auntieannie

"Big 8x10 glossies in a leatherette album fastened in place by black tabs, pictures so primal they're glued in mind more powerfully than memory itself, as if the 20th century gave everybody an extra kit bag of memories, your own flimsy, inexact ones, and the incontrovertible evidence of photo albums, image upon unsorted image documenting your life before you existed." p.13"But the attention my father demanded [Look! Look!] was a world away from the note-taking watchfulness of my mother... She was tracking. He was filled with wonder." p. 52... Rose and Fern, the only female growers [in the plant nursery], came into the lunchroom from house 10 for coffee. I don't make up the names. They were Rose and Fern, one from Germany, the other a St. Paul girl bearing the name of Treewiler as if she descended from a family of climbing vines. Bill Vero, who had trained in Austria, said grace over his meat-loaf sandwich in the lunchroom. His son was a missionary in Madgascar, wherever that was. Chester read the dictionary during lunch break. An odd duck. He complained that the newspaper crossword was too easy. Insulting to a man's intelligence. He belonged to Mensa. 'Do you know the meaning of circumnavigation, Patricia? Can you spell it? Ask me any work, ask me how to spell it.'" p. 54"But this was duty, perhaps the last duty. I seemed always to be undertaking final moments that turned out to be not final at all, just another two-step in death's wily dance. 'You'll never be sorry you're doing this,' people said with unctuous approval when they heard I was going to Ireland with her, offering their own stories of last good deeds done, self-regarding vignettes of sacrifices made, efforts expended for parents no longer on the planet. You'll never be sorry. They didn't understand that she was never going to die. She was just going to keep almost dying. The illogic of this thought refused to budge from my brain. 'I wish I were dead, I wish I were dead,' she'd howled on the sidewalk in front of the flower shop -- years ago. But wishing doesn't get your there. She would hang on by her fingernails from the ledge of life." p. 135"Warmth and safety, small pleasures, unspeakable wounds, concertina music, too much food, the talk at the lunch table of what would be served for dinner -- this was the ever fulfilled promise of West Seventh [the old Czech neighborhood]. 'Nobody had anything.' That was how to be happy. Have nothing." p. 162"The Irish seemed to die in rank order, old in their beds. And it was the Irish, higher on the hill [in St. Paul, MN] who were given to high hopes and intrigue and the score-keeping of religion and politics, the tending of old grudges and grievances. The color of hope was green, the nuns told us in school. And of envy." p. 163"St. Paul's surface was smooth and brittle. It cracked like black ice beneath us here in the land of lakes. Keep the friends of your youth. Stay with your family. 'People like us don't divorce,' he said with resignation, astonishing me another time in the truth-mobile of the Buick after a particularly furious harangue from my mother that left him, as usual, more dismayed than angry. Add nothing, go nowhere, keep the same job, the same once-sweet, now-bitter wife, keep the same faith. He even said, more than once, 'Why go to Minneapolis?' Everything you sought -- danger, beauty, trouble enough -- will come of its own accord. It will be all the more harrowing for happening here in the transcendent Nowheresville where it is least expected. The middle, the safety zone where he and my mother thought they lived. Elsewhere, it turns out, is right here. It'll come and get you, you with your fist in your pocket." p. 166"Like everyone, I became a busy person, especially after my father died and my mother's care fell to me. I frequently told people how busy I was, I e-mailed to several continents on the subject: I'm swamped, stressed, I'm at wits' end. It was my main message. But then it seemed to be everyone else's message too. I toiled under the weight of tottering piles of paper, burdened by the unanswered correspondence of dusty decades, crushed by dumb domestic details, waking panicked in the unforgiving night, the dread of my sins of omission (mainly -- I didn't have *time* for sins of commission) stabbing at my heart. Above all, I was laid low the past five year -- make that closer to ten -- by the 19th-century duties of middle-aged postmodern daughterhood invoked these days by the oily social-work term "primary caregiver." My typical salutation became the apology -- I'm late, I'm behind. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Much hand-wringing. There was grandiosity to it, as if everyone was waiting for me. Yet I couldn't stop the racing pulse, the clutch of the heart. How did this happen to me, a person who never took an Incomplete in college, who was never late for the orthodontist in high school? I throw myself on the mercy of six or seven people daily. I am just terribly, terribly *sorry* much of the time." p. 202-203"This is a new smile, not the smile of her previous self, not a merely happy smile. It is a cosmic smile of vast dimension and knowing, and I'm beginning to think it may be the reason I cannot stay away." p. 211"She's right. These years I'm too busy and it's a waste. I get nothing done and I race around all the time and then I set here doing nothing, staring with her into the bleak aquarium.I waste my life. I want to. It's the best thing to do with a life. We were wrong about work -- it isn't the best thing, no matter how much you love it. Wasting time is better. I sit with my mother, as has been destined since time began because a daughter is a daughter all her life. We stay like this, hand in hand. We have all the time in the world -- 'world without end, amen.' Words we recite by heart when she asks me to say the Rosary with her, the last phrase of the Gloria, the little prayer at the end that puts to rest all the Hail Marys." p. 218-219

