Archive for the ‘Living in the World Today’ Category
Reading and hearing about people’s New Year’s resolutions always amuses me. But I also wonder why people go public with a ‘resolution’ for the New Year? How many times have you failed to deliver on your own resolutions?
Think of the typical New Year’s Resolutions. Losing ten or more pounds is often at the top of the list. Go to the gym three times or more a week is another resolution that I hear often. The failure rate of ‘getting in shape’ can be seen when you count the number of people at the gym on January 2nd versus March 1st.
A new year does offer possibilities for new beginnings. You can look back on the prior year – the highs and lows, and refocus and rededicate yourself to things you’d like to have done or done more effectively. But at the same time resolutions like ‘spending more time with the family’ or ‘being a nicer person’ are difficult to quantify to say the least.
And why would you want to start a new year saddling yourself with a resolution that has a failure rate of 97% after 30 days? http://bit.ly/dSpk6h . I don’t understand how making a New Year’s resolution doomed to fail is productive or anything more than an irrefutable statement. After all who could question your own resolve?
So here is my suggestion – don’t do it! Try something new for a change, resolve to not make a resolution and continue to do the things we all should have been doing all along – just try to be a better person day by day.
If you don’t make a New Year’s resolution that is doomed to fail, won’t that be a better start to your year in the first place?
Happy New Year folks. I wish you health, happiness and prosperity. And in that order. However if you’ve got some great ideas for a New Year’s resolution that can work – by all means let us know!
I’m writing this on a mid-Monday afternoon just after the end of the Christmas Day Blizzard here in the Connecticut. We’ve had more than 18 inches of snow and the winds have been fierce for more than 24 hours. Consequently trees are down in the area, I’m sure some people are without power and here at the office while we are with power we are without internet access.
Besides me a few hearty souls made it to the office only to be thwarted by the lack of an internet connection. While we have had the internet go down for a few hours at a time in the past I am convinced that today the impact of no web connection is greater than it has ever been before. Sure there are telephones but in this week between Christmas and New Year’s many people are out of the office on vacation plus now even more are unable to get there due to commuter rail lines being shut down today and other travel challenges in the New York City area.
How do business people keep in touch when they are out of the office? Most likely via email with maybe a little SMS texting mixed in. had planned to work on a presentation today (I still can do that but was intending to upload some web links into my presentation), do some research, catch up on some archived webinars, and do some site research on behalf of clients and prospects.
What’s even more frustrating is that we have a backup plan. Great idea right? Not when the backup DSL plan does not work. So until we figured out how to get the backup plan up and working I was reduced to the 3rd screen of my smartphone which in this case is yet another backup. It worked for the two hours it took to get the backup plan up and running. At least I could keep track of anyone that might be reaching out via email.
The corporate reliance on an internet connection has become such that without one it almost does not make sense to come to the office. What will happen when people have their documents in the ‘cloud’? We tend to think of the internet as an always available commodity. But I was reminded that is not always the case.
Which leads me to another question – Where and when was the tipping point for communications such that without a web connection people cannot work effectively?
I will readily admit that I am not much of a shopper. If anything I am a buyer which means when I go into a retail establishment my mission is to go directly to what I came for, go directly to the checkout line and get out as quickly as possible.
That plan does not work out so well during the holidays. Yesterday I went into Macy’s in the Stamford Town Center Mall. It was around lunchtime. (Yes I know I have to be nuts). Once in the parking garage it took nearly fifteen minutes to park the car and then only because we saw someone getting into their car to leave and I backed up almost touching the front bumper of the very disappointed driver behind me who thought she had struck gold.
Once inside the mall my wife and I walked directly to Macy’s and directly to the area that had the items what we were looking. We noticed the long line at the cash register and strategized that once we had an idea of what we were buying the other would stand on line. I also noticed that the whole area was surprisingly messy and unkempt. Items were strewn all over the place, mismatched as well. There were a few employees rearranging the items that had been ‘dislodged’.
