Category: advice

Do you know someone who wants to learn how to code? (Maybe it is you!)

Then this is a good page for them to go to: How I Learned How To Code Using Free Resources | Home | Bri Limitless. 

There’s plenty of good links to information, and they are all free. I can vouch for a number of them, such as Codecademy and Coursera.

One problem people run into is: why should I learn to code? One obvious answer is to learn a set of skills to help them gain employment. Two other reasons I have:

  1. build a website to promote yourself or any future business you might have.
  2. automate things you do on your computer

For #1, being able to build a website is a great way to promote yourself and show yourself to the world. As for #2, that’s the main reason I still keep coding. There’s lots of information I want to process, personally and professionally, and coding is the best way to do that.

Regardless of your reason, if you want to learn to code, check out Bri Limitless’s web page.

MindMup 2: a good web based mindmapping too

I’m a fan of mindmapping tools in general. One I’ve been using and enjoying lately is MindMup 2. 

Two things I like about it:

  1. It’s simple to modify your mindmaps on the go. You don’t need to do much to add or modify your map.
  2. It’s also simple to export your mindmap into a number of different formats. If you occasionally use mindmaps or you want to start with a mindmap to generate ideas but then you want to do the majority of the work in Word or some other tool, this is a good feature.

Mindmup_2 is a good tool. Go map your thoughts.

How to ask for help (it’s not as obvious as you think)

If you are uncomfortable asking for help, read this: How to Ask for Help and Actually Get It – The New York Times. After you read it, write out the type of help you need and use the article’s guidelines to insure your request for help is more effective.

We all need help from time to time. Read that and you will be more effective in getting the help you need.

One last thought: show appreciation before, during and after someone helped you. Even if they say it is no big deal to help. If for no other reason, it acknowledges the effort someone has taken to help you.

Get help. Your life will get better as a result. And the people who help you will often feel better about themselves for helping you, so you are helping them too.

Good advice on how to get started on that project / hobby / adventure you have always want to start


Good advice on how to get started on that project / hobby / adventure you have always want to start can be found here: How to Dare to Begin.

Beginning is often the biggest hurdle. Before you begin, you can imagine all the difficulties you will have, and such imaginings stop you before you can even start. If this applies to you, read the article. You may find yourself getting started after all.

Another thought: take an athlete’s approach to getting started and keeping at it. Get a coach. Get cheerleaders. Talk it up while you are doing the thing you’ve held off doing. Give yourself as much encouragement as you can. Give yourself a goal. Do all those things and you will find you not only get started but you keep going.

Good luck. Dare to do good things. Great things, eventually.

(Image from the article linked to.)

Bill Murray’s advice on being a father

From a 2012 Bill Murray Interview in Esquire comes this:

If you bite on everything they throw at you, they will grind you down. You have to ignore a certain amount of stuff. The thing I keep saying to them lately is: “I have to love you, and I have the right to ignore you.” When my kids ask what I want for my birthday or Christmas or whatever, I use the same answer my father did: “Peace and quiet.” That was never a satisfactory answer to me as a kid — I wanted an answer like “A pipe.” But now I see the wisdom of it: All I want is you at your best — you making this an easier home to live in, you thinking of others.

Sounds right.

When to think about your life, and when not to

There are times to think about your life, and times not to. Austin Kleon has a very simple rule to help him decide:

I have a very simple rule that serves me well: Don’t think too much about your life after dinnertime. Thinking too much at the end of the day is a recipe for despair. Everything looks better in the light of the morning. Cliché, maybe, but it works.

I first agreed with this. Afterwards, I concluded it depends on each individual. For me, I found a good time to think about my life was between midnight and two. It’s quiet then, I am tired but also relaxed. There’s no distractions, nothing else left to do but sleep. If I accomplished things in the daytime, it was especially good to think about what’s next in my life. Likewise if I had a good weekend, the best time to think about my life is Monday morning: I’m rested, energized, and feeling I can get a lot done during the week.

