Eat That Frog: Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time... Part 2

In the blog on Wednesday (February 22, 2017), I introduced the basic concept of the book Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy.

Continuing on... How do you create the daily prioritized list of tasks?

In order to do so, I ask myself, "Which is the one activity that if I did in an excellent and timely fashion would have the greatest positive impact on the project as a whole or my life?" Thus, I use long-term consequences to make my near-term decisions.

The thing that I, personally, have been and continue to be guilty of is that I'm tempted to clear up the small things first. The thinking is that these are things that I can finish up quickly and that will make me feel accomplished and on top of things. Whereas the reverse is true. Time management is really life management, and while I am free to choose what to spend my time on, my ability to choose between important and unimportant things will determine my successes day-to-day and in the long-term.

Identifying the key constraints of all the tasks also determines the order of execution of the tasks. Say, I'm waiting for something to be delivered to me by someone else before I can start on my part of the project, then I can schedule that task for the afternoon instead of first thing in the morning, even if, it is the most important thing on my list for that day. In this case, the ugly morning frog will have to be the ugliest of all the frogs in my control and not dependent upon others.

An important determiner of the order of tasks is my assessment of my daily health and special needs. Say, my energy levels always flag around 10 o'clock and pick up after lunch at 1 o'clock. Well, then the ugliest frogs are set for the first half of the morning, unimportant tasks for mid-morning, and the lesser frogs for early afternoon.

Sometimes a project is too large and unwieldy to be tackled in one big chunk. So after it is broken down in various sub-tasks, the sub-tasks can be sequenced in order to get the whole project done.

These are some of the ways in which to develop a prioritized list of tasks to do on a daily basis.

One thing to remember is to unitask, that is, focus on only one task at time, and finish it before moving on to the next task on the list. See the blog on Monday (February 20, 2017) to learn how and why unitasking is better than multitasking.

Another thing to remember is to "develop a sense of urgency in everything you do," according to Brian Tracy. Once you start a task, develop the habit of working immediately and fast on it.

The unitasking and fast action help in achieving a task quicker with higher quality. It results in a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

So remember: Eat That Frog every single morning!

Eat That Frog: Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time... Part 1

This blog is about the book Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy.

Eat That Frog! refers to the Mark Twain mantra: "Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day."

According to Tracy: "Your frog is your biggest, most important task of the day, the one you're most likely to procrastinate on. It is also the one task that can have the greatest possible impact on your life and results at the moment. [So] tackle your major task first thing each morning before you do anything else and without taking too much time to think about it. If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first."

The way I interpret this is that I should plan my day in advance (say, the night before or at the start of the day) by creating and typing up a prioritized list of tasks I want to get done that day.

"There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing." So the first thing I tackle the next day morning is either the most significant task and/or the most 'procrastinable' task. The latter is the task that I'm most reluctant to get done—it might be something I have been putting off for days. So getting that done and out of the way in the morning itself will take the pressure off from the rest of my day.

"Whenever you complete a task of any size or importance, you feel a surge of energy, enthusiasm, and self-esteem," says Brain Tracy. "The more important the completed task, the happier, more confident, and more powerful you feel about yourself and your world. The ability to concentrate single-mindedly on your most important task, to do it well, and to finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life."

Who wouldn't want these feel-good endorphins first thing in the morning? Especially when, I don't have to have burning pain in my legs or heaving sides to get it? Frog legs for the win! Bon Appétit!

Unitasking Instead of Multitasking is the New Way to Work

I shall be doing a short series of productivity blogs this week. These blogs aren't new—they're from May 2013—but their currency hasn't waned yet.

The buzzword of the late 1990s and 2000s was multitasking. Everyone wanted to be multitasking or wanted it bruited about that they were efficient multitaskers.

But the key question these high achievers failed to ask was: Were they effective as multitaskers? That is, at the end of the day, given the same set of tasks, did the multitaskers or the unitaskers achieve more in terms of quality and quantity?

Has this ever happened to you? You're reading a document, when it suddenly reminds you of the email your friend sent to you yesterday that you hadn't replied to, so you open your email program, only to find two high priority emails from your boss that you start answering, only to be interrupted by your co-worker calling you for lunch. And so your mid-morning goes, by the end of which, all you've achieved is a meal.

Behavior and social scientists now believe that constant context-switching between various tasks causes people to be less effective overall. For something like walking and chewing gum, multitasking works. For something like, writing a scene of your book with complex fight choreography and also having a protracted discussion via email on the minutiae of book contract negotiations, multitasking is counterproductive to achieving the milestones for either of the two tasks.

Every time you switch away from task one to task two, you have to reload all the details about task two in your mind before you can start working. Similarly, switching back to task one requires you to reload those set of details, and back and forth.

In Monk Mind, blogger Leo Babauta explodes the myth that multitaskers are getting more work done and are getting more satisfaction from that work, in terms of quality and sense of achievement.

So for the intellectually challenging tasks, tasks that require a lot of attention and care, tasks involving physical and emotional intimacy, etc., unitasking is to be lauded and actively pursued, because focusing on single tasks is the way to go in order to achieve success.

How do you go about focusing the mind on a single task? Take the case of writing an article for a magazine.

Clear Away Distractions

Close all email systems, browsers, and social media programs.