Awake at work: 35 practical Buddhist principles for discovering clarity and balance in the midst of work’s chaos.• Balance the 2 efforts. In letting go we are not adding anything to our “to do” lists. We are simply balancing the effort to get somewhere w/ that of being where we are completely, opening ourselves up to a much larger work perspective. Eventually this shift becomes quite routine, allowing us to reconnect with our natural intelligence – an immediate and extraordinary spontaneity and confidence – at will. … “Balance the 2 efforts” reminds us that we can afford to drop our POV for just a moment & listen to our world, no matter how tedious or threatening such a prospect may seem. Our ambition to succeed, our tight timetables, our authority, our “correctness” – all of it can, for a brief moment, simply be put on hold. We can then bring our uncluttered attention to our work's circumstances, inviting our world in & acknowledging the vastness and liveliness around us. By making such a gesture we learn balance – that we can actually get somewhere and be somewhere at the same time. Such balance is the height of gracefulness and authenticity. It is the core competency of being awake at work.” P. 31• Work is a mess. “The reality is that there is no solution to work’s inherent chaos and messiness. Work by its very nature will always be uncertain. The good news is that work’s messiness and uncertainty need not be distressing. They may, in fact, be just what we are looking for.” P. 51 “When at work, Use established routines to pursue objectives. Use messiness & surprises to innovate & succeed.” P.54• No ground, no guarantees, just now. “Try as we may, we cannot find a solid identity at work. Today we are a supportive and helpful colleague; tomorrow someone considers us problematic… To be awake at work is to acknowledge that the entire situation – our job & our version of ourselves at work – is fluid & constantly changing. In short: no ground, no guarantees, just now.” P. 58• Be cynical. “Ironically, if we look back in history, we would find the original cynics did not share such smugness. They were fiercely suspicious, to be sure – but primarily of themselves, not others. • Cultivate stillness. Developing our ability to listen to our emotions & body during times of stress & risk requires that we train thoroughly in mindfulness disciplines. Besides sitting meditation, the most effective technique I have used for listening deeply to the physical wisdom of the body is a practice called Focusing, developed by Dr. Eugene Gendlin. … I highly recommend learning this method of focusing as a powerful tool for making sound financial decisions, unblocking pent-up creativity, resolving conflicts, or just listening deeply to what your body is trying to tell you. P. 94• Be kind to yourself. “Be kind to yourself” suggests that we lighten up a bit, that we slow down & treat ourselves decently. • Welcome the tyrant. “People at work can be unusually irritating… At times our colleagues can seem like tyrants, having a unique power to unsettle us and keep us up at night. .. the more we ponder the tyrant, the more disturbing he becomes. … When we examine them closely, we discover that tyrants are simply mirrors of our own insecurities & fears. .. Tyrants are stark invitations to look in the mirror and examine our futile search for security in an uncertain workplace. Recognizing that we are, in fact, authoring our tyrants – that our hopes and fears are what fuel their power over us – is central to regaining our balance. In the Buddhist tradition, coming upon such irritating and oppressive people is highly valued. Any life circumstance that can expose our insecurities is considered a gift to be welcomed and explored. [Welcoming the tyrant] begins with a simple inner gesture. At the next meeting, just for a moment, let go of all your fixed ideas about your boss & just be there in the room. Be curious & notice what’s going on. P. 109-111• “No blame” encourages us to respect errors at work – our own & others’. … being honest about mistakes at work requires tact, humility, & skill. When we permit mistakes to teach us, we discuss problems discreetly and listen to others’ points of view. We treat facts as friendly & we learn ways to improve our jobs. We may have to come to some tough conclusions about ourselves and others along the way. When we are honest about mistakes, we slow down and take full stock of our circumstances. This requires us to open ourselves fully to the discomfort & detail, rather than rush past our circumstances, papering over the failures, to regain a false sense of mastery. P. 127-128• Practice “no credentials.” Notice how we speak to others about what we do at work & feel the subtle emotions that run behind the words. … When someone inevitably asks, “So, what do you do?” we may notice that often answer the question with a noun rather than a verb. … How we portray ourselves to others – the workplace “story line” that we live in words, feelings, & deeds – is of primary importance is practicing “no credentials.” … When we practice “no credentials,” we sharply examine feelings in order to uncover any smugness, impoverishment, defensiveness, or blindness we may be harboring as part of how we conduct ourselves at work. In doing so, we confront one of the great obstacles to being authentic and effective at work: mistakenly thinking we are our job. Coming to the conclusion that we are what is written on our business card is an understandable occupational hazard. We invest so much in our jobs : time, personal commitment, creative effort. In fact, we invest our lives. Yet, despite our generous investment, our jobs cannot offer us a true identity. … Like everything else at work, credentials are fluid and constantly changing. P. 129-131• Cultivate the art of conversation. Keep in mind the following courtesies of workplace conversations: notice the setting (slow down and appreciate the moment); appreciate silence (pause when you notice a moment of silence and respect the moment, let the situation unfold at its own pace); stop talking and listen deeply; ask helpful questions; speak clearly, refraining from harsh phrases and jargon; have a sense of humor; appreciate coincidence. • Avoid idiot compassion. In idiot compassion, we rely on a shallow and ultimately selfish notion of helping that is primarily concerned with eliminating our own unease rather than truly lending a hand. Such behavior is common at work – people trying to be helpful out of nervousness and in turn making the workday just a bit more difficult for the very people they were trying to please. One of the most common acts of idiot compassion is not being honest with a subordinate about getting the job done. How often have we seen poor performers languish for months – sometimes years – in roles beyond their capabilities? Managers avoid the stress of telling the truth and instead become defensive and protective of their subordinate. …Finally the circumstances demand candor. Confronted with the poor results, the employee spills forth with anger & resentment… Bewildered, the manager sees an ungrateful employee rather than a crisis authored by idiot compassion. … When idiot compassion becomes an unspoken rule of leadership, work can become deeply discouraging for hundreds, maybe thousands, of employees. P. 141-143• Study the 6 confusions. 1) Work as drudgery : by giving into this mentality, we become deaf & dumb to our work surroundings. … If we examine this mind-set closely, we discover that our burden is not the work but our own stubbornness. 2) Work as war: this is a win-lose mentality. If we examine closely, we discover that our war is not with our work but with our own insecurity. 3) Work as addiction: a mentality obsessed with overcoming feelings of inadequacy. If we examine our addiction closely, we discover that we are not addicted to work but are paralyzed by our own sense of poverty, frozen in a pattern of frustration over our many desires left unfulfilled. Work becomes an anesthesia – a drug for numbing us to our pain. 4) Work as entertainment. We look to work as a source of amusement & leisure. If we were to examine the work-as-entertainment mentality closely, we would discover that we are not actually savoring life’s pleasures but have become trapped in an uninterrupted, sugarcoated vacation from reality – unable even to know there is anything more to life than amassing toys & indulging pleasures. 5) Work as inconvenience is a mind-set that assumes the need to make a living is some kind of unfortunate accident that happened to us. The work-as-inconvenience mentality is defensive & prideful, constantly on guard for the possibility of being victimized by work’s circumstances. If we closely examine such a mentality, we discover that it is not work that is inconvenient but our nagging sense of entitlement that is so tiresome. It is our fear of being victimized that is inconvenient, not work itself. 6) Work as a problem – assumes we need to solve work – to get work to behave and stop being so unpredictable and unruly. We know that work could behave logically if only things would get back on track – and we are just the one to do it! Such a mind-set is idealistic & oddly naïve. Work is not the problem. Our ambition & constant busyness attempting to solve work turn out to be the problem, not work, which will always be unruly & messy. • Extend the 4 composures. 1)the composure of kindness. 2)the composure of respecting difficulties. 3)the composure of calm alertness. By bringing our attention back to the moment over & over again, we make friends with boredom & notice that we can be powerfully alert in the immediate without need for distractions or entertainment of any kind. Over time we become comfortable being in the moment. 4) the composure of availability. Whatever arises in meditation, we are gently available to, open & attentive. The availability we develop in meditation, when extended to the workplace, permits us to be open to our work setting & colleagues, attentive to what the situation requires. • Everybody just wants to bounce their ball. Reminds us to respect the gentle enthusiasm that everyone brings to life. All of us want to do our best & have a chance to contribute and shine. • Treat everyone as a guest. We offer tremendous breathing room, permitting everyone we meet to be who they are, where they are, in that very moment. Treating everyone as a guest inspires us to engage & appreciate each valuable and authentic moment. More important, it reminds us to extend to each colleague a deep sense of gratitude. .. If we look carefully at work relationships, we will discover that our colleagues have taught us some of the most important lessons we need in order to be awake at work. P. 166-169• Witness from the heart. This approach to workplace difficulties is not a way to remain detached. .. Rather, such mindfulness permits the difficulties to be exactly what they are, uncontaminated with our agendas & our versions. Fully appreciating the problem – not ignoring it, arguing with it, fixing it, or sugarcoating parts – is an essential gesture of openness. We take no sides nor grind any ax. We witness the difficulty without bias or preconceptions. … Witnessing from the heart reminds us that we can rely on our hearts at work, that there is no embarrassment to our sadness. When we see others struggle or experience misfortune, we can lead with our heart because there is strength and wisdom in such tenderness. Just as we give ourselves room on the cushion to experience ourselves fully, we can extend such openness of heart to others in distress. By doing so we can learn to be genuinely helpful from a wise and skillful place. P. 171-173• Acknowledge small boredoms. We gradually begin to appreciate the natural pace of our every act: holding a door for a colleague or closing a million-dollar deal, handling a pen or pencil or handing medicine to a dying patient. Surprisingly, by being precise with small boredoms, we discover a way for being precise with work overall. Acknowledging small boredoms reminds us that we need not be numbed by work’s pressure or routines. By taking the time to notice the seemingly insignificant moments that invite us to wake up, we can, over time, rediscover a natural & precise pace that can inform & uplift all that we do throughout the day. P. 185-187• Respect karma. At work, karmic tendencies have many names: attitudes, procedures, routines, competencies, expertise. These describe ways in which we are predisposed to conduct ourselves, patterns that we follow that bring about results. If we take a moment to examine ourselves, we will notice that we have already developed hundreds of tendencies – work-related behaviors, routines, abilities & attitudes – some helpful, some not so helpful. Some bring about preferred results; others, results we would rather live without. Respecting karma encourages us to notice carefully that how we develop our routines, skills, and attitudes is something we will be living with for some time to come. … If we examine these feelings underlying our conduct at work, we will discover one of the profound laws of karma: the more we try to defend ourselves, the tighter & more claustrophobic we feel; the more we try to help others or contribute positively to our world, the more we feel open & adaptable. P. 189-191• Do not-know. Because it is unacceptable to not know, we may at times need to pretend we know what we are doing when in fact we don’t. .. The fact is that cannot avoid not knowing; we simply don’t know a lot the time. … Cultivating not knowing .. is not an excuse for being incompetent. .. Nor is it a fog where we sit back & vaguely say to ourselves, “what the hell is going on around here?” Rather, not knowing is our willingness to slow down, drop our preconceptions, & be interested and present to our work situation as it unfolds. Not knowing in this sense is an exercise in balancing effort – actively and intelligently being somewhere in the process of getting somewhere. Not knowing starts by giving ourselves a break from the tension of always knowing what to do, the constant accomplishing of something. We shift from the feeling of making something happen to letting something happen. … We can afford to listen for the unspoken messages, often unintentionally sent & even more often misunderstood. By not knowing, we open up, & so does the world around us, offering an untapped wealth of insight & guidance. P. 194-199• Notice and cut work’s speed. Work can be fast and relentless. If we are mindful of our job’s speed & hecticness, we take a subtle step: we have to actually slow down in order to notice how fast we are going. Many techniques are offered in this book for noticing & cutting work’s speed: practicing small boredoms, opening, being kind to yourself, even cultivating the art of conversation. Here, however, what is recommended is actually a form of jujitsu, where one uses the power of one’s opponent to gain victory over him or her. The very hecticness that seems to entrap us becomes our foremost reminder to slow down, let go, & regain an open & balanced composure. .. Take a sip of water or offer others to do the same, pausing to take a deep breath, smiling or simply saying “good morning,” can go a long way toward cutting work’ s speed. By making some gestures over & over again, we find that our job is not out of control; we are fully equipped with brakes to slow us down, a horn to alert others, headlights to guide us, and mirrors to check. We gradually discover that rather than being reckless, we can be resourceful under pressure, as long as we notice where we are. • Keep our seat. In order to be awake at work, we cannot keep our seat merely out of stubbornness or as a game of chicken. Rather, we keep our seat because to do so is to be who we are where we are. … In meditation, we discover that we are keeping our seat because we are basically fine as we are, where we are. Appendix: meditation instructions. Mindfulness-awareness or sitting meditation. It comes from the Tibetan Kagyup-Nyingma Buddhist tradition. Generally you will want to cultivate a regular sitting practice, keeping to a schedule each day. At first, 15 minutes in the morning or evening will be ample time, but gradually you will want to expand your practice, sitting 30, 40 or perhaps 60 minutes a day. But it’s important to begin where you can, not to force yourself. Set aside an area to meditate, uncluttered & free from distractions. Instructions for contemplating the slogans. While the slogans are meant to be applied as “contemplation-in –action,” it is also appropriate to set aside time to contemplate work’s challenges more deliberately. 1. Choose a peaceful setting. Take a quiet walk, sit quietly somewhere peaceful, or have a cup of tea in your kitchen.2. Be mindful. Mindfulness meditation for 5 minutes or so is recommended.3. Recall the purpose. “Without hope and without fear, may I be decent in my actions, may I be helpful to others.”4. Invite & consider the object of contemplation. Note any emotions & physical feelings that accompany the topic & write down any particularly helpful ideas or suggestions that come to mind. 5. Note any shifts and conclude with an aspiration. You may choose to end the contemplation by writing down an intention, any new behavior or course of action you intend to take because of the contemplation.Appendix: contemplations-in-action on wealth. 1. 1. Widen your perspective with research. We could use the internet to discover that our salary & savings make us richer than 6.17 billion or 98.3 % of all the other people in the world. Log each fact in a common file for future reference & reflection. By researching & contemplating such facts, we widen our view of wealth, leading us to open our heart and consider others. 2. Ask for help. Have a deliberate question(s) in mind before you call or visit. For example, “What advice do you have for people who have a lot of money? What 3 lessons have you learned from life that you think could help me?” Each interview should be documented & logged in a common file for future reference & contemplation.3. Make an offering. Prepare & serve a meal for your family or friends on a budget of only $5 per person. Pay special attention to presentation & atmosphere. Purchase a tasteful & modestly priced item (a tie, scarf, desk ornament), wrap it elegantly, and present it to a friend or acquaintance. Place an arrangement of fresh flowers in a prominent place in your office. Dress in your finest suit or dress & visit a museum, preferably with a friend who also is performing this contemplation in action. Keep your pace & state of mind simple & unhurried. Keep discussion to a minimum. Before you leave, choose one objet d’art of particular appeal & mindfully appreciate it & the surroundings for 10-15 minutes. While at a museum, purchase 3-5 appealing cards from the gift shop Use them within a week to write a brief note to a friend, family member, or acquaintance. Take a silent walk in the woods or in a park. Locate a pleasant area that catches your eye, perhaps beneath a tree or next to a stream. Take a seat & appreciate your surroundings for 10-20 minutes. Possibly practice mindfulness meditation. Leave behind a small gift such as a coin, brass button, or strip of colorful cloth in an appropriate spot. 4. Play with money’s power. Here we purposefully “play” with money, being sharply mindful of the conflicting emotions & insights such play provokes. Purchase a lottery ticket, place it in an envelope, & mail it to a randomly selected address or place it in a randomly selected book in a bookstore. Notice how Notice how your mind reacts to giving away a chance at winning. b. Take 2-5 fresh, lg bills -- $100 if you can afford it, $20 or $10