I found the time to not think about my life was any time I am really tired or sick or having a very bad day. Then the goal is not to reflect but to recover.

If anything, my rule is: if I need to recover, then I should not be reflecting.

I think we should all find times to reflect upon our lives and assess ourselves and where we’re heading. We just need to find the right times to do it, and do it then. And find the wrong times to do it and not do it then.

How to sleep better – Vox

More good advice about sleeping from Vox: How to sleep better

I agree with most of this, but there is one part I want to highlight:

If you’re not sleeping and getting anxious about not sleeping, just get out of bed and leave the bedroom. Sleep specialists have established that staying in bed while you’re anxious or not sleeping is one of the most common contributors to chronic insomnia, because it trains the brain and creates bad associations.

The part in italics is key. If you are not getting anxious about it, you likely can stay there until you fall asleep. At least that works for me. I have tried getting up and I find that more disruptive. Now when I can’t sleep, I tell myself that at least I am getting rest and I will likely fall back to sleep, and almost always I do.

If you are looking for a todo list app, read this

According to this piece:

Some to-do list tools are better than others. Check out 10 of the best to-do list tools to determine which may be right for you in 2018.
— Read on blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-to-do-list-apps-tools

I’ve used a number of these and it makes me vouch for this list. That said, there are lots of apps you can get for to do lists that are free, so don’t think you have to pay money to get a good app to do this work.

Also consider other tools, like Evernote. Evernote is more than a todo list app, but it does that well.

Finally consider using Excel or Google sheets.

Whatever works best for you is the best app.

How chromebooks can be a means of avoiding being IT support for your family

Chromebook image
This piece explains the logic behind getting certain relatives a Chromebook so as to relieve you of being tech support:  I bought my mom a Chromebook Pixel and everything is so much better now – The Verge.

Now your mom may be tech savvy and not need a Chromebook (my mom was). But for some people’s moms or dads or children, it can be a very good solution. Especially for people who don’t travel much with their computer and who have a stable IT environment (e.g. the networking set up doesn’t change, the printer is good).

Chromebooks may not seem good value. You might compare what you get from a Chromebooks vs a Windows laptop and think: I get more from the Windows laptop. If you are good with computers, that true. But that’s not how to look at it. Factor in the cost of the relative’s computer plus the time you spend solving problems with it. When you factor that in, the benefit of the Chromebook jumps out.

A very visual way to remember healthy serving sizes

The good people of Cooking Light have put together an nice infographic on this: Here’s a Handy Way to Understand Healthy Serving Sizes – Cooking Light. 

Now you might find some of them weird (one small baked potato is the size of a hamster) or outdated (an ipod nano…really?) but most of them are relevant and very useful if you are working hard to control how much you eat.

 

New ideas for summer wine drinkers

For those of you looking to branch out beyond whites, roses, and heavy reds (for BBQ), here’s a good list: Chilled Red Wines to Drink All Summer – Bon Appétit.

Beaujolais is the obvious choice for Gamay, but lots of new world producers make wine with that grape. For Carignan, you may have to look around: if you can find a place that stocks a good selection of French wine, look in the Midi section. Also check out the Spanish wine section. The challenge there is it can sometimes (often times?) be blended with heavier reds. Ask the staff for help if you want something lighter. As for Zweigelt, the challenge there is finding it at all. If you can, get some.

If you want to know more about carignan, check out this from Winefolly.com:

Summerlicious 2018: the deals

I am a fan of Summerlicious (and Winterlicious) in Toronto: it’s a festival of sorts for people who like fine dining . It’s debatable if you are getting a deal on the meals, though I would argue that you are. If you lean the other way, then read this: 10 best deals for Summerlicious 2018 – NOW Magazine. By going to one or more of these 10 places, you’ll dine in a good restaurant and get a good deal as well.