Turn off all notifications.

Disconnect your computer from the Internet.

Clear your desk of all pieces of paper except for those necessary for your selected task. As in the case of writing the article, you'll need your folder of research material, interview transcripts, and notes.

Leave only the programs open that are necessary for achieving your selected task. So for the article, perhaps you'll need the folder where you've saved your research and nascent article files and your word processing program.

Plug in headphones, whether you play music or not is up to you. Headphones cut out ambient sound and also signal to other people that Serious Work Is In Progress.

Now, do nothing but that one task.

Practice Doing One Thing

If you can't focus on one task for more than a few minutes, start out with small goals in the begining. Say, you'll work on your task for five minutes, then reward yourself by taking a one-minute break to read email. Slowly build up to ten minutes on, one minute off; and so on. Be sure to have a timer set so that you can accurately build this up. In his article, Leo writes, "Set up a positive feedback cycle for single-tasking focus, and you’ll reverse the years of training your mind has gotten to switch tasks."

Sounds overly simplistic? Give it a try. The mind is flexible and can be retrained.

In conclusion, Leo writes, "While a few years ago I couldn’t sit down to work on something without quickly switching to email or one of my favorite Internet forums or sites, today I can sit down and write. I can clear away distractions, when I set my mind to it, and do one thing. And that changes everything: you lose yourself in that task, become so immersed that you pour everything you have into the work, and it becomes a meditative, transformative experience. Your happiness increases, stress goes down, and [quality of] work improves."

An aside...

However, busy moms will still prize multitasking. For example, here's what writer Monica Trasandes wrote in the December 2012 issue of Real Simple: "Recently I found myself walking toward the kitchen with a load of laundry in my arms, two empty coffee cups dangling from my fingers, and car keys tucked between my chin and the clothes."

I think Trasandes is a lightweight. I'd have a book tucked under one arm, a purse dangling from that elbow, the mugs held in one hand, while an empty water bottle and a board game are firmly clasped in the other hand, in addition to the laundry and the keys.

Mission Statements, Life Lists, Goals, Schedules: define, design, discharge

Here are four of my posts that have proven to be among the most popular on this blog. They have all to do with architecting your life starting with small daily steps.

A Personal Mission Statement is a set of mottoes for your life that define the boundaries of who you are, what your deepest held beliefs are, how you interact with others, and what you think of yourself.

A Life List is a mondo-beyondo list of your life's dreams. There are no limits as to how many items there can be on this list. It's a personal list, so don't be shy of wishing for the most outrageous, the most selfish, the most greedy, the most anything. Every deeply held desire needs to be on this list. Don't compromise on your dreams.

Goals Making and Keeping and committing to bringing your resolutions to fruition. Goals give you something concrete to work towards and to measure progress against. Goals also give you a sense of accomplisment once you've reached them.

Scheduling Your Life is important, because if you don't label your time to dedicated actions, then that piece of time is either attached to another task or frittered away. The most basic rule of thumb when keeping to a schedule is: There is no making up lost time.

Resolute About Resolving Your Resolutions

Are you resolute about resolving your new year's resolutions this year? Here are some tips to help you on your way that have helped me tremendously. This blog is a repeat from January 2013.

Don't make generalized resolutions, such as "Be Happy." Instead make specific, measurable ones, such as "Do a yoga retreat in Hawaii over the summer"—you can measure whether you achieved this goal or not and how you felt about it.

By all means, make smaller sub-goals with deadlines that will keep the bigger goal on track to being finished.

Work on only one habit at a time. Say, in January, you'll work on X and on Y in February.

Start with the smallest, easiest habit first. And do it just for a few minutes once a day. Feeling a sense of accomplishment from the very start is what keeps the habit of habit-forming (heh!) going.

And the first step in starting a habit is to simply start. Inertia, procrastination, a feeling of being overwhelmed can all lead to a tendency to want to only imagine you having the habit, but afraid to start the work in forming the habit. So, just start!

Write it down. Well, the mind's not good about keeping everything in the foreground. Old things often get pushed into the background, even though when the thoughts first came in, they were deemed high priority. We forget; we fall into old habits by, well, habit; new issues crop up that require our immediate attention; we're tired so we say we'll do it tomorrow; etc.

Accountability is the sticky glue that binds us to our resolutions on paper. If you have to report in to a friend or a group of like-minded individual or even to your online journal, it serves as a reasonably pressured deadline that has to be achieved.

Don't have only negative or "you-must"s resolutions. Have fun ones as well, such as the yoga retreat mentioned above. If you plan only drudgery for the year, then it's guaranteed that your list of resolutions will have nary a checkmark. This is the main reason, I call them goals, not resolutions.

And the complementary one to the above is that you should feel free to abandon a resolution part-way through or even before beginning, if you feel that it's something that's never going to happen no matter how many years it shows up on your list. For me, that would mean giving up on reading Tolstoy's War and Peace in this life at least.

Revisit your list constantly to revise, add to, or subtract from the litany. It keeps the energy alive about what needs to be achieved next and it keeps the list fresh and current.

Going to the Library Can Make You Very Happy

OK, this is not just Keira being her usual rah-rah-rah BOOOOKKSS!!! There's apparently a study. And there's apparently data. It's legit.

