Source: NY Times Magazine, Sunday, January 31, 2016
It Depends? On what?
February 1, 2016 by 25 Comments
Inhale people and exhale skin
November 29, 2013 by 29 Comments
“I’d like to answer all my phone calls, return all emails in a timely manner and mean the how-are-yous; not hide my broken hallelujahs, not save my gratitude for characters in books. Put love on sale, like I should…I’d like to whisper to only a few souls under a blanket instead of shouting at hundreds over these virtual rooftops. I’d like to inhale people and exhale skin, explore huggability and memorize the art of breathing…I’d like to get up once a week with no other agenda than laziness in bed, no time, no musts or shoulds or have tos. Eat breakfast for dinner, juice for lunch, and talk to trees, and cry, walk backwards, love my solitude, and understand my doing by undoing.”
~ Andréa Balt
- Source: Thank you Make Believe Boutique
- Read more by Andréa Balt: 30 Questions
- Find Andréa Balt on Facebook
Good to be wrong
September 26, 2013 by 24 Comments
It’s my third email of the day.
I’m reading.
A member on the team is getting accolades.
I flashback to a conversation with his manager three years ago.
“He’s rough. Not sure he has it. Big Risk.”
“There’s talent there. Trust me.”
I send him a note: “I’m proud we’re on the same team.”
Seconds later my email is flashing with his reply.
“You made my day.”
I push my chair back.
And turn my back to my desk and stare out the window.
Good to be wrong.
Picture of Bliss
January 30, 2013 by 45 Comments
bliss
/blis/
Noun
|
Bliss Definition: Google
Sincerely? Best Regards? Thx? Cheers?
October 11, 2012 by 40 Comments
“Forget what you’ve heard about first impressions; it’s the last impressions that count. Last impressions — whether they’re with customer service, an online shopping experience, or a blind date — are the ones we remember. They’re the ones that keep us coming back. But there’s one kind of final impression that people seem to forget. The closing line of email — that line that you write before you type your name — has been all but forgotten. Go take a look at your inbox: you might be astonished at how little attention people pay to the closing lines when writing email. This underrated rhetorical device is so frequently disregarded that many people have the gall to use an automatic closing line attached to their email signature file…If a closing line can be so meaningful, so important, why are emailers squandering the opportunity, putting no thought in the closing? Time, perhaps, iPhone-finger exhaustion, multi-tasking – they’re all possible excuses. And many times, acceptable ones. We can’t be expected to neatly tie up every email every time. But once in a while, it would be delightful if people applied the same sincerity to the last impressions that we do to first ones.”
As mass producer of emails, this email & chart left its mark…
Source: Bobulate via explore-blog
Uh, oh…
June 19, 2012 by 26 Comments
Uh, oh. Oh boy. No further comment.
Source: New York Times – How Depressives Surf the Internet. Some choice excerpts:
…IN what way do you spend your time online? Do you check your e-mail compulsively? Watch lots of videos? Switch frequently among multiple Internet applications — from games to file downloads to chat rooms?
…your pattern of Internet use says something about you…research suggests it can offer clues to your mental well-being.
…There were two major findings. First, we identified several features of Internet usage that correlated with depression…the more a participant’s score on the survey indicated depression, the more his or her Internet usage included… high levels of sharing files (like movies and music).
…Our second major discovery…styles of Internet behavior that were signs of depressive people. For example, participants with depressive symptoms tended to engage in very high e-mail usage. This perhaps was to be expected: research has shown that frequent checking of e-mail may relate to high levels of anxiety, which itself correlates with depressive symptoms.
…Another example: the Internet usage of depressive people tended to exhibit high “flow duration entropy” — which often occurs when there is frequent switching among Internet applications like e-mail, chat rooms and games.
…Other characteristic features of “depressive” Internet behavior included increased amounts of video watching, gaming and chatting.
Related Posts:
- Can’t. Take it. Any. More.
- Should I check E-Mail?
- Are you an Internet Addict?
- Things to do when the internet is down…
- Which Way Are You Dysfunctional?
- Tip For Getting More Organized: Don’t
- How well do you manage distraction? Take this three minute quiz…
- 3 Skills Every 21st Century Manager Needs…Multi-Inspiring v. Multitasking
- Internet Friendships…

Can’t. Take it. Any. More.