Weekend goals: getting a better night sleep

If you are like most people, you don’t get enough sleep. Also, you likely wish you could get more sleep. If you fall into both of those categories, why not read this guide right now: The 2-minute guide to getting better sleep – Vox. (It will take you 2 minutes: you have time). Take some notes, then make this weekend your goal to get more sleep.

Get some rest; improve your life.

A little story about why I think Tile is awesome

I lost my keys the other day and I figured they’d show up but after a few days I concluded they were lost. Luckily I didn’t have to do a search of the house because I had a Tile attached to them. (Yes I should have used it right away.) So I opened the app and figured it would tell me they were in the house, but it said they were up the street, approximately half a kilometer a way.I used the app to go right to the location was: a gas station where I was getting my bike tires pumped up a few days earlier. The keys must have fallen out when I was doing this. Great! I went inside and asked if someone had turned them in. Clerk says: nope! I was sure they were there. I start the app and get it to play music on my key fob. I can hear them! Another clerk comes over and opens a drawer with a bunch of keys, including mine! So no thanks to the first clerk but thanks to everyone else including Tile.

Some thoughts on this:

  • Don’t assume that if someone finds your keys or wallet that they will turn it over to you if you show up. The staff may be busy, or someone may have misplaced the items, or maybe the person working there just can’t be bothered to look. Let Tile help you here.
  • If you think: I can’t afford a Tile, consider the alternative. Consider the time and money it costs to replace your keys, wallet, etc. Chances are it’s less than a Tile.
  • Even when the items you lost are nearby, having the Tile saves you a lot of hassle of going around looking for the item.
  • Consider attaching your Tile to a remote control if you have people in the house misplacing it all the time.

Can you finance a tiny home?


According to this, yes (kinda): Tiny House Financing Tips – Mobile Home Loans | Apartment Therapy

It’s not in any way straightforward like getting a loan/mortgage for a traditional home, but it can be done.

If you are interested in getting such a home, it’s worth reading those tips.

P.S. To buy the house in the image, go here. It will set you back around $11,000.

 

Should you read Steven Pinker’s Enlightment Now?

I have my doubts after reading this: Steven Pinker’s book Enlightenment Now is a huge hit. Too bad it gets the Enlightenment wrong. – Vox. 

I am a fan of the new wave of optimism being swept in by writers like Pinker. But misrepresenting the Enlightenment is a bad idea, and I am not sure why he did it. If you want to read it in the spirit of what out age needs now, then it is likely you should read it. If you want to learn about the Enlightenment, read the Vox piece and then go somewhere other than Enlightenment Now.

How to shuck and enjoy oysters at home

I love oysters, but I was intimidated by how to successfully shuck them. Turns out it isn’t easy, but with a good guide, like this one, it is a skill  you can master with a bit of practice: Guide to Shucking Oysters With Ease. You need a good shucking knife and some oysters. I also used an oven mitt to protect the hand holding the oyster while shucking them, in case the knife slipped.

Once you have your newly shucking oysters, here’s some good ways to enjoy them, all courtesy of The Spruce website:

(Image via SeriousEats.com)

4 behaviors that may cut the risk of cancer by 30 percent

Everyone wants to lower their risk of cancer. This piece can help with this: 4 behaviors that may cut the risk of cancer by 30 percent – Vox. The main point of the piece was that:

… people who never smoked or smoked for only a few years and people who drank no or only small amounts of alcohol (one or fewer drinks per day for women and two or fewer for men). It also included people with a BMI between 18.5 and 27.5, and people who exercised vigorously for at least 75 minutes per week or moderately for 150 minutes…

…were at a lower risk of getting cancer than people who did not do these things.

Smoking and drinking are easy for you to monitor. If you want to track your BMI and fitness level, consider getting a digital scale and a fitness tracker. I use the Fitbit Aria scale to track my BMI and my Apple Watch to monitor my exercise. Of course you can monitor those things just as well with a simple scale, a watch, a pencil and a notepad. Regardless of how you do it, I encourage you to take action in the New Year to lower your risk of cancer.