Do more great work.Map 1. Where are you now?Map 2. What’ great?Map 3. What are you like at your best?Map 4. Who’s great?Map 5. Who’s calling you? Map 6. What’s broken?Map 7. What’s required?Map 8. What’s the best choice?Map 9. What’s possible?Map 10. What’s the right ending?Map 11. How courageous are you? Map 12. What will you do?Map 13. What supporters will you need?Map 14. What’s your next next step?Map 15. Lost your great work mojo? Ask others to tell you their great-work stories – your boss, your peers, your team, or your clients. This isn’t a question that people are often asked, but in the vast majority of cases, it’s one that they love to answer. You will hear interesting stories (guaranteed) and they will also give you unparalleled insight into what really matters to the person speaking. P. 39Great work wisdomMost people who are not doing great work blame it on their work circumstances. And that’s easy enough to do – there’s always someone or something you can point the finger at. Too much work, not enough work. The wrong people at the right time, the right people at the wrong time. Goals that are too difficult to attain, goals that are too easy. But great work is internal, and ultimately the choice to find it or not find it is yours. You do not need to get paid to do great work. No one can keep you from doing great work by giving you a stupid job. You can do great work because you are great. You can do it at home, you can do it at the office. Maybe you can do it in your head, when you go to the bathroom at work. Maybe you do it despite what your “job description” calls for. Ultimately , you are left with you. So really, doing great work is about knowing who you are and what you want. And here’s the crux of the matter: We can never know that for sure. You’ll never know everything about who you are, and you’ll never be able to completely describe what you want. But we can’t wait forever. So we have to guess and take the plunge. Stepping forward to do more great work is in fact about a leap of faith that we take because the alternatives are so disappointing. P. 41How to say no when you can’t say no. 1. Say, “Thanks very much for asking. Before I say yes, just let me make sure I understand what you’re asking for.” 2. Then ask some good questions. There are 3 basic types:• Why me? o May I ask why you’re asking me?o Have you asked anyone else?o Have you considered asking X? He’s got experience with this. • What’s the brief?o When you say “urgent,” what does that mean? When’s the latest it has to be done by?o How much time will this take?o If I could only do part of this, what part would you like me to do?o What does “finished” look like for this?• What’s the big picture?o Have you checked this out with my boss?o How does this fit with our 3 key priorities for this week/month/year?o What should I not do so I can do this? If you use this approach, any of four things might happen. 1. The person will answer all your questions and you will be happy to say yes. (This doesn’t happen very often.)2. The person will say, “Good questions! Let me get back to you when I’ve got some answers.” And they may or may not come back. Because instead…3. The person may just ask someone who says yes faster.4. Sometimes you’ll be asked to stop with the questions and just do it. Don’t start with the toughest, most senior person you work with. Instead choose someone with whom you think the approach might work, and a project that’s not too important. Practice the questions, and as you get more confident, use them in more situations with a wider range of people. Here’s the bonus: ask these questions more often, and you’ll start getting a reputation for being a strategic thinker. That makes you a more valuable player in your organization, which already has enough people who know how to say yes quickly. P. 90-91Beyond the map – If it comes down to 2 choices, and you can’t quite decide which one to put your money on, here’s a simple process to try: Toss a coin, assigning one option to heads and the other to tails. As the coin spins in the air, notice whether it’s heads or tails that you are hoping for. That’s the option that you want. After you’ve identified it, spend some time figuring out why it’s your first choice. P. 104Map 7: what’s required?1. You care and they car. A sweet spot. This is probably Good Work for you and your company, and may include some Great work, too. It might also hold seeds of more great work. Look at what’s listed and ask yourself, What would it take to turn some of these projects or responsibilities into Great Work?2. You don’t care and they don’t car. This work is pointless. Stop doing it. If you can’t stop doing it, figure out the minimal level at which this work can be done, and deliver it at this level. 3. You don’t care, but they care. This is work that has to be done – but not necessarily by you. Consider delegating it, either in whole or in part. Embrace adequacy. Embrace laziness. 4. You care, but they don’t care. In this box, you often find Good Work and Great Work. There are 3 strategies you can consider to keep it alive:a. Do it undercover. It’s better to apologize than explain.b. Relabel it. Find a different way to present the work, so the organization will recognize its value. c. Do it elsewhere. Accept that you’ll never find the time and space to do this work in your current role in this organization. So do it as outside work in your personal time. Or find a new role within the division or the company to which you could transfer and where you can do it. Or, most radical of all, find a new organization that want you to do this work. P. 85-86Map 9: what’s possible? Debriefing the map. • What was it like to decant the ideas you already had? Did you have more or fewer ideas than you thought?• Which were your favorite new questions? Which question produced the most new ideas?• Was this process difficult or easy for you? Did you notice the imp, the “internal critic”? What was it saying about your ability to have ideas? About the quality of ideas?• How easy was it to have ideas that were illegal, immoral, or impossible? Did you notice a pull to stick to what’s realistic? How did you manage that? Map 12: what will you do?Revisit Map 8. Decide what is non-negotiable. If I had to identify a single coaching question that was at the very hear t of doing more Great Work, it would be this: “What are you saying yes to? And by saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?”By making the full choice explicit – yes and no – you are forced to articulate the implications of your decision. This helps you break the illusion that we can keep saying yes to more and more requests and opportunities when our plates are already full to capacity. • It is absolutely non-negotiable. I must do this.• It feels non-negotiable, but perhaps, now that I think about it, that’s not true. • I can say no to this. It’s negotiable. P. 153StickK. Com, a wonderful accountability tool. You register your commitment and set yourself regular periods to check in and report your progress. If you reach your self-designated milestones, your money’s safe. If you don’t, it goes to a charity you’ve chosen.

