Rule the World with an iPhone, sunglasses and a Starbucks Cup.

How many blogs start: “as I get older…”? Well; as I get older, I understand why I enjoy packing for a trip. For me it’s like the house is on fire and you can only take what you can carry out, and you better take your best stuff! My prescription sunglasses, my iPhone and my reusable Starbucks cup have become my “best stuff”. I have found out how important by losing all 3.

Recently I went on a 4 hour, late night kayak trip with my mortgage broker. As we pulled up to the dock at high tide, ½ way through our trip, I bent over to tie my kayak to the dock only to watch my sunglasses plummet to the bottom of the Puget Sound…did I mention it was high tide and late in the evening?

As we walked the dock I committed to the fact that this was now a $245 kayak trip and I shouldn’t stress over the glasses.  But I stressed and the next daylight low tide I drug my son and our dog back to the dock to snorkel for my dropped glasses.

I donned a full wetsuit and snorkel and dove in. As a crowd gathered I went down for the second time, the third time was the charm. I dove the 7 feet it took to reach the crab infested sea floor and picked up my glasses, in the same exact place they had fallen the night before. As I popped out of the water I triumphantly raised the glasses above my head. I was elated, grateful and relieved. I really would have stayed and dove longer but did I mention the water was 50 degrees?

My son is a good kid and rarely gets into trouble. We had been on our way back home from a shopping trip when he asked to use the straw from my reusable Starbucks cup to crush some ice in his disposable cup. No problem, he’s a good kid…soon we stopped at one last store and like the good son he is he disposed of his cup. Good kid. Except he had my special Starbucks cup, reusable straw in his disposable cup! It wasn’t until later we realized the straw was gone. So his dumpster diving days began. He found the straw in his cup, in the trashcan at the last store and I realized with wildfires heading toward the house I might pack up my Starbucks cup.

My iPhone is another kind of stress. I feel joy every time I see it and stress every time I don’t. I can no longer imagine life without it. When my son and I go to the movies and they show a commercial for the new Nintendo DSI and the guys are distorting pictures of each other’s faces, my son and I just laugh at how archaic the system looks. I have 9 pages of almost all free apps and any free game app I have is way more advanced than what this commercial shows. My iPhone makes me feel like Westworld and StarTrek all rolled into one.

Because I have nine pages of apps, most of them free, I hope to write a few blogs about my favorite apps. Because if my iPhone were about to be consumed by a wildfire I would want to save my best stuff just like my sunglasses and Starbucks cup.

Does Getting Things Done Make Me a Hipster Dufus?

I have always secretly thought those people with messy desks and minds like steel traps, that never write anything down were so cool.

Like the waiter that can take a table of four’s order and not write it down. Cool or not both make me nervous. I fear for my food! Yes they often get the order right, but it stresses me out!

I have read an author that has set me free! David Allen has written 3 books that can ease stress and release that steel trap mind. The book that started it for me was “Getting Things Done”, GTD as the Hipsters call it.

Allen has a deeply devoted following that includes some of the greatest minds in business, many that might call themselves “Hipsters”. The following for the GTD process is so widespread, in March there will be a GTD global summit in San Francisco.

The concept behind the GTD process is to collect all the stuff that might enter your mind and process it to completion. In doing this you may not wake up at 3 am talking your steel-trap-mind down from the ledge for all the things you have not completed. Having completed projects is said to relieve stress…who would have guessed!

GTD is deceptively simple; you collect stuff, you process the steps to complete stuff, and you complete stuff. Smart, scary simple.

I have been working Allen’s flow chart (Google Images “gtd flow diagram” to get a printable copy) and it has begun to change my life. I am by no means perfect but I have been sleeping through the night, feeling more creative and less of a slave to the paper tiger.

So beg, borrow or get to the library and read David Allen’s “Getting Things Done, The Art of Stress-Free Productivity”, “Ready for Anything” and the upcoming “Making it All Work”.

Once you read or listen to Allen’s books, Google “Hipster PDA” to the see the creativity unleashed by the GTD process by the Hipster Doofuses of the world. Doofuses Unite!

The Disney Mentality and Depression Era Parents

So what does Disney and Depression era parents have in common?

Neither allow us to get rid of our stuff to live well! Many of us think we can’t get rid of stuff we don”t use because, like a Disney movie, our stuff might have a soul and if we get rid of Grandma’s china, the cups and saucers might be separated forever! And we were all raised by Depression Era parents, you know; “Use it, wear it out, make it do, or do without” But don’t every get rid of anything! You might need it! I don’t know if you’ve been to Home Depot lately…but they have it! We don’t need to house extra stuff!

My blog will discuss selling stuff; homes, cars, etc. with some side trips to things I dig! My objective is to help people LIVE WELL…Because I think life is too short to live poorly. I hope this blog will be a resource to you and your quest for temporary ownership!