A good list of light therapy lamps for S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder)

The bad news: for people in the northern hemisphere, the days are getting colder and darker.

The good news: if you are one of those people who suffer from S.A.D., then this is an excellent list of lights that can help you deal with it: The Best Light Therapy Lamps for Seasonal Affective Disorder | Apartment Therapy

Better still, there is a wide range of price points and some of them are relatively inexpensive.

Check out the list. If you know someone who struggles with this, then consider this an excellent gift idea.

Bonus: This post was written in 2017. Since then they have updated their list, so check it out again.

 

How to work wellness into your work day

A good thing to consider as you start your week is: does your work day contribute to staying well, or does it do the opposite? One way to know is to compare you typical workday to something like this one: How To Schedule Wellness Into Your Workday And Still Get Stuff Done.

You don’t need to do all the things in that article, but if you do none of them, consider incorporating some of them into your work day. I believe you will see your attitude towards work improve and your workday will feel better.

Work / life balance is important. But having a work routine that is balanced in itself is a better way to enjoy your work and stay healthy, especially during the winter months.

Decluttering tips for people who have a hard time with it.

If you struggle to declutter your places, then Apartment Therapy has two good guides on how to make some progress on it:

  1. Professional Organizer Tips: What NOT To Do When Decluttering
  2. This Decluttering Pro’s 10-Percent Method Will Help You Pare Down Guiltlessly

Decluttering is always a good idea. You can live easier, and you can appreciate the things you have better.

Natural Christmastime Decorating Ideas

The folks at Apartment Therapy have put together a nice compilation of Christmastime decorating ideas that are simple as it is beautiful. For example, this:

from here. And this

from here.

What all the images have in common is the use of natural decoration, from boughs to wood to wreaths to baskets to lanterns. It’s seasonal, but timeless.

If you find it too austere, mix in some holly or some ribbon.

Enjoy the season, and the beauty of this time.

Advice on writing is often terrible. The advice of Kazuo Ishiguro is not….


And thanks to Emily Temple, who has compiled much of this advice in one article, which is here:  Kazuo Ishiguro: ‘Write What You Know’ is the Stupidest Thing I’ve Ever Heard at Literary Hub.

Worth reading, both for fans of the author and for writers looking to improve their craft.

(Image via The Paris Review, which has a good interview with Ishiguro here.)

You need good work tools to be your best at work. Here’s 11 for you to consider


We all get in ruts where we use the same tools every day for our office work. When that happens, what we need is someone to come along with a new list of tools and what makes them great.

Here is such a list. I didn’t create it, but I have used 3 of the 11 tools here and I can say they are key to making me more productive every day. I plan to use the rest of them too, based on the description of them.

Sure, you can do fine with Microsoft Office tools. This list will help you do better: 11 Most Used Tools & Apps Essential to my Work – DESK Magazine

(Image via pexels.com)

Deal with social media better by having less opinions

Word cloud
Social media bombards us with opinions. Such bombardment tugs at us to form our own opinions, but this is is a trap that leads us to be unhappy. As this piece (Free Your Mind by Having Fewer Useless Opinions) argues:

The more opinions you have, the more time and energy you end up wasting to defend those opinions, and the more small amounts of stress you accrue. But the less you have, the more time and energy you have to focus on the deep opinions you have.

I think this is a great idea. There are lots of reasons not to have an opinion on things: you don’t have knowledge on a topic, you don’t have interest on a topic, you prefer to focus your thoughts on other topics. Much of popular culture can be dismissed this way, as can many political scandals.

So let others spend their time fretting and fussing over such things and spend your time focusing on the things you think matter.

If you can’t find a new movie to watch, you want to rewatch one of these

Why this list of movies? According to Five Thirty Eight, they are the most rewatchable movies of all time. Scanning the list, I see a few of the ones I tend to watch over and over again. Chances are you do too.