The study is called Quantifying and Valuing the Wellbeing Impacts of Sport and Culture organized by the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport in the UK. "DCMS commissioned researchers from the London School of Economics (LSE) to undertake analysis of Understanding Society data to develop the evidence base on the wellbeing impacts of cultural engagement and sport participation."

Two of the findings of the study are: "A significant association was also found between frequent library use and reported wellbeing. Using libraries frequently was valued at £1,359 [$2,086] per person per year for library users." In fact, going to the library comes in a close third behind dancing and swimming in terms of a valued activity.

In a series of studies conducted by the Pew Research Center, it is found that "Libraries loom large in the public imagination, and are generally viewed very positively: 90% of Americans ages 16 and older say that the closing of their local public library would have an impact on their community." People feel that libraries give everyone a chance to succeed, promote literacy and a love of reading, and improve the quality of life in a community. For 75% of the people, it is important to have this quiet, safe place.

According to another Pew study, "The more people are engaged with their public library, the more they tend to feel connected to their community as a whole." Library users “are also more likely to say that they like their communities and that they would call their communities good or excellent places to live," Pew Research Associate Kathryn Zickuhr told TIME.

To us diehard readers and library users, libraries are priceless. A free library system is one of the central pillars of civilization.

That is why every year, we donate money to our library system. Some years, we earmark it for books, interlibrary loans, programs for young readers, book readings, and sometimes, we donate without instructions. We buy an annual Friends of the Library membership and buy books from their annual book sale. We also donate gently-used books.

Ever since I was young, I've visited libraries. I started my kids out at six months of age. I delight in looking back on our checkout histories. Just entering a library is like entering a church: the hushed atmosphere, the special fragrance, the joy the view brings (books as far as the eye can see), and the peace and contentment that seeps into my bones. The older the library, the more heightened the impact on my wellbeing.

Edited 11/6/15: The fabulous Ursula Le Guin on the importance of libraries. Marvelously put!

2015 TBR Reading Challenge: The One Skill: How Mastering the Art of Letting Go Will Change Your Life by Leo Babauta

I know, I know, I know. I'm LATE! This is March's TBR Challenge book and it is now APRIL! In fact, April's book is due next week so I had to get the March one out of the way before then.

2015 TBR Reading Challenge
Book: The One Skill: How Mastering the Art of Letting Go Will Change Your Life by Leo Babauta
My Categories: nonfiction, male author, life skills
Wendy Crutcher's Category: Series Catch-Up (oops!)

The main thrust of Babauta's book is that "the root of many of our problems is our inability to let go." We tend to overthink situations and that combined with our resistance to letting go causes anxiety, frustration, depression, and anger over things that happen, might happen, and have happened to us. Letting go of the fear of failure, of wanting to control people and situations, of needing to go to distractions all day, and other such habits will lead to being better in control of self and life's problems. After detailing why we hold on to such habits, he details how you can practice the art of letting go.

I'm going to briefly sketch in his book here. You can download the entire book for free here.

There are two sections to this book: a) the factors that we don't let go and the resultant problems they cause and b) a step-by-step approach to letting go and the aftermath of letting go.

Procrastination
We procrastinate out of fear of failure or fear of a task being overwhelming or difficult. We build an ideal in our heads about how life will be successful and easy. So when there's a hint that things are not going to be that way, we avoid them.

Fear
Fear is the current underlying a lot of our unhappiness. For example, anxiety that something you want isn't going to happen, fear that you're not good enough, fear that others will judge you, fear of letting go of control of the other person in a relationship, fear of discomfort, or fear that you won't be able to accomplish all that you want to and how you want to. Problems are rooted in fear and fear is rooted in ideals.

People
Holding on to ideals of how everyone should act, which isn't reality, and wanting to control people so they will act in the "right" way is what causes anger, frustration, stress, and disappointment.

Distractions
Distractions are comfortable things that we're good at and won't fail at. The process of letting go of a distraction is to first see what appeal it has for you. Then notice the disadvantages it has for you, how it is hurting you, and the impermanence of it. Let go of the distraction for a day and see what positive things you can do to fill that void. Be grateful for the positivity you've invited into your life.

Change
We want things to stay the same, and yet they never do. This is why we suffer. Unfortunately, the constant and impermanent nature of change is reality. So see the impermanence as the freedom to reinvent yourself. The past matters, but we're not completely bound to it. You can start a new self.

Developing the Letting Go Skill
Noticing Signals: When you're holding on to something harmful, symptoms like anger, frustration procrastination, etc. show up. Learn to recognize the signals when they happen.

Seeing the Ideal: You have expectations of others, ideals for yourself, and ideals of how the world should be. This isn't reality. They're fantasies of what your reality should be. And that is what is causing the signals. So once you notice the signals, turn inward and try to locate the ideal you're holding on to.

(Of course, there are positive ideals that result in positive signals and bring positivity in your life. Hold on to them by all means and act on them. It's the negative ones that are being addressed here.)

Seeing the Harm: Acting on the negative signals or holding on to them can cause us unhappiness, prolong our stress, and harm our relationships with ourselves and with others.

Letting Go With Love: Letting go of the ideal or the expectation is a compassionate towards yourself. It's painful to let go of an ideal, because it is part of our makeup, but the benefit you'll receive after you've let go will be worth it.