A set of century-old traditions aim to grow well-rounded citizens – laws against child labor and the exploitation of young workers; summer camp and summer vacation; a civic-minded, liberal arts education in high school and college. How much of that will we give up for enhanced competitiveness and a foot in the door? With good reason, 18-year-olds talk of feeling “burnt out,” and young people at every stage pine for a “year off,” “a gap year,” or indeed any kind of socially acceptable halt to the relentless credential slog. …Some internships may fit the bill for original, autonomous self-definition, but on the whole they fall far short of meeting that description. As education, they pale in comparison to our schools. As training to work, they compare unfavorably with apprenticeships. As a form of work, they are often a disappointment, and sometimes a rank injustice, failing our expectations and violating our laws. They have come to embody the ethos that all free, unstructured time should be harnessed for resume-building and career development…..You can opt out – take back your time, boycott the busy work. You’ll probably be in a cubicle soon enough. Well-intentioned, jittery parents should not lend blind support, moral or financial, to anything labeled an “internship,” that magic word which suspends judgment. … Paid work experience, personal projects, foreign-language mastery, community service, job shadowing, freelance work, academic research, registered apprenticeships, and just plain old living and learning are all possible ways forward.” P. 205“Any thoughtful approach to fixing the current system must proceed along two tracks: rectifying the indignities faced by current interns and ensuring greater access to internships that are worthwhile and meet basic criteria of fairness. The current system generates more and more opportunities – of increasingly lower quality. High school students and college freshmen are eager for the chance to indulge their curiosity and try out a profession early on – an understandable feeling, especially given a dearth of targeted, short-term job shadowing opportunities and a school system that is still substantially disconnected from the world of work. P. 207-208“What employers can do is not a mystery: open advertising of positions; a strong training and mentoring component; discrete and manageable projects; a duration of at least a few months, allowing intern and supervisor to adjust to each other. What about the nature of the work? Most interns don’t and shouldn’t expect immediate glamor, writing legislation and designing the summer fashion line. Nearly everyone staples reports and makes coffee sometimes, but interns should not replace administrative assistants, janitors, couriers, or temps, for a dozen obvious reasons. College student plus work does not equal an internship. The term “intern” should be applied ethically and transparently to opportunities that involve training, mentoring, and getting to know a line of work – internships should reflect what a given industry is all about and what the organization actually does. Tasks should play to an intern’s strengths and account for the training she’s receiving. Academic credit, supervised by a professor, can be a valuable enhancement and a useful safeguard, if there is a genuine academic tie-in – but this applies to a distinct minority of internships.