June 7, 2012 by 29 Comments
“If you feel sucked into a bottomless guilt vortex every time you look at your email inbox, this post is not for you. If you struggle to keep up with a deluge of 50, 100, 400 emails every day, go away. If you’ve clicked on this looking for tips in curtailing this incursion of correspondence, leave now. This post isn’t for you. It’s for the other guy. The one who responds immediately to every message. The one who sleeps with his smartphone. The one who checks email on vacation. You know who you are. And while this may be hard for you to hear, it needs to be said: you’re ruining everything for the rest of us. Every time you check your email while on vacation you make it just a little bit harder for me not to. Every time you fire off an email at 11pm, you make a capillary explode in one of my eyeballs. Every time you send me an email asking, "Did you get my email?" — especially if you sent said email within the last 24 hours — I drown a kitten in a bag. Okay, that’s not true. No animals were harmed in the writing of this post. Except for this particular human animal, who has gotten to a point with her email where she just. Can’t. Take it. Any. More. Sisyphus had a better chance of keeping that boulder on top of that hill than I do of keeping on top of my email…I will never, never, never have more time for email, next week or any other week, no matter how much false hope I harbor. Also, I think there are better ways for me to spend 3 hours out of a (purportedly) 40-hour work week.”
Read more of this great post @ HBR Blog Network: The Responsiveness Trap
Related Posts:
I am a hoarder.
March 31, 2012 by 23 Comments
Yep. That’s me. A digital hoarder. Good article in this week’s Wall Street Journal called Drowning In Email, Photos, Files? Hoarding Goes Digital. Here’s 2 excerpts on what defines a hoarder and what to do about it:
“There are no official criteria for ‘digital hoarding’ but there are some tell-tale signs:
- You’ve exceeded your 7 gigabytes of free space in Gmail and have to buy more.
- Deleting anything makes you anxious—even things you can’t remember why you saved.
- You spend more time searching for a file than it would take to download it again.
- You have dozens of icons on your desktop and don’t know what they’re for.
- You can’t remember all your email or social-media accounts or how to access them.
- You have flash drives scattered in drawers, pockets and purses and no idea what’s on them.
- Of your thousands of digital photos, the vast majority are duds.
- You have entire seasons of bad TV shows you have no intention of watching.
Emails and Files: Searching. Searching. Searching. Never Finding. Frustrated?
December 3, 2011 by 6 Comments
I’m a pack rat with emails and files. Current count: 287,658 going back more than 10 years. (That’s a topic for another day.) If you use Microsoft Outlook as your core email software program and if you spend any amount of time searching for documents, files or emails, a software solution is a must-have addition to your efficiency arsenal. I have tried manual solutions (see Cro-Magnon Man Method below) and a significant number of software solutions. I’ve used X1 for over 5 years now. I use it multiple times daily and it is an indispensable productivity and efficiency tool for me.
- DK’s Cro-Magnon Man Method: I created a number of specific folders in outlook. Then I would drag and drop. Sounds good but Folders bulge with emails. Then need to be archived. WAY too slow. Archaic. For-getta-about-it.
- Google Desktop: Used older version. Free is good. Didn’t search Outlook emails. Too messy. Believe they may have discontinued Desktop. Source: Google Desktop
- Lookeen. Price at ~ $30 is reasonable. It works. But couldn’t handle the vast emails that I had in various PSTs. Good basic solution. Source: Lookeen
- Outlook’s Built-in Email Search: Free is good. Integrated into Outlook. Doesn’t index old archived files in PSTs. Slows down Outlook. Source: Microsoft Outlook
- Xobni: The new kid on the block. Social network connections blocked by corporate firewalls. Slows down outlook. Interesting eye candy information – much of it not useful to me. Source: Xobni.com
- X1: Winner by a landslide. $49.95. Lightning fast. Fully integrated with Outlook. Indexes every word in every email and every file – finds files and emails as fast as you can type. Indexes all archived files. Handles email and file tonnage with ease. Can search by sender, receiver, file type, keyword. You can open, delete, print,email and drag and drop files directly from X1. Terrific, clean interface. Source: x1.com
One word of warning. If you can’t remember keywords or file names or something unique to tie you to the search, no software will help you with memory recall. And if you are searching using a common word or name, you can get hundreds of search results that you’ll have to wade through. (For example, if I was searching for an email with the word “soup” in it, X1 returns 350 emails with the word “soup” in it. I used Soup as the name of a newsletter a few years back. You would need to either scan all of the emails or simply add another search parameter to chop it down. If I added a sender (me) and a recipient (Jack Smith), this would reduce the email count to < 5).
If you have a better email/file search system or program, I would be keenly interested in hearing about it.
Image Sources: X1 & Tangle-Tree-Interiors