Seeing Reality: Turn now to reality, see it as it is, accept this, and react calmly and appropriately to it.

What Letting Go Isn't
Babauta is at pains to explain how letting go isn't giving up, being a victim, not improving, letting someone else get away with something, letting the other person be right when they're wrong, giving up standards of common decency, etc. This is the charge that is always laid on life skills coaches when they talk of detachment. Acquiring a clear-eyed, emotionally-unclouded view of reality doesn't mean that you feel things less intensely, it just means you know how to manage your emotions and act appropriately.

Practice! Practice!
Get an accountability partner. Practice each of the mini-steps of Letting Go for 2-3 minutes every day. Journal about it. Report to your partner. Set up reminders for yourself so you don't forget to practice. At the end of the day, simply reading the book is not going to gain you a new skill. It's by practicing that you'll learn it.

Mission Statements, Life Lists, Goals, Schedules: define, design, discharge

Here are four of my posts that have proven to be among the most popular on this blog. They have all to do with architecting your life starting with small daily steps.

A Personal Mission Statement is a set of mottoes for your life that define the boundaries of who you are, what your deepest held beliefs are, how you interact with others, and what you think of yourself.

A Life List is a mondo-beyondo list of your life's dreams. There are no limits as to how many items there can be on this list. It's a personal list, so don't be shy of wishing for the most outrageous, the most selfish, the most greedy, the most anything. Every deeply held desire needs to be on this list. Don't compromise on your dreams.

Goals Making and Keeping and committing to bringing your resolutions to fruition. Goals give you something concrete to work towards and to measure progress against. Goals also give you a sense of accomplisment once you've reached them.

Scheduling Your Life is important, because if you don't label your time to dedicated actions, then that piece of time is either attached to another task or frittered away. The most basic rule of thumb when keeping to a schedule is: There is no making up lost time.

Resolute About Resolving Your Resolutions

Are you resolute about resolving your new year's resolutions this year? Here are some tips to help you on your way that have helped me tremendously. This blog is a repeat from last January.

Don't make generalized resolutions, such as "Be Happy." Instead make specific, measurable ones, such as "Do a yoga retreat in Hawaii over the summer"—you can measure whether you achieved this goal or not and how you felt about it.

By all means, make smaller sub-goals with deadlines that will keep the bigger goal on track to being finished.

Work on only one habit at a time. Say, in January, you'll work on X and on Y in February.

Start with the smallest, easiest habit first. And do it just for a few minutes once a day. Feeling a sense of accomplishment from the very start is what keeps the habit of habit-forming (heh!) going.

And the first step in starting a habit is to simply start. Inertia, procrastination, a feeling of being overwhelmed can all lead to a tendency to want to only imagine you having the habit, but afraid to start the work in forming the habit. So, just start!

Write it down. Well, the mind's not good about keeping everything in the foreground. Old things often get pushed into the background, even though when the thoughts first came in, they were deemed high priority. We forget; we fall into old habits by, well, habit; new issues crop up that require our immediate attention; we're tired so we say we'll do it tomorrow; etc.

Accountability is the sticky glue that binds us to our resolutions on paper. If you have to report in to a friend or a group of like-minded individual or even to your online journal, it serves as a reasonably pressured deadline that has to be achieved.

Don't have only negative or "you-must"s resolutions. Have fun ones as well, such as the yoga retreat mentioned above. If you plan only drudgery for the year, then it's guaranteed that your list of resolutions will have nary a checkmark. This is the main reason, I call them goals, not resolutions.

And the complementary one to the above is that you should feel free to abandon a resolution part-way through or even before beginning, if you feel that it's something that's never going to happen no matter how many years it shows up on your list. For me, that would mean giving up on reading Tolstoy's War and Peace in this life at least.

Revisit your list constantly to revise, add to, or subtract from the litany. It keeps the energy alive about what needs to be achieved next and it keeps the list fresh and current.

Mission Statements, Life Lists, Goals, Schedules: define, design, discharge

Here are four of my posts that have proven to be among the most popular on this blog. They have all to do with architecting your life starting with small daily steps.

A Personal Mission Statement is a set of mottoes for your life that define the boundaries of who you are, what your deepest held beliefs are, how you interact with others, and what you think of yourself.

A Life List is a mondo-beyondo list of your life's dreams. There are no limits as to how many items there can be on this list. It's a personal list, so don't be shy of wishing for the most outrageous, the most selfish, the most greedy, the most anything. Every deeply held desire needs to be on this list. Don't compromise on your dreams.

Goals Making and Keeping and committing to bringing your resolutions to fruition. Goals give you something concrete to work towards and to measure progress against. Goals also give you a sense of accomplisment once you've reached them.

Scheduling Your Life is important, because if you don't label your time to dedicated actions, then that piece of time is either attached to another task or frittered away. The most basic rule of thumb when keeping to a schedule is: There is no making up lost time.

Learn to be Charismatic

Joyce Newman, President of the Newman Group, leads high level media, speaker, and executive presence sessions for top executives, celebrity spokespersons, athletes, and authors. (Note the last!)

Joyce's mantra: "Everyone can be charismatic. We are not born charismatic—we cultivate it in many ways."

Here, according to Forbes contributor Denise Restauri, are the top tips for developing your charisma.