A book to skim for me. From the intro: “We realized in our travels near and far, we’ve not only looked to novels to provide a new dimension to our travel experiences, but equally, we’ve sought out the literary places in our travels that will give us a deeper perspective on the books we cherish.” The first half is a directory-like listing of place, festivals, etc. The second half focuses on 10 places made famous by novelists: Bath and London. Paris. Dublin. Prague. Concord and Salem MA. Key West FL. Monroeville, AL. Monterey and Salinas, CA.

I got the most from the “beginnings,” “travel,” and “autobiography” chapters. “Teachers of American literature have long understood the value travel writing holds for the history of colonial American writing, but the novels and short stories and poetry of the 19th and 20th centuries often muscle books of travel off the syllabus. They shouldn’t. Any piece of writing that approaches excellence can be considered literature regardless of genre. Indeed, there may be more literature in William Bartram’s description of an alligator attack, Francis Parkman’s account of a thunderstorm traversing the plains, or John Stephens’s narrative of hunger in the desert that can be found in any number of 19th century novels. American travel writing can fire the imagination and take readers round the globe.” P.48Interesting to learn that the Federal Writers’ Project, which formed part of FDR’s Works Progress Administration, hired writers to fan out across the nation, interviewing people and researching places. The result was the American Guide series, which consists of beefy guidebooks for every state and a variety of specialized volumes. … Since the guides were published anonymously, the efforts of the individual contributors have been obscured, but the separate volumes possess a general literary quality otherwise rare for guidebooks.

Skimmed through this one -- a bit too much on the academic language for me.

Wild fermentation“The focus of this book is the basic processes of transformation, which mostly involve creating conditions in which naturally occurring wild organisms thrive and proliferate. Fermentation can be low-tech. These are ancient rituals that humans have been performing for many generations.” P. 3Fermentation:• Preserves food. • Breaks food down into more easily digestible forms.• Also creates new nutrients. As they go through their life cycles, microbial cultures create B vitamins, including folic acid, riboflavin, niacin, thiamin, and biotin. • Some ferments have been shown to function as antioxidants, scavenging cancer precursors known as “free radicals” from the cells of your body. • Fermentation also removes toxins from foods. (example, cassava)Many commercially available fermented foods are pasteurized, killing the prized bacteria. If you want live-culture fermented foods in our food-security-obsessed age, you have to seek them out or make them yourself. The most common ingredient called for in the recipes in this book is water. Do not use water that is heavily chlorinated for fermentation projects. Chlorine is used in water precisely because it kills microorganisms. If you can smell or taste the chlorine in tap water, either boil it to evaporate the chlorine before using the water for fermenting, or use water from another source. Another frequent ingredient is salt. Salt inhibits many organisms, but up to a point it is tolerated by Lactobacilli, a type of bacteria important in many food fermentation processes. I like to use sea salt. It’s fine to ferment with either sea salt or pickling salt, but don’t use the standard supermarket table salt with added iodine and anti-caking agents. Iodine is antimicrobial, like chlorine, and could inhibit fermentation. Coarse kosher salt is another option, but be aware that because of its larger grains, the same weight of salt will occupy greater volume, so you’ll need more of it. P.35Kefir and tara are distinguished from yogurt by both the method of fermentation and the types of organism that the fermentation involves. Kefir and tara are made with “grains,” actually colonies of yeast and bacteria that look like curds, which you strain out of the milk after fermentation, then use to start the next batch. The presence of yeast in addition to Lactobacilli gives kefir a bubbly effervescence and a small alcohol content (about 1%). P. 79Tara or kefir is especially easy to make because it requires no temperature control. The hard part is coming by the grains to get started. For people who do not drink milk, this same process can be done with soy or rice or nut milk or juice or honey water. Oat porridge. Fermenting oats before cooking them not only makes them more nutritious and digestible, it makes the resulting oatmeal much creamier as well. For the freshest, most nutritious oatmeal, coarsely grind whole oats yourself when you are ready to use them, though steel-cut oats or rolled oats will work fine, too. 1 cup of oats. 2 cups of water. Soak oats for 24 hours (longer is okay too) in a covered bowl or jar. The oats will absorb most of the water. When cooking, boil additional water (he says 3 cups, I found this to be too much) with a pinch of salt. Lower the heat, add the soaked oats with any remaining water, and stir until the oats are hot and have absorbed all the water, about 10 minutes. Stir constantly, as the thick, sticky oatmeal can burn easily. 3 to 4 servings. Fruit scrap vinegar. Any fruit scraps (peels and cores, fallen, bruised fruit, overripe bananas, etc.). Vinegar is a recycling opportunity. Just pour sugar water (1/4 cup dissolved in one quart of water) over the fruit. Cover with a cheesecloth to keep flies out, and leave to ferment at room temperature. When you notice the liquid darkening , after about 1 week, strain out the fruit and discard. Ferment the liquid 2-3 weeks more, stirring or agitating periodically.

Large photos and diagrams are good (better than some other books) in this book, but the content is

Taking control of TMJA really comprehensive coverage of TMJ. Discussion of fascia. “When fascia malfunctions due to injury, illness, surgery, poor posture or inflammation, it becomes tight and binds down, resulting in abnormal pressure on nerves, muscles, bones or organs of the body. This excessive pressure can produce pain, headaches, TMJ dysfunction and restriction of motion. …• Fascia supports and stabilizes, thus enhancing the postural balance of the body.• It is vitally involved in all acts of motion and acts as a shock absorber. • It aids in circulation of the blood and lymphatic fluids.• It is a major area of inflammatory processes; that is, it is involved when there is any tissue irritation, injury or infection, characterized by pain, redness, localized fear, or swelling. • The central nervous system is surrounded by facial tissue, which attaches to the inside of the cranium. Dysfunction in these tissues can have a profound and widespread neurological effect. P. 16-17Referred pain and trigger pointsAlmost all TMJ disorder patients have referred pain from some muscle, if not many muscles, from head to toe. The hard nodules in … muscles that are sensitive to touch are called trigger points. Pain is felt not only in these trigger points, but also in areas remote from the site of the trigger point. This is called referred pain. Once you know which muscle is involved, if you press on the hard little knot or nodule there, you will most likely jump with pain. The trigger point, also called a myofascial trigger point, lies somewhere along the referring muscle, which is very tight. The muscle is usually described as a “taut band,” and it feels sinewy because it has tightened up from overuse, trauma of some sort, poor posture, or other reasons. By eliminating the trigger point in the muscle, you also eliminate the pain in the faraway area. P. 46Sternocleidomastoid (under the ear)The sternocleidomastoid, or SCM, contains two parts that attach to the mastoid bone: one part connects to the collarbone and the other part connects to the breastbone (sternum). SCM trigger points can be caused by trauma, looking up for long periods of time, or putting too much stress on my muscles. Even the compression of a tight collar can cause trigger points, such as those with a keyboard or counter that is too high. Sitting in poorly designed chairs or other furniture can also cause triggers to develop. The sternal portion can refer pain to the front or top of the head, over the eye, across the cheek, or to the back of the throat and tongue. A trigger can cause pain deep inside the eye or ear, cause tearing, reddening of the eye, or drooping of the eyelid. It can also cause visual disturbances such as the blurring of vision. Ringing in the ear and even deafness have also been reported. The collarbone attachment can cause frontal headaches and earaches, and pain to the cheek and back teeth. Other symptoms are dizziness caused by movement and disturbed balance, dizziness from improper posture, frontal headaches and impaired sleep. Spatial disorientation and vertigo are common. Episodes of dizziness can last for seconds or hours. Loss of motor control can happen unexpectedly. P. 50TrapeziusThe trapezius extends across your back and shoulders. Trigger points are often activated by trauma from whiplash or other injuries, holding hands above waist level to work, weight of a heavy coat or shoulder bag, poor postural habits, or a tight bra strap. A trigger point in this muscle is a major source of tension headaches. Pain is referred to the back and the side of the neck, behind the ear and up to the temple. Sometimes there can be pain in the lower back teeth and even the outer ear. If you sleep with a thick, firm pillow this muscle is especially vulnerable to trigger points. P. 51Who needs a splint?1. Myofascial pain in the head and neck area, as a result of trigger points that refer pain. 2. Internal derangement of the TMJ due to any or all of the following reasons.a. A poor biteb. Any traumatic injury to the head, face, jaw or neck. c. Bad postural habits or oral habits that promote clenchingMost modern authorities recommend splint therapy as a temporary measure with the therapeutic goals being relaxation of the muscles, altering joint loading (reducing forces that can be damaging to the various tissues that make up the TMJ), and general symptoms of relief. The proper rule of thumb for the use of splints is “Do no harm.” P. 147

