In his chautauqua on being stuck Robert Pirsig identifies the cause of “stuckness” has having too many tasks at hand for your mind to process. His solution to get unstuck is “don’t try to force it, that will only get you more stuck.” But I think that’s only one form of being stuck, some kind…
Search the App Store for “To Do” and you get 249 hits. Do the same search for “Address Book” and you get 43 results…and half of those are utilities for cleaning up your contacts, not apps for managing contacts. This is a little weird seeing that your “Rolodex” is supposed to be the most valuable…
Three days in the saddle, you know my body hurt.. – Me and My Uncle, The Grateful Dead My motorcycle is cooling in the garage, windscreen marbled with a smorgasbord of bug guts. The summit conference I am returning from is fading away like Interstate 40 in my rearview mirror. The three aluminum cases I…
If you’re like me you know a few knots that get you through most situations. But then you have to haul home an antique Chippendale from the swap meet and you can’t figure out the best knot for tying your tie-down strap to another strap to keep the load secure in two directions. Fortunately Gear…
Yes here is yet another post in the “X ways to do X that are so simple that you must be a moron if you’re not doing them already” genre. Only these aren’t insights from your typical productivity gurus. Five of my favorite ideas for starting fresh: Opportunities multiply as they are seized. — Sun…
Here’s some essential knowledge if you ever plan on fishing with me…via a tweet from Guy Kawasaki…Wired’s How-to Wiki explains how to remove a fishhook from a buddy. But why stop there? Here are some other helpful extraction techniques you should know: How to remove a tick How to remove a raccoon from your…
Every time I open my “Big Box of Stuff” – my instant organiztion system that involves sweeping everything under the rug and declare all problems solved – my head starts spinning with the urgency and cataclysmic busy-ness of everything. I’m fighting the urge to drag everything out and prioritize it. But not so fast –…
Let’s say that you want to become a Suburban Frontiersman…like Yours Truly. Where would you start? Perhaps you think you might need some gear, a pair of sturdy boots, a handy knife, a trustworthy haversack. But you’d be wrong. What you need is time. The Suburban Frontiersman’s life is chopped up until it’s a pizza…
Yesterday I said Moose had a good temperament. Well, the fangs started flashing when I took him for a walk with our resident dog. Lilli is a cocker spaniel and is used to having the run of the house. Moose is a monster, mixed breed but he looks for all the world like a Dutch…
Could you go for 130 days without soap…washing your body with just water? Richard Nikoley gave up soap and shampoo about six months ago and reports that the results are amazing. His skin and hair are soft and silky. His wife comments that he smells good! Nikoley’s post begs some questions. 1. What is Soap…
I’m on the road again. The road to hell, good intentions to blog my NaNoWriMo novel-writing experiment are lying like dead soldiers on the roadway. Early on I was going to post about Banging vs. Swooping. Kurt Vonnegut once said (and I swear I heard this on a public radio interview, though I can’t find…
Today’s frontier adventure involved snaking out the bathtub drain. First we tried using a Zip-It flexible strip. These plastic drain cleaners are a gross, yet effective way to de-gunk most drains. Problem is that a bathtub drain takes a left turn at Albuquerque, leaving you without much room to move the strip. Liquid Plumber failed…
