50 x 100 x 50 revisited II

Sorting out stuff

Originally published 15-03-2008

We'd been having some issues with technology. Things going too slow, too many options. If you've switched to GMail precisely because you don't always have access to Mail, why does iPhoto (curse it) insist on sending emails via Mail? Intertubes to the rescue, with instructions that will persuade iPhoto to send via GMail and, better yet, a dinky little plug-in that allows iPhoto to send directly from GMail. Interesting choices. Mail is more familiar. Plug-in is neater, but requires more effort at first. She's happy, I think, but I wonder which she will choose?

Flickr photograph by Cafrine (although that picture is no longer there.

Seven-up

Originally published 16-03-2008

It is a truism that if you want something done, give it to someone who is already busy. Just as a deadline tomorrow is easier to meet than a week next Friday, if you've already got a bunch of stuff to deal with, one more small enough thing hardly makes a difference. That's how it has been with my self-inflicted lunacy. Since promising myself I'd do these damnable little things every day, I've also done a whole lot more besides. Deciding to have an image per post just makes it harder, and therefor weirdly easier.

Flickr photograph by Walsh.

A real mistress of the art

Originally published 17-03-2008

While I continue to work on cultivating stick-to-it-ness, I want to share the Queen Of Them All: The Communicatrix. She developed this thang called the 21-Day Salute in which she, er, takes a idea and writes 21 solid posts over, er, 21 days. Worries it to death, you might say. No way I could contemplate that. Not yet. But the truth is, while she's been jazzing up her site and hanging with the rest of the A-list over at SXSW the rest of the world is jonesing for another salute. So how about it?

Flickr photograph by Kenyee.
N.B. Those "ers" are words, right? I didn't just stick 'em in as makeweights. They're there for a purpose.

Don't defer it again, do it

Originally published 18-03-2008

I'm a GTD guy; not obsessively, but enough. I delete, delegate (magari), do and defer, and that gets me through my days with a minimum of dropped balls. Defer is the big problem. Not the emails deferred to my @action box; I scan that regularly, and do them in time set aside for that. The problem is the items I plan to read or do something about later. Google Reader and Del.icio.us make it so easy to defer, but somehow the stream seldom dries up enough to do. Defer turns into defeated. And that's not good.

Flickr photograph by Simple Dolphin.

Whose happiness matters more?

Originally published 19-03-2008

Giving makes me happy, and the size of the gift makes no difference to the amount of happiness it engenders. So why don't I take every opportunity that presents itself to give happiness?

There's a young woman stationed down the hill from the supermarket entrance. She's well-kept, presentable, seems cheerful and is always polite. I've never given her anything. I think it's because she's there all day, every day. It's her job, and yet she "does" nothing but sit. Rewarding that would give me no pleasure. She must be capable of something -- anything -- more.

Flickr photograph by Laura Mary.