Comprehensive -- covers some of the traditional cultures that use cultured foods and also delves into some of the science/biochemistry. Yogurt – should be plain, unflavored yogurt made from whole milk (full fat). Look for the phrase “contains live and active cultures” on the container. Read the ingredient panel. It should list milk, the culturing bacteria and any added bacteria such as L. acidophilus, L. reuteri, L. bifidus, or L. casei, but nothing else. Reject any product that lists thickeners or stabilizers, such as starches and/or gelatin. You can add fruits and berries at home, but avoid jams, high amounts of sweeteners, etc. To use a yogurt-containing creamy salad dressing, simply blend plain yogurt with your usual choices of olive oil, vinegar or lemon juice, and herbs. Kefir. Produced by adding the kefir grains to fresh milk, and allowing it to remain at room temperature from 12 hours to a few days, depending on the degree of desired tartness. Then the granules are strained out of the cultured kefir and transferred to a new batch of fresh milk. If the kefir is made at home, no special equipment is needed. The culture can be kept alive and active for years, without having to be discarded and replaced. A thriving culture will multiply, in which case, it can be divided and shared. Or it can be dried, and stored for future use, at which time it is reconstituted by soaking the granules in fresh milk. Or, the culture can be frozen by placing the grains in a small dark glass bottle, capped tightly, and stored in the freezer. The dark glass protects the culture from light, and the tight capping protects the culture from oxygen. Both light and oxygen are destructive. The frozen kefir grains are in a quiescent state, and can be revived and activated after being defrosted. The dual fermentation by the lactic acid bacteria and the yeasts results in a small amount of carbon dioxide being formed. It produces a mild carbonation in the kefir. Also a low level (0.01 to 0.10 grams per 100 grams) of alcohol is produced. The combination of carbonation and alcohol has earned kefir a reputation as “the champagne of milk.” P. 115-116Sauerkraut – can be made from a single head of cabbage and easily stored even in a compact urban kitchen. Cabbage can be green or red. The salt can be added at a very low level (about 2 T of salt (without whey) for each head of cabbage. The salt pulls the liquid out of the cabbage and helps prevent undesirable bacteria from growing. But the beneficial lactic acid-producing bacteria can still grow in the naturally occurring sugars present in the cabbage. They convert these sugars into acids, which give sauerkraut its agreeable tartness. The beneficial bacteria work faster at warm temperature, and slower at cooler ones. The cooler temperatures permit the bacteria to convert the sugars into acids slowly, and make the end product palatable. P.127-128Fermenting porridge at home. Although many traditional porridges were fermented for days to achieve strong tartness, the process can be shortened, with no perceptible tartness in the porridge, yet achieve the goals of reduced phytin and increased digestibility. If you plan to eat porridge for breakfast, begin preparation the night before. Soak a wholegrain such as brown rice, wild rice, millet, quinoa, amaranth, teff, barley, undegerminated corn grits, steel-cut oatmeal or bulgur overnight in water (about one part grain to two parts water) with one or two teaspoonful of liquid whey from yogurt. Or, add a teaspoonful of plain powdered whey sold in health food stores. Allow the mixture to soak in the pot at room temperature. In the morning, cook the porridge in the soaking liquid. Cooking time varies, from about 10-20 minutes, depending on the type of grain. P. 146Conclusion “Fermentation has benefited humans in the past by providing a means of storing foods and beverages, increasing their nutrients, and improving their flavors. Fermentation has also benefited humans by providing a means of maintaining and restoring health. Unfortunately, the tradition of fermentation, appreciated by our ancestors, had all but disappeared in the industrialized world. The growing interest in probiotics makes fermentation more important than ever. Fermentation allows us to preserve foods safely without resorting to toxic substances (such as chemical preservatives) or to processings of dubious safety (such as the radiation-preservation of foods). Therapeutically, fermented foods such as yogurt act gently and effectively to alleviate health disorders such as chronic yeast infections or chronic constipation. The value of fermented foods to combat infectious agents is constant, whereas microbes learn to resist antibiotic drugs, and the drugs themselves become less and less effective. Also, eating fermented foods strengthens the immune system. Fermented foods become instruments of preventive medicine.” P. 151