Everything appeared to be on sale – although it was difficult to tell exactly how much things were being marked down at times. And there was something called a ‘morning special’ which apparently was still in effect even though it was nearly 1 P.M. The one clerk at the register was a very pleasant young guy who handled customers one at a time with particular sense of urgency even though there were no less than six people in line to buy something at any moment. He did connect well with the customers in that he did not rush anyone off and took his time to be sure that each customer had as much time as they felt they needed. After all they had waited fifteen minutes in line.
I’ve shopped a couple of times in retail stores this holiday season and all in all they were experiences that were fine but I have no real need to repeat them. I signed up for Amazon Prime this year and it was a good idea since ‘free shipping’ is offered for $ 79.00 for the entire year and I’ve bought enough items to avoid more shipping charges than $ 79.00. I am certain that some of my retail reticence is gender-related and I am far from being agoraphobic, but when it comes to holiday shopping I think I will just stick with clicking.
Have a great holiday and thanks for reading!
In everything you do personally or professionally there are easy things and difficult things when it comes to your daily task list. If you are like me, you have a to-do list on which you list the important tasks of the day or week. There’s a certain satisfaction that comes with crossing things off the list.
My question to you is do you do the easiest things first to cross them off your list and then tackle the real thorny problems? Or do you climb that mountain first and tackle the toughest task and then have things get easier from there?
For example, I don’t love going to the gym. I’m fine with it once I am there but before I go, I am thinking about it frequently before I arrive. So I’ve addressed that by making the bulk of my gym visits the first think I do in the morning. Leaving before 6AM in order to be back home (where I prefer to shower and get ready for work) is also hard but when I’m on my way back from the gym at 6:45AM I often think that for the most part I’m done with the most arduous part of my day.
Some days when I get to work I know I’ve got a task on my list that is either highly unpleasant and/or a great deal of work. There is always temptation to knock off the less pressing tasks on my list but I try my best to avoid that temptation and tackle the big one(s) first while I am still somewhat fresh and not worn down from a long work day. And I always feel better once I’ve begun working on that tough task because getting started is often the most difficult part. What happens after that is that (most of the time) the task never seems to be as difficult as I thought and more importantly the worst is behind me.
Whether it’s a family issue that needs to be hashed out or a business issue, procrastinating seems to only make the task less palatable. If you are thinking of a New Year’s resolution I suggest that you start taking on the toughest things first. I guarantee you will give yourself a great gift.
I received a nice gift from a good friend and associate last week. It was a signed copy of restaurateur Danny Meyer’s 2006 book ‘Setting the Table’ (very good book too). I didn’t know it was signed until I opened the cover and saw the signature. It made me smile and it made me think about e-books and the constant drone that e-readers and e-books are going to eliminate the need for the printed book.
Having spent a good part of my career helping clients put ink on paper – a business that has changed (ok been reduced) dramatically I can relate to new technologies sweeping out the status quo. And while I still enjoy my 1st generation Amazon Kindle, I find that I carry it around mostly when I am traveling as a hedge to be sure I always have more than enough to read. I still enjoy a good old-fashioned printed book –hardcover or soft cover.
Now there are color e-readers and they come with even more features. This morning I read in the New York Times http://nyti.ms/dPXmMI about e-readers that can display picture books in spread form such that you can see the spread page as the author intended in the actual book. I think that is a good and useful feature. And yet I wonder if Mom or Dad and their young child would ‘curl up’ to read a picture e-book?
If you are out at a book signing would you ever hand over your Nook to the author to sign the latest copy of their hot new book? I am sure there will be a way (if there isn’t already) for authors to sign e-versions of their books. But to me it will never be or feel the same.
The point is that there is ample room for both e-readers and printed books to compatibly co-exist. I don’t want to give up my printed newspaper (although when I travel I am happy to read the e-version of my favored publications), or magazines. And I’ll say it –I am willing to pay more for the expense to put actual ink on paper.
I’m not sure it’s a luxury to have a printed book but if I were to have a signed copy of a book from any author, an e-signed book would leave me cold.
How about you?