1. Be Self-Confident

If you value yourself and project that, others will value you, too. Be consistent, enthusiastic, optimistic. You don't need bang on your drum, but being quietly assertive, with the self-knowledge that you can handle come what may, gets conveyed very easily to others.

2. Tell Great Stories

Most points are made better through stories than through bulleted lists. Use #1 above, humor, and relevancy to current culture to entertain people and hold their attention.

3. Body Language

It's a simple thing: If you wanted to be approached, be approachable. What that means is make eye contact, smile, shake hands, and be direct while also being warm. Everybody can spot a fake smile at ten paces. Be genuine.

4. Make the Conversation About Who You’re Talking To

A person prosing on about himself is a boring person, but at the same time, people like to talk about themselves. So in order to make yourself be more interesting, make the conversation be about the person you're talking to.

5. Be a Good Listener

This goes hand-in-hand with #4. People can always tell when someone is tuning them out, either from the expression on their face or from the follow-up questions and comments. Since people like talking about themselves, ergo, they like good listeners. So be one. "Listen with interest. Pay attention. Engage. Be empathetic," according to Forbes. Don't look at your cell phone or check out the crowd to see who else is more interesting.

According to Fast Company, "Remember, even Steve Jobs came across as awkward and shy during his first Apple presentations—it took him time and effort to re-create his persona and become one of the most charismatic CEOs of our time."

Clutter? What Clutter? Get Rid of It!

When was the last time you last saw the surface of your desk?

At any point in time in the past, I'd have had the following on it: laptop, keyboard, docking station, wires running crazily helter-skelter, printer, loose computer paper, loose handwritten paper, notes for all current writing projects, a journal where I note down tasks and daily progress, my schedule and also a list of goals, water bottles, a mug of cold stale coffee, a can of coconut water, a bottle of lotion, my glasses, a pedometer, bills I need to take care of, and pens and pencils galore. If I had to eat at my desk, I'd have had to precariously perch the plate of food on top of some of this mess.

It's well and good to admire minimalist principles and to enjoy the idea that the gleaming wood of your desk will be available daily for your appreciation. But how on earth would you go about getting to that clean surface and then keep it that way?

Well, here's how...

Choose one small, self-contained area that's going to be your first clutter-free zone.

Ask yourself these questions: What is essential to this space? Are all the essentials coralled into logical groups? What are the things that you love but do not belong there? Where can they be moved to? Should everything that doesn't fall in the "essential" or "love" category get thrown out, or should it be revisited in a different part of the house?

Now set up boxes for donations, garbage bins, recycling bins, and the shredder in a readily accessible spot.

Start going through everything, item by item, in your chosen clutter-free area. File paper away in organized file folders, shred it, or recycle it. Put clothes away in the closet, donation box, or garbage bin. And so on. Make sure every single item in that area is looked at, thought over, and dealt with in some fashion. That area should now be well-organized and have fewer things per square inch of real estate than before.

Now that you've created your first clutter-free area, expand your clutter-free zone by taking over and organizing the adjacent area. And so on. Area by area, day by day, organize your entire home and office.

Next, and this is key, every time a new thing arrives in your clutter-free zone, make sure it is put away into the existing structure of organization, or moved to an appropriate area. Things should not simply land in the clutter-free zone with no rhyme or reason or organization. New things should always be put away in organized spots, as well as things that have been taken out for use should always be put back in their original spots.

This needs to become a habit, which will take time to develop—work on this habit consciously. The only way to get a habit to stick is to do it every single day.

Some areas are prone to clutter: mud rooms, kitchen islands, etc. Know these habits of yours and your family's. And make it point to, say, once a day before going to bed, clear out these areas, so that in the morning, the day begins on a tidy note.

Etiquette and Protocol in the 21st Century

William Hanson is the self-avowed etiquette and protocol expert from the U.K. Hanson insists that etiquette and protocol are very necessary in our digital age, because "people are persistently being rude, inconsiderate and generally ghastly." He believes that "good manners and etiquette, which are based on common sense, should be universal." Hanson was contributed to the commentary of the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middletonand The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee for the BBC, CNN, and America's Discovery TLC Channel.

Let's take a look at a few entries from his very popular blog.

Hanson has this advice on avoiding Christmas Card faux pas:

1. Do pick charity Christmas cards.
2. Make sure your envelope flaps are triangular, rather than straight.
3. Do not print signatures onto the cards. It's rude. Handwrite them.
4. Ditto, choosing not to address the card to the recipient.
5. eCards are not the same as a proper Christmas card.
And lastly,
6. If you feel you need to write to your address book with a chirpy Christmas newsletter, which will often boast of the family triumphs over the past 12 months, then it’s probably time you had a review of your contacts.

His post on "How to be a Downton Gentleman" has been well received. Nuggets of advice, include a gentleman never wears a hat indoors; when the ladies repair into the drawing room after dinner, gentlemen are to rise from their seats until they have left the room; the hallmark of a true gentleman is that he knows how to tie a bow tie; when wearing a waistcoat, a gentleman always has the bottom button unfastened; et cetera.