Enjoy.

Meanwhile, here’s one of the many great scenes from Casablanca.

What is wrong with minimalism (and how to fix that)

What is wrong with minimalism? If you were to read this piece by Mark Manson on the Disease of More, you would be right in thinking that less is what we need. The less you have, the better off you should be. In which case, approaching minimalism should be the idea.

Yet minimalism taken to an extreme is just another form of More is Better, which seems to be the point of this Guardian article, Minimalism: another boring product wealthy people can buy.  (And the truth is, minimalism can be difficult to achieve, as this article shows.)  So, is minimalism a good idea or not? Should you give up on minimalism?

What both minimalist and anti-minimalists miss in their arguments is what is required to have a good life. What should be pursued is not to have more because more is better, or having less because less is better, but to have just what is essential for you to have a good life.

Of course what is essential depends on who you are. For some, this is a perfect environment:


For others, it’s this:

There is nothing wrong with a minimal environment if that is essential for you to be happy and content. Likewise, having a room jam packed with stimulating items may be essential to you.  You have to decide for yourself, rather than sticking with a simple formula of Less is More or More is More.

What you should have is  what is essential for you to live a good life. The fix for minimalism is essentialism. Preferably a lean essentialism. But again, that is up to you.

How to arrange supermarket flowers and other flower arranging tips

Flowers
If you are fortunate, you have access to a great florist and they can arrange your favorite flowers for you. If you don’t have that, if the best you have is flowers from the supermarket or the corner store, you can still do great things, as these three articles show:

  1. How to Make a Stunning Bouquet with Supermarket Flowers | Bon Appetit
  2. Three Stylish Takes on DIY Flower Arrangements – Bon Appétit | Bon Appetit
  3. Three Great Tips for Making Better Flower Arrangements | Healthyish | Bon Appetit

My advice: pick one or two of  these rules or examples and then get some flowers based on them. If in doubt, start small and keep it simple.  As you can see from the photo, you don’t have to spend a fortune on a big bouquet stuffed in a large vase: a simple collection of one type of flower in a simple bottle still looks wonderful. If you get a bunch of 4 or 5 different flowers from the supermarket, break them up into groups of 1, 2 or 3.  Try different things. Flower arranging is an art in more ways than one.

Also, when cutting your flowers, take your time and cut away a bit at a time until you get the height you want. You can always cut further, but obviously you cannot lengthen them!

Flowers bring automatic beauty into your life. Go get some.

P.S. If you have to get vases and you don’t want to spend alot, consider the local dollar store. Most will have a collection of simple glass cylinders of all heights. Get a small, medium, and large size cylinder and you will be all set for whatever flowers suit your mood that day, be they a small bunch of daisies or a big batch of sunflowers.

Some advice on middle age and ageism


I found a collection of links on getting older, links I am drawn to as I get older. Some of them are essential but depressing. Others affirm there are possibilities for new things as one reaches middle age and then old age. There are difficulties, including discrimination due to ageism: some of these articles can help deal with that.

I’ll conclude with two pieces on much older artists still capable of doing great things. One of the biggest problems of being middle-aged is succumbing to fatalism and a pessimistic belief that almost everything is behind you, and that you have nothing to live for or work towards. As you can see in these pieces below, that’s not always true. You should fight that belief, and live your days like you have many, while taking care to enjoy each day as you can. You need a vision to care you forward, a way to get off the track labelled Dead End and on to the one the continues forward. I hope these links can help achieve that vision:

Finally, there is this: Seeing old age as a never ending adventure

It’s Time for You to Run for Office. Yes, you.


Great advice: It’s Time for You to Run for Office. 

Don’t see politicians that represent you or the groups you feel represent you? All the more reason to run.

Don’t get me wrong: running for office and doing the job while you are in office are both difficult things. But if you are the type of person who want to make a positive difference and you are also the type who likes a challenge, then what’s stopping you?