Rabbits by Julie Williams is sure cute, and I like the artwork by Adam Regester in his Birds in Trees calendar.




I liked Jessica Doyle's 2011 calendar, and her whimsical 2012 calendars — a desk calendar and a wall calendar — are also delightful.




And now for something totally different! Seize the Year is a very large calendar that lets you see the whole year at once. The idea came from Jesse Phillips, and the calendar was designed by James Martin. Right now, this calendar is just a concept; if you'd like to see it get made, head on over to Kickstarter and back it with a pledge.

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Meditations for Parents Who Do Too Much

A dear friend once gave me a box filled with various words — imagine, blessings, abundance, and such — on individual slips of paper; I pull one out each day, and see what it inspires within me. The daily entries in Meditations for Parents Who Do Too Much are more than a single word, but each day's entry takes only a single page.

And given the book's title, it's not surprising that it touches on some organizing themes. Here are just a few small portions of what caught my eye; note that the quotes shown are not the whole entry for any given day. Some of them may even speak to those of us who are not parents!

January 20:

We hear lots of parents complain that they are so busy doing other things that they have little "quality" time with their kids.

But if we're going to find that time, we may have to relax our standards. We may have to let the laundry pile up, let a day's phone messages lapse, let the dog go without his bath. A little "disorder" may be necessary, if we're going to find the time to read that bedtime story.

August 16:

As parents who do too much, we are often prioritizing. We will put aside the medical checkup, the long-distance call to a friend — because there are "important" things to get done — things that need our immediate attention.

But let us not confuse urgency with importance. Just because something sits up and begs at our feet, does not mean we have to throw it a bone.

August 18:

The greatest gift I give my children is the time I spend with them.

September 2:

In this society, we are so bent on accomplishing all our tasks as quickly as possible, that we rarely, if ever, think about the enjoyment of our work, how it may enrich us, or what we may learn from it. Rather, we're immersed in getting it "done."

September 14:

Some of us now have a mountain of accumulated things that seemed totally necessary a few years ago. Our basements appear to be a distribution center for Toys-R-Us. It's not just that our children outgrew much of what we bought. That is inevitable. It's that a great deal of these things were never used or never enjoyed.

December 7:

Our lives and our closets have a lot in common. Both are cluttered with things we could easily do without.

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One Good Reason to Stop Running Late

Photo by Evan Sharboneau, Photo Extremist; found on Flickr; licensed through Creative Commons.

I'm late, I'm late for a very important date. No time to say hello, good-bye, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. — Michele Novotni in ADDItude MagazIne, quoting the 1951 Disney movie, Alice in Wonderland

How many of us are in this situation regularly — because we didn't plan our leave-the-house routine well enough, or because we fell prey to what Kathleen Nadeau, also in ADDItude Magazine, called one-more-thing-itis?

We know that running late can become a bad habit, but these words from Laurie Perry, also known as Crazy Aunt Purl, remind us just how serious a problem this can become:

This is what happened last month when that lady hit my Jeep. After the crash she sat in her car, writing out her phone number for me, saying, "I was late for work." I remember looking at her with absolute disbelief, thinking You almost killed me because you were late for work?

That line keeps coming back to me at the oddest times. I'll see someone blow through a red light and hear that lady saying, I was late for work. And then I think, I hope they don't kill someone just because they couldn't bother to leave on time for work today.

Related Post:
Stop Being Late

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The Filter Bubble

The last time I read — or rather, heard — something about filters that really grabbed me, it was Clay Shirky's talk: It's Not Information Overload, It's Filter Failure. And certainly, with the huge amount of information at our fingertips, we need to make filtering decisions all the time: What will we pay attention to, and what will we ignore?

But what happens when filtering is going on, and it's invisible to us — and sometimes out of our control? That's what Eli Pariser addresses in The Filter Bubble.