He offers this pithy advice on how to make your napkins the envy of your neighbors: "I love a good stiff napkin. I'd never dream of offering a guest anything but." He further says, "White is the best colour for napkins, although multicoloured ones are fine for out-door affairs. Gingham works nicely for barbecues and picnics." Napkins come in different sizes but are always square: dinner 22–26 inches, lunch 18–24 inches, tea 12 and cocktail 9. Hanson further gives instruction on how to perfectly starch a napkin.

What beauty products men should use is covered in: "Men can moisturise too" where he defiantly admits: "I love a beauty product." His favorite products are: Alpecin C1 Caffeine Shampoo, Bed Head Sugar Dust, Clinique Even Better Eyes, L’Oreal Nude Magique BB Cream, and Laura Mercier Flawless Skin Face Polish among others.

One of his freelance jobs include instructing others on how to be a butler: "I taught her how [I] clean silver, serve afternoon tea, set the table, answer the door, as well as [provide] butler service at table."

One final salvo that caught my eye is on setting up a guest bedroom to perfection involves fan folding the top couple sheets of a new toilet roll, a flourish on top of the tissue box, and ironed bedsheets and duvets.

Life List

Reposting blog from January 3, 2011.

How many times have you said to yourself and to others: When I have X, I'll do Y. When I have money, I'll travel. When I'm published, I'll buy a new car. Sometimes, both the X and the Y are dreams; often times, it's only the latter. Why hinge a dream on a pre-condition? That is the easiest way of ensuring that it will not be achieved. And all the time, you will feel a sense of dissatisfaction with life, because your dreams aren't being met.

A few years ago, I ran across an Amazon Short article by romance author Stephanie Bond titled Get a Life!: 8 Steps to Create Your Own Life List. She made me understand that the first step towards living a life of dreams is to create a Life List. The rest of this post is a précis of her detailed article.***

A Life List is a mondo-beyondo list of your life's dreams. There are no limits as to how many items there can be on this list. It's a personal list, so don't be shy of wishing for the most outrageous, the most selfish, the most greedy, the most anything. Every deeply held desire needs to be on this list. Don't compromise on your dreams. Be brave! And brainstorm away.

Once you've written down all your thoughts, divide the list's activities up into categories, such as: Travel, Health, Volunteer and Charity, Self-Improvement, Meeting Important People, Creative Ventures, Sports and Outdoors, etc. Devise categories so all items are all divided up.

Take another look at the categories and the items listed above. Try to generate more ideas if possible. Next, order the items in each category by importance, attainable in the near future, pre-requisite for another item, etc.

The most fun part of this process is concretizing the list. Write every item down and add or draw pictures and sketches and use different inks and fonts. This enhances the visual aspect of the list, thereby taking vague dreams and turning them into achievable goals.

The activities on the list are only attainable if you actually do things to make them happen and persist in doing them in the face of failures along the way. Setbacks are simply part of the process towards achieving the goals. Choose a set day and time in your schedule to look over the list and do something on moving one or more items towards completion. Take notes, and track progress.

And finally, once a year, remember to re-evaluate your list. As we grow and change, so do our dreams.

Hope this preécis of Stephanie Bond's article inspires you to create your own Life List. Do try to read the original article—it lays everything out in much greater detail and simplicity.

The first time I set up my list was in 2009. Now, thanks to Stephanie, I have been lucky to have achieved two of the items on that list. With such success behind me, it was with enthusiasm that I finished reworking my list for 2011 two days ago.

Don't let real life intrude and prevent you from living the life you want to live. Here's hoping you will achieve your dreams, too.

______
*** Amazon has taken down it's Shorts program, and so Stephanie's article is no longer accessible online. She's making efforts to ensure that her articles are accessible by some other route.

Personal Mission Statement

It's a tradition on Cogitations & Meditations to post blogs about goals and schedules at the beginning of the year. So I'm reposting my blog on a Personal Mission Statement from January 10, 2011.

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A Personal Mission Statement is a set of mottoes for your life that define the boundaries of who you are, what your deepest held beliefs are, how you interact with others, and what you think of yourself.

The Personal Mission Statement (with the unfortunate acronym of PMS) will support you in achieving your Life List. It is not a list of goals, whether short term or long term, but rather, an overarching definition of your personality, of the qualities that make you a unique human. So it who you are, not who you want to be.

So "exercise thrice weekly" is a goal, but "I exercise every day no matter what's happening around me" is a motto.

The mission statement empowers you in the midst of life's stresses by being the core of who you are, what you're about, and what you value. It's an affirmation document to return to re-read when you feel overwhelmed or discouraged or disappointed that maybe perhaps you aren't who you thought you were.

Take a large piece of blank paper or a stack of them. This activity is best done longhand on a dead tree product, because of the tactile working feeling in addition to the visual payoff. Now pick up a bunch of colored markers. Find a room free of all distractions for 30&8211;45 minutes. Set a timer for 30 minutes, and grab a marker. Write down anything about you that first pops up in your mind. Next, grab a different colored marker to write down your next motto or trait.

Write slantwise, backwards, upside down, but be sure to lock your inner censor firmly away. There's no wrong answer. Be fearless, even if a few undesirables crop up. It's who you are, and that's OK. If you feel that you don't like them, you can change them via your annual goals. Thus, your mission statement now becomes a laundry list of what is in present time and day.

