WiReD’s compiler blog has the story here
Category: advice
Go on. Fail. Alot. :)
Over at lifehack.org is a good article on how to fail and why it is important. Some of the points are:
- Fail with grace
- Have a plan B
- Forgive and relive
- Get perspective
- Stop doing that!
- Do something
Go see How to Fail at Practically Anything and start failing today!
How to clean your home in 19 minutes (roughly)
CNN has cribbed some material from Real Simple and the FlyLady to help you get your home cleaned in a flash. I don’t know if you can do it in 19 minutes, but it can be close. 🙂
How to clean your home in 19 minutes – CNN.com
Also, if you have kids (or a sloppy spouse/roommate who won’t clean up), get some baskets and keep them nearby. Then go around the house, scoop up some stuff and put it in their room. Time = 1-2 minutes.
Hey, smart people don’t spend all day cleaning…they have better things to do! 🙂
Image: James Worrell at realsimple.com
Cook’s: for serious cooks and people who are serious about cooking
If you are serious about cooking, or want to know the definitive way to cook something, I highly recommend Cook’s Illustrated.
It’s a great magazine about cooking as opposed to a collection of recipes. You will get recipes, too, but you will discover a whole lot more about the process of transforming food.
Plus they have reviews of cooking tools, premade sauces, menus, and much more.
More on good, cheap wine under $10 from the LCBO and other places
The globeandmail.com has been good enough to set up a searchable database of wine recommendations based on Beppi Crossariol’s wine columns found regularly in their paper. You can search the database in a number of ways, including wines under $10 (you will find around 20 bottles). Some of them are wines I mentioned earlier (like Corten from Moldova) but others are new to me (including some tetra pak ones, no less).
The other nice thing about this is that you can find the wine, and then go to the article. Beppi’s a good writer with good and varied taste: the articles are worth a read, too.
Check outThe Wine Butler
How to be creative and other super ideas at gapingvoid
There are lots of great ideas and fantastic drawings over at gapingvoid. I really liked this section: how to be creative
Tech 101 from Business Week – this week – what is an RSS feed
For some , the notion of an RSS feed may be new. So check out this on businessweek.com:
Once you get used to RSS feeds, you will be glad you did.
P.S. There are lots of other good links there too, including Blogging For Beginners
A better life in no time?
CNN, in conjunction with
has some advice on how to live A better life in no time
While my first response is to be snide, it is good, if not earth shattering advice. At the very least, look at it and say: yup, got that covered. 🙂
How to stay focused and easily track time while working on your computer
The Web site, The Printable CEO™, has a great tool called the Emergent Task Timer. It
- allows you to easily capture tasks you have to do as they come up
- easily track the time you spend on them
- reminds you when to update your info.
Check it out at: Emergent Task Timer Online (Flash Alpha)
Or go to David Seah’s site for more productivity tips:
Be smart: eat chocolate
This study says eating dark chocolate lowers blood pressure. The participants in the German study ate just a small amount of Ritter chocolate. (Ritter is good and easily available in Toronto). The article goes on to say:
Every day for 18 weeks, the volunteers were instructed to eat
one-square portions of a 16-square Ritter Sport bar, or a similar
portion of white chocolate. White chocolate doesn’t contain cocoa.Systolic blood pressure,
the top number, fell an average of nearly three points and diastolic
dropped almost two points in the dark chocolate group, compared with no
change in blood pressure readings in the white chocolate group.Tests suggested that steady exposure to dark chocolate prompted
chemical changes that helped dilate blood vessels and regulate blood
pressure, the researchers said.
So there you go: take two blocks of chocolate every day, have a glass of red wine, and don’t forget the apples, and you should live to be 100!
For more details, see Chocolate reduces blood pressure – Yahoo! News
How to Prioritize Quickly and Easily
While this is on a site for software development, it is not a bad approach to anyone of us — developer or not — who has alot of projects and can’t seem to decide which one to do next.
See: How to prioritize quickly and easily
Get running!
The Zen habits blog is full of great advice. For those of you who might want to start running, or used to run but haven’t run in awhile, I strongly recommend you look at this: Beginner’s Guide to Running | zen habits
There’s lots of great tips there.
One site they didn’t mention is Hal Higdon‘s web site. It is PACKED with good advice. You can buy lots of magazines and books on running. Or you can save your money for better shoes and use these sites instead.
(Finger)Tips for Father’s Day
Father’s Day is coming up, and with ties going the way of the dodo
bird, perhaps the next best thing for a Father — new or old — is all
things BBQ. So if you are going to give your father something BBQish,
perhaps give him a print out of this article:
Grill The Best Steak Ever – Men’s Health
Oh. Some nice steaks would be good too.
How to (successfully) get the most out of life
Time is money. In fact, it is more valuable. And since you want to get the most out of your time, read this article while eating a health snack and doing some isometric exercises. Ok, at least read:
Time is All We Have: 3 Ways to Increase Return on Investment
How to be snarky on the Internet.
Over at someecards.com are some REEEAAALLLLYYY snarky e-cards you can send friends people. Some of them are really rude. Which appears to be the point.
5min = DIY + YouTube
My friend Jean-Francois told me about this site. People post Do It Yourself videos on the web for others to see. If this takes off, it could be quite something. I wonder if Home Depot knows about this? Beat them to it. See
Get Better ….
…by going to the the web site / blog called Pick the Brain: An Analytical Approach to Self Improvement. It has lots of good material such as articles on Overcoming a Loss of Motivation and How to Write Something Worth Reading. It also has lots of great links to other places.
C’mon. You can do it! 🙂
Wake up at 4 a.m / nap at noon. Really!
Now, I used to try and do this (minimize the amount of sleep I could get by on), but I find the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. But I think sleep needed is highly dependent on the individual. If you would like to try and get by on less, try reading this article: Sleep Adjustment – Gain 10 days per year – Dumb Little Man
Since you have to work….
….why not try to get in the middle of these three circles?
The blog, The Chief Happiness Officer, can help.
Smart People I Know 