Pariser agrees that we are "overwhelmed by a torrent of information" leading to "what blogger and media analyst Steve Rubel calls the attention crash." Pariser continues: "So when personalized filters offer a hand, we're inclined to take it."

And we've "always consumed media that appealed to our interests and avocations and ignored much of the rest," he says. The difference, according to Pariser, is that now we each have our individual one-person bubble, it's largely invisible, and it's not something we make a conscious choice about entering.

Did you realize that when you search on Google, your search results are being personalized — so what you see quite likely isn't what I see? You can disable at least much of this personalization, but I'll bet most people don't do this. (I actually did do this once upon a time, and then found I was annoyed when Google Maps didn't remember any of the locations I had searched for in the past. So exiting the bubble takes at least a small toll on efficiency.)

Did you know that your Facebook newsfeed may have been altered to only "show posts from friends and Pages you interact with the most"? Again, this is something you can control — but how many people know this is an option?

While personalization can help us manage our time, directing us to the things we care about the most, it also has some implications which are not so positive. As Pariser writes:

Democracy requires citizens to see things from one another's point of view, but instead we're more and more enclosed in our own bubbles. Democracy requires a reliance on shared facts; instead, we're being offered parallel but separate universes.

And with filtering, we're less likely to have the moments of serendipity, where we stumble upon things we never would have known to search out. Again, quoting Pariser:

In the filter bubble, there's less room for the chance encounters that bring insight and learning.

Pariser argues that the companies who control what we see have an "enormous curatorial power." Here's one of his questions related to Google:

If a 9/11 conspiracy theorist searches for "9/11," was it Google's job to show him the Popular Mechanics article that debunks his theory or the movie that supports it?

He also points out that some web services do indeed let us control our filters:

Twitter makes it pretty straightforward to manage your filter and understand what's showing up and why whereas Facebook makes it nearly impossible. All other things being equal, if you're concerned about having control over your filter bubble, better to use services like Twitter than services like Facebook.

Since reading this book, I've been thinking a bit more about who I follow on Twitter, trying to ensure I'm seeing diverse voices, while still avoiding an overwhelming number of voices.

If you want to learn a bit more about the filter bubble concept, without (or before) picking up the book, here are some web resources:
- The Filter Bubble TED Talk
- 10 Ways to Pop Your Filter Bubble

For some other reactions to the book, you can read:
- David Karpf's thoughts
- The discussion on MetaFilter

Finally, here's a little organizing-related quote I found buried in this book, where Pariser quotes Scott Heiferman, the founder of MeetUp.com:

"We don't need more things," he says. "People are more magical than iPads!"

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Valet Stands: What They Are and Why You Might Want One

One way to minimize the morning rush is to decide the night before what you'll be wearing the next day — and then you could assemble that next-day wardrobe on a valet stand. (A modified version of this approach is the valet rod that many closet companies offer.) Some valet stands also provide a place for your wallet, change, etc. — so everything you need can be assembled in one place. Those who dress formally — in suits, etc. — would get more benefit from a valet stand than those of us who dress fairly casually. But all of us can admire the nice products available to us — although some might be difficult to get outside of Europe.

The gentlemen's valet stand shown above comes from Stephen Morris Furniture - and you can also find it at Not on the High Street.




And if you have a lot of money to spend, you could consider the mahogany valet stand from Hermès.




Of course, not all valet stands are wood. Here's the Flamingo 2 valet stand from D-Tec.




And then there are the valet stands that seem more suited for casual use, such as this one designed by Gabriella Gustafsson for Design House Stockholm. It's described as "an alternative to the 'clothes chair' (you know the one, the chair in the bedroom that you throw all your clothes over)." Luminaire is another U.S. distributor. This could work beautifully as a place to store those semi-dirty clothes we all grapple with.




But for pure fun, it would be hard to beat this valet de nuit, which comes to us from MADE 75 in Paris.

Related Posts:
Care for Your Clothes with a Valet Stand
Bedroom Elegance: The Clothes Valet Stand

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