Once you have spent 30 minutes brainstorming, spend the next 15 minutes grouping it into categories, such as morning & bedtime rituals, journaling, living in the moment, purpose of my life, self-reliance, etc. Check to be sure that items are "I am" type statements, not "I will" or "I want."

The first time I did this was in September 2006. Everything I wrote in there's still valid today. This can be a good thing (haven't worsened) or a bad thing (haven't improved). Heh. But it is who I am today. This is my personal mission statement. What's yours?

Jonathan Livingstone Seagull

My comments on Richard Bach's seminal book, Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, were published in the American Chronicle on September 10. However, I reproduce them here in their entirety, since the book had such a profound effect on me that I'd like to share it with you.

Much has been written about Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach. Some say it's a self-help book that ascribes to the positive thinking culture that's currently in vogue in the U.S. Others say it has Christian anarchist characteristics. Some consider it a deeply spiritual book, whereas Roger Ebert considers it "banal." The book has sold millions of copies and has even been made into a film with a soundtrack by Neil Diamond.

Jonathan Livingstone Seagull to me is about the pursuit of excellence in life, the limitlessness of human potential, and the ability to be hopeful and joyful in every situation.

"How much more there is now to living!" Jonathan Livingston Seagull said about his acquisition of superbly fine control over his body at tremendous speeds. "Instead of our drab slogging forth and back to the fishing boats, there's a reason to life! We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can be free! We can learn to fly!"

Jon was born with a blazing drive to learn and to achieve, all for the joy of doing it. Flying made him happy. He was dedicated to his goal of learning to fly faster and higher than ever before, and he had an expectation of excellence from himself. In fact, he didn't just expect excellence, he demanded it of himself.

As he pursued flying, Jon learned that failure wasn't an option he allowed himself. He remained hopeful even when he didn't achieve his goal immediately, but rather, he developed the art of patience as he practiced over and over and over again. He adhered to his rocky path towards excellence not for approval of others or adulation from others, but for himself. He was his own taskmaster, his own yardstick of excellence. He believed that "You know nothing till you prove it." And so he did: to himself and to others.

He never lost confidence in his ability to achieve his goal despite naysayers and despite being cast out of the flock for being unnatural for having ambition and for dreaming of a better life. He remained hopeful of his life and his goal in the face of misunderstanding.

"Everybody is special and gifted and divine." And when he recognized this within himself, it set him on the path to freedom. Freedom then became "the very nature of his being." "You are free to go where you want to go and to be what you want to be. You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way." And whatever stood against that freedom must be set aside.

He believed in the innate intelligence within himself that allowed him to imagine a life beyond the usual, beyond the lives his ancestors had lived. There's freedom in innovation—innovation rather than discovery—in creating something new, in becoming more than what was before.

It was only in the twilight of his days, did Jon realize that it is only in urging a pupil to discover excellence in himself does a teacher achieve a high state of self-actualization. Jon also realized that while you don't love hatred and evil, you have to see "the good in every one, and to help them see it in themselves."

And at the end of the day: he was just a seagull.

Personal Mission Statement

A Personal Mission Statement is a set of mottoes for your life that define the boundaries of who you are, what your deepest held beliefs are, how you interact with others, and what you think of yourself.

The Personal Mission Statement (with the unfortunate acronym of PMS) will support you in achieving your Life List. It is not a list of goals, whether short term or long term, but rather, an overarching definition of your personality, of the qualities that make you a unique human. So it who you are, not who you want to be.

So "exercise thrice weekly" is a goal, but "I exercise every day no matter what's happening around me" is a motto.

The mission statement empowers you in the midst of life's stresses by being the core of who you are, what you're about, and what you value. It's an affirmation document to return to re-read when you feel overwhelmed or discouraged or disappointed that maybe perhaps you aren't who you thought you were.

Take a large piece of blank paper or a stack of them. This activity is best done longhand on a dead tree product, because of the tactile working feeling in addition to the visual payoff. Now pick up a bunch of colored markers. Find a room free of all distractions for 30&8211;45 minutes. Set a timer for 30 minutes, and grab a marker. Write down anything about you that first pops up in your mind. Next, grab a different colored marker to write down your next motto or trait.

Write slantwise, backwards, upside down, but be sure to lock your inner censor firmly away. There's no wrong answer. Be fearless, even if a few undesirables crop up. It's who you are, and that's OK. If you feel that you don't like them, you can change them via your annual goals. Thus, your mission statement now becomes a laundry list of what is in present time and day.

Once you have spent 30 minutes brainstorming, spend the next 15 minutes grouping it into categories, such as morning & bedtime rituals, journaling, living in the moment, purpose of my life, self-reliance, etc. Check to be sure that items are "I am" type statements, not "I will" or "I want."

The first time I did this was in September 2006. Everything I wrote in there's still valid today. This can be a good thing (haven't worsened) or a bad thing (haven't improved). Heh. But it is who I am today. This is my personal mission statement. What's yours?

I Write Romance Novels — So What?

Brilliant article by Eileen Dryer for CNN on common ignorant criticism of romance writers and on the true reasons why she writes romance. Eileen Dreyer (also writing as Kathleen Korbel) has written more than 36 books in romance and suspense. Her July 2010 release Barely a Lady will be her first foray into historical romance.