I always admire a book that compels me to action. Some actions -- purge my closets! And think more carefully (although I already due to a point) about acquiring new clothes. And look into tailoring, refashioning existing clothes that just don't work for me. I didn't make any notes below on the chapter "the afterlife of cheap clothes", but it was an eye-opener. I've long known that dumping unused items off at the Salvation Army, etc., is not a solution to too many clothes, bad choices, etc., but this chapter was very illuminating in following the trail of donated clothes through the thrift stores, rag makers, and shipping the discarded clothing to Africa, etc. Overdressed“Many books about fashion begin with an argument for why we should take fashion seriously. I’m going to take a different approach and say that fashion largely deserves its bad reputation. It’s now a powerful, trillion-dollar global industry that has too much influence over our pocketbooks, self-image, and storage spaces. It behaves with embarrassingly little regard for the environment or human rights. It changes the rules of what we’re supposed to wear constantly, and we seem to have lost our sense of self along with changing trends. We oscillate through countless colors, prints, and silhouettes each year. Most of the time we are buying the same basic item of clothing – tank tops and sweaters in the latest color, simple blouses with some added embellishment, jeans in a new fit – over and over again just tweaked slightly with the season’s latest must-have feature. “ p.6“I intentionally avoid buying plastic products such as bottled water because they are oil-dependent and not biodegradable, yet here I was with a closet full of the stuff. [polyester or polyester blend fabrics]. … Polyester now accounts for more than 40% of all fibers produced in the world.” P. 84“As people moved away from making their own clothes, general public knowledge of garment construction faded. Though the connection is not entirely direct, the loss of sewing skills happened in tandem with the public accepting simpler and simpler fashions, until today – where we have collectively accepted the two-panel knit creation that is a T-shirt as fashion. “ p. 87“Fast fashion is known not only for its constant offerings of the latest fads but for being shockingly cheap. These stores [such as H&M and Forever 21] make gobs of money in spite of their low prices, in part because their consumers shop more and buy their clothes for full price. But their true secret is, once again, high volume. They earn their profits the same way that any mammoth discount chain store does: by taking a small sliver of profit on a large amount of goods. “ p. 101“’Clothing is not bad for the environment because it can be reused.’ This is a common public perception. A tremendous amount of clothing is in fact *not* getting recycled but getting trashed, and the environmental impact of *making* clothes is entirely overlooked. Even though plastic can be reused, making it is not environmentally benign. Disturbingly, about half of our wardrobe is now made out of plastic, in the form of polyester. “ p. 123“I’m not the first person to come to this closet crossroads. Many consumers feel that there is something missing in the way they approach clothing, and it leads them to shopping less. For the Uniform Project, a young woman named Sheena Matheiken wore the same dress every day for a year to raise money for charity and as a commentary on consumerism. A similar campaign, called Six Items or Less, challenges consumers to wear only garments (excluding shoes, accessories and underwear) for one month. The Great American Apparel Diet asks participants to pledge not to buy any new clothes for a year in order to answer: “Who are we without something hip and new in our closets?”Most of us can’t imagine clothing ourselves any other way than walking into a store and pulling something off the rack. With shopping cheap out of my life and my bank account hovering near zero, I had to totally rethink my wardrobe. Everyone has a different relationship to shopping, but I can tell you after a year of by-default nonshopping I don’t miss it. I used to always have some new piece of trendy fashion clogging up my closet; now I don’t. But not shopping didn’t make me *love* my clothes. I was still walking around in an unattractive hodge-podge of good “deals.” Not shopping was not a total solution. … The change from store-bought to some other alternative… for me, was a revelation. I’m not sure if I’ll ever make all or most of what I wear – few will – but learning to sew promised to shift the way I thought of clothing.” P. 191“The prospect of people returning to custom and one-of-a-kind clothing makes life after “big fashion” exciting rather than scary. Though not everyone has the patience, time or curiosity to sew, I hope more people sit down and learn basic mending skills and utilize the tailors and seamstresses around them. There are too few opportunities in modern life to actually produce the things we use and to determine the look and function of the clothes we wear. Sewing gives back a feeling of agency and self-sufficiency. It allows you to look under the hood. Sewing gives you all the power of fashion and quality in your hands – and relinquishes nothing to the system. In my experience, it is just satisfying in a way that plucking clothes off a rack in a store never will be.” P. 199“Clothing that is well made is *not cheap.* There, I said it. I’ve had about two years to accept this. Perhaps it will take you less time.” P. 208“But what if more of us thought about clothing in the way people – until very recently – have always thought about it? Clothing is valuable. It should be valued. Cheap clothes not only undermine those who sew, sell, and design them, they’re the pitiful result of decades of price pressure that has erased craftsmanship and splendor of what we wear. Incessant deal hunting has also erased our collective knowledge of what clothing and style could be. I know I will never go back to the way I dressed or shop in the stores where I used to shop. Because when I walk by an H&M or an Old Navy or a Target, I see what once looked like fashion meccas for what they really are: unsightly jumbles of cheap clothes dressed up as good deals. When we can recognize how clothing is put together, what it’s made of, and can visualize the long journey it makes to our closets, it becomes harder to view it as worthless or disposable. Instead, we begin to want to own garments that are unique and made with a level of skill and good materials that cheap fashion simply can’t provide use. If we could only give up our clothing deals and steals, we might just see that there are far more fortifying –not to mention more flattering – ways of getting dressed. “ p. 221

Besides my notes below, the book is full of exercises and lots of great information. TMJ healing plan• Stop the overuse and abuse of your jaw.• The power of posture: learn how to stand, sit and sleep.• TLC: teeth apart, lips together, and calm your muscles and mind.• Typically, an appliance alone will not solve your TMJ problems, but a jaw appliance that is balanced and made correctly can provide an environment for your jaw to improve. Splints are most successful when used in conjunction with other treatments and when addressing and eliminating hurtful habits. Conversely, a splint that is not made correctly or one that is worn inappropriately can be deleterious. P. 76• Your lips need to be able to stay together to maintain the negative air pressure that allows your tongue to stay gently suctioned to the roof of your mouth. When your tongue is anchored on the roof, your jaw muscles can relax. • Your teeth should only touch momentarily and lightly when you swallow. P.81 • Train your tongue and swallow carefully.• Your tongue needs to be able to rest and stay anchored on the roof of your mouth to initiate relaxation of the muscles and facilitate breathing through your nose and diaphragm. • Breathe well.• Mouth breathing and quick shallow chest breathing are often a result of stress and anxiety, and can irritate neck muscles and aggravate headaches and TMJ-related disorders. • Good posture and breathing through your nose and diaphragm are essential for you to breathe properly. • Keeping your tongue on “the spot” and lips together forces you to breathe through your nose and can help trigger your diaphragm to do its job. • Care for your muscles• Care for you disks and ligamentous structures• Halt head and neck pain• Keep a symptom diary.• Use an icepack at the base of the skull for back of the head headaches. • Treat your muscles – massage, acupuncture, etc.• Investigate any tie-ins from food triggers. Try an elimination diet. • Try heat and cold.• Move gently in the pain-free and click-free range. Gentle movement can help relax the muscles in the jaw and neck and decrease inflammation. Keep your tongue on the roof of the mouth and open and close only in the click-free and pain-free range. Movement of irritated muscles and joints is important in maintaining mobility, pumping fluid in and out of the joint, and helping to prevent muscles from becoming tight or going into spasm. • Reduce stress and begin to exercise• Make your action plan. • Increase your awareness of posture, tongue position, breathing, TLC. • Polish one fingernail. When you notice that nail, check.• Any time you walk up or down stairs, check.• Place a rock in your pocket. When you feel it, check. • Ask a friend or partner to remind you to check. • Tongue on the spot. • Practice clucking.• Do orbiting exercises in the mirror six times when you wash your hands.• Practice saying T,D, N, L, S, and Z without your tongue pushing against your front teeth, but going to the roof of your mouth instead.