I've included the article here in its entirety, because I believe that it's very important that everyone who visits here should have the opportunity to read it. If providing a link would mean that some folks wouldn't have the time to go read it elsewhere, now they can read it right here. The copyright for every word of that entire article is held solely by Eileen Dryer and CNN.

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I write romance novels.

That obviously means that I am a sexually frustrated loser dressed in a robe and bunny slippers who lives in a dreary apartment with my cat and lives vicariously through my devastatingly beautiful heroines.

At least that's how I'm portrayed in most media.

OK, maybe I do wear bunny slippers. But that's only because my daughter bought them for me as a joke, and they keep my feet warm.

Oh, all right, I also have a couple of cats. And yes, in fact, I do have a libido. But that's as far as I go in resembling the caricature.

I actually don't write or read romances because I'm lonely, or because I feel inadequate, or want the chance to sneak a peak at dirty words. If you want to get political, I write romance because I like to remind myself (and everyone else. Writers are compelled to make other people listen to them) that I deserve everything I want in a relationship. I deserve to be happy, to be satisfied, to be safe, to be an equal. I deserve to be solvent and for my children to be taken care of.

As a genre written by women primarily for women, it is our promise to each other that life is worth reproducing. It's our commitment to the future. Pretty heavy stuff for heaving loins, huh?

If you think about it, though, we're in the business of hope. No matter what happens in a romance (and trust me, after 26 romances, I've had absolutely everything happen, from attempted suicide to the battle of Waterloo), everything comes out all right. We romance writers say, "If we just commit to each other, if we work together, we can get through anything." Very powerful message, if you ask me.

But romances are just fantasy, you protest. Of course they are. So is every Tom Clancy book, Shakespeare play, and political ad. I make no apologies for the fantasies in romance.

Yes, the heroines tend to be relentlessly orgasmic. The heroes are just as relentlessly manly (as much as I'd love to say that my heroes are everyman, not one of them has looked like Steve Buscemi) and impossibly stoic when wounded.

(Most people assume that women love an injured hero because it brings out her nurturing instincts. They expect us to go all Marion to Indiana Jones' reluctant winces. Baloney. Any woman who has had to put up with her husband's near-fatal colds knows that the fantasy of an injured hero is that he doesn't whine.)

But after 20 years of writing romances and 36 years of marriage, I have to admit that there is one fantasy that is becoming more and more important to me.

I have children. I have grandchildren. My husband and I are both getting gray, and over the years we have collected responsibilities and distractions like dust bunnies.

We love each other even more than when we first married, but it's a tempered love, well-worn and familiar. It isn't new. It isn't exciting. It isn't a revelation. It isn't completely, utterly, magically all-consuming. We have to share it with kids and careers and the responsibilities of the wider world.

But when I read a romance, I can return to that moment in a blooming relationship when I could be perfectly selfish, when nothing really existed but my lover.

When love was an exhilarating surprise, and the world seemed a bit brighter, tasted sweeter, made me smile more, just because the man I loved was in my life. When we could disappear for an entire weekend, doing nothing but lying in bed naked reading (well, some of the weekend reading, anyway) and suffer no consequences (like the state wanting to know why our 12-year old is out driving our other kids to ball practice).

After all, after 36 years of marriage, it's been a long time since I've been able to indulge in one person like that. And I admit it: I miss it, too.

But sometimes, when I open a book and read about a man and a woman who are just discovering each other, I can relive it. I can remind myself that it was a wonderful part of my courtship and marriage.

And, if I'm very lucky and the stars are aligned and nothing calls us away, I can remind my husband of it, too.

Not a bad fantasy at all.

Happy Mother's Day

Wishing all mothers everywhere a Very Happy Mother's Day!

Here's the fruit sculpture my family made for me...

20 Cheer Up Tips From 200 Years Ago

Gretchen Rubin runs The Happiness Project site and blog and has written an award-winning book based on her observations, interpretations, and research.

Recently, Gretchen posted these twenty tips from 1820 for cheering yourself up that caught my eye. In her blog opener, she says, "I read it in a biography of the English writer Sydney Smith in Hesketh Pearson's The Smith of Smiths. In 1820, Smith wrote a letter to an unhappy friend, Lady Morpeth, in which he offered her tips for cheering up."

1st. Live as well as you dare.
2nd. Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75 or 80 degrees.
3rd. Amusing books.
4th. Short views of human life—not further than dinner or tea.
5th. Be as busy as you can.
6th. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you.
7th. And of those acquaintances who amuse you.
8th. Make no secret of low spirits to your friends, but talk of them freely—they are always worse for dignified concealment.
9th. Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce upon you.
10th. Compare your lot with that of other people.
11th. Don't expect too much from human life—a sorry business at the best.
12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy, sentimental people, and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion, not ending in active benevolence.
13th. Do good, and endeavour to please everybody of every degree.
14th Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue.
15th. Make the room where you commonly sit gay and pleasant.
16th. Struggle by little and little against idleness.
17th. Don’t be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice.
18th. Keep good blazing fires.
19th. Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion.
20th. Believe me, dear Lady Georgiana.

Gretchen's favorites are #1, 3, 6, 13, 15, 16, and 17.
Mine are #3, 5, 6, 7, 11, 15, 16, 17

What are your favorites?