Similarities to other books, but this is a topic I need to revisit again and again. Stack is a bit ruthless on the delegate and discard actions. While very effective, these steps are harder to incorporate in a corporate setting. Some really helpful, outlook-specific tips. • Convert the email to a task. Move it to a folder. If it’s something to do, select tasks. If it’s connected to a specific time, select calendar. Don’t put things you need to do in your calendar, because if you don’t get it done, you have to manually change the date to another day. Tasks, however, roll forward automatically. Change the to-do bar display date to start date (instead of the default due date). Use the “move to folder” command rather than dragging and dropping. By moving to the folder, you get the message out of your inbox. From tasks or calendar, you can open the original email again. You have to get out of the mindset that an email has to be in the inbox in order to reply to it. • Create reminders from sent items. Click on your sent items. Drag the email to Tasks (creates a task but doesn’t move it out of your sent items). Click the reminder date and set a date that you expect to hear back. Don’t set a start or due date so it doesn’t show up in your to-do bar. When you get the reminder pop-up box, you can open each one and review. If you have received a reply, mark it complete or delete it. If you haven’t heard back, you can forward or re-send your original email to follow up. To-do list1. A limited daily to-do list : HIT (High impact tasks)2. A master list, which contains all future projects and tasks, “someday” items, and good ideas you’re not ready to work on. Whenever something important comes in that lacks urgency or has no set deadline, add it to the Master list, so you have a running compilation of all the things you want to do eventually but don’t need to do today… Your master list keeps your daily HIT list from overflowing into uselessness, and may consist of dozens or hundreds of entries as a result. .. It should be a perpetual work in progress. You can’t let it turn into a dead file for forgotten tasks. To keep it on the top of your mind, your Master list has to flow into your HIT list, so that each day, you’re not only doing the urgent, but you’re working on the important as well. P. 28-30Using Outlook with the to-do lists• Change the “arrange by” field in your to-do bar to “start” date (not default due date).• With a new task, fill in the start date on the day you want to begin that activity or think about it again. Enter the due date for the date it is due.• Name your categories with key projects. Brainstorm a list of all task needed to complete each project and assign start and due dates for each piece. Tag each task with the correct category so you can view your task by category to see a list of all tasks related to a particular project. • The “today” flag in the to-do bar now becomes your HIT list, since tasks move themselves forward automatically. • Leave the start and due dates blank for “someday” items, so they appear under the “no date” flag and can be reviewed systematically. P. 30-31Review process. 1. Monthly forward thinking. Review calendar and project plans. Assign start dates to those “someday” items ready to move into your daily consciousness. Delete out-of-date items or those that will never happen for one reason or another. 2. Weekly reverse thinking. Review the past week’s daily pages for incomplete activities and missed items. Make sure you move any follow-up to the appropriate day for action. The most successful performers are not only self-starters; they are self-finishers as well. 3. Evening daily HIT list triage. Before you leave work each day, order your tasks for the following day using a triage system. If an unexpected task pops up, triage it accordingly and work it into the list. P. 31-32Follow basic scheduling principles1. Delegate or outsource whenever possible. If you can delegate without micromanaging, you’ll be able to recapture a significant portion of your lost time2. Create your own deadlines. If you get a project with no official deadline, set one for yourself. If necessary, schedule personal milestones and break large tasks into segments. They’ll help you stay on track and keep an eye on the big picture, especially if the final deadline is far into the future. 3. Set priorities but be flexible. Set initial priorities and try to stick to them, but reprioritize as needed. Allow a little flexibility into your calendar, so you can react as needed. 4. Take the time of day into account. When do you work best? What time of day is better for you mentally to deal with secondary tasks?5. Establish routines. 6. Structure your workday properly. Make sure you block out time to get all the important things done first, then allow some leeway with your secondary priorities. Capture (paper, ta-da list)Organize (she uses outlook tasks – I need to figure out what I will use at home. Possibly nozbe -- $7 a month, or free for 5 projects)Reference (nook? Using evernote?)Information handling.1. Superglue rule – once you touch something, you can’t put it down until you make a decision.2. Decisiveness rule. Decide right away what to do with the item.3. Start-to-finish rule. Do it!4. 3-minute rule. 5. Empty inbox rule. 6. Discipline rule. Spend a few minutes each day handling your new information so you don’t have to clean up a backlog later. Six basic decisions1. Discard.2. Delegate.3. Do. 4. Date. If it’s something to do later, assign a date. 5. Drawer – if needed for future reference, file it.6. Deter. Unsubscribe, permanently delegate, etc. Coping with a micromanager: Schedule a meeting and politely but firmly point out that you can’t work productively in an environment where you’re treated as though you’re untrustworthy. Outline the checkpoints and how you’d like to be evaluated. You may find a positive response to your request. But if instead your manager starts citing personal strict standards… you’re unlikely to ever get through. P. 126Dealing with bottlenecks and inefficiencies – for a staff meeting discussion.1. What are the three most mind-numbing, time-wasting hoops you must jump through on a weekly basis? 2. What time-draining procedures or activities do you find yourself doing more than three times a week? (Especially, compare with others to see if they are also doing this task.)3. How can we help you get things done more quickly?

Philbrick's enthusiasm for reading Moby-Dick, especially aloud, is infectious. I'm listening to it as a playaway book, after having read it years ago (but never for a class). Philbrick has lots of short essays as chapters and they would be great to read just after doing a specific chapter in MD.I liked this one about the sea, especially in light of my recent reading of The Soundings. "We Americans love our wilderness: that empty space full of beckoning dreams, the unknown land into which we can disappear, only to return years later, wiser, careworn, and rich. Most of us think of the West as this hinterland of opportunity, but Melville knew that the original wilderness was the "everlasting terra incognito" of the sea. Even today, long after every terrestrial inch of the planet has been surveyed and mapped, only a small portion of the sea's total volume has been explored by man. Back in 1850, Melville commented that "Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his one superficial western one." p. 55From a "mighty, messy book" chapter. "Even the beginning of the book is a magnificent mess. Contrary to what many people assume, Moby-Dick starts not with Ishmael but with "Etymology," a listing of obscure quotations and translations supposedly collected by "a late consumptive usher to a grammar school." As if that's not enough, Melville follows "Etymology" with "Extracts," a seemingly endless compilation of whale-related passages that takes up a full 13 pages in the Penguin edition of the novel. From the beginning, Melville is challenging the reader with both his scholarship and his wit. By the time you reach chapter 1, you know you are in for a most quirky and demanding ride. There is an inevitable tendency to grow impatient with the novel, to want to rush and even skip over what may seem like yet another extraneous section and find out what, if anything, is going to happen next to Ahab and the Pequod. Indeed, as the plot is left to languish and entire groups of characters vanish without a trace, you might begin to think that the book is nothing more than a sloppy, self-indulgent jumble. But Melville is conveying the quirky artlessness of life through his ramshackle art. "Careful disorderliness," Ishmael assures us, "is the true method."For me, Moby-Dick is like the Oldsmobile my grandparents owned in the 1970's, a big boat of a sedan with loosey-goosey power steering that required constant back-and-forth with the wheel to keep the car pointed down the highway. Melville's novel is that wandering, oversized automobile, each non sequitur of a chapter requiring its own course correction as the narrative follows the erratic whims of Melville's imagantion toward the Pacific. The sheer momentum of the novel is a wonder to behold, barreling us along, in spite of all the divergences, toward the White Whale." p. 65-66Philbrick also talks a lot about the relationship between Melville and Hawthorne. From what I read here (I plan to at least skim a biography of Melville and/or Hawthorne as well), they were very different personalities and Melville sort of latched on to Hawthorne in a way that Hawthorne may not have welcomed. "in his letters to Hawthorne, Melville provides snapshots of his psyche during and after the composition of his masterpiece. The same propulsive poetry that animates Moby-Dick runs through these missives, many of them wildly manic in their inanimate revelations of what Melville was thinking about as his novel galloped, paused, then galloped again toward publication. I would go so far as to insist that reading Moby-Dick is not enough. You must read the letters to appreciate the personal and artistic forces that made the book possible." p. 107

One of those books that are a series of reflections. Best digested slowly over a series of days -- reading it all at once doesn't make a true impression.My takeaway: smile like a buddha. "The half-smile is the fruit of your awareness that you are here, alive, and walking. At the same time, smiling nurtures more peace and joy within you. Smiling as you practice walking meditation will keep your steps calm and peaceful, and give you a deep sense of peace. A smile refreshes your whole being and strengthens your practice. Don't be afraid to smile."