Hello World,

One of my clearest memories about elementary school is this poster with an apple and the quote: “Today is the first day of the rest of your life”. It is completely cheesy, but that sentence has stuck with me every time I started a “start over” project. Like most people, I usually “start over” on January 1st of every year. I usually mess up by January 6th and give up simply on the basis that my resolution is now stained. I suffer from severe perfectionism. Not only does the destination have to be perfect, but my journey has to be perfect as well. I allow myself no mistakes. I now know that it is the worst way to go about things and the best way to set yourself up for failure.

Where do I go from here?

Every year, January 1st feels like the first day of the rest of my life. There is something completely magical and exciting about the month of January that makes you want to clean up your act and become that perfect person you have always aspired to be, the person you pretend to be, the person you have always wanted and dreamed to be. It seems like a great time to start making your life over. A new year is here with brand new days. You are an empty slate, a white canvas. As cliche as that may sound. Finally! You can finally start thinking about doing all those things you should be doing such as losing those extra 25 pounds, walking the dog every day, decluttering your house, starting a blog, drinking 8 glasses of water a day, remembering birthdays and updating your lingerie drawer. By February 1st, you are lucky if you didn’t gain 5 extra pounds, your house is a mess, you have only filled the About Me section of your blog, you are dehydrated, your best friend hates you for missing her birthday a fourth year in a row and your lingerie drawer is still filled with dirty old underwear. Disappointed by your failures, you give up on new year resolutions and pick up smoking, snorting cocaine, chugging Coke can after Coke can and forget to wish your best friend happy birthday again. I am starting to think that January 1st is jinxed. It’s been used, overused and abused as the first day of so many people’s lives. By now, it should be illegal to use this date as “the first day of the rest of your life”.

I don’t want to be that person anymore. For once, I want to keep my resolutions, stop biting my nails, pulling my hair and scratching my arms when I am nervous. For once, I want to be organized. For once, I want to see results. For once, I want to stop focusing on the destination and giving up when not even halfway there and completely immerse myself in the journey.

In 760 days, on February 1st 2012, I will turn 25 years old and join the quarter century club. It is an important milestone for me and there is no better way to celebrate it than by getting my life in order for once. Turning twenty-five and being twenty-five years old does not scare me. However, reaching that destination without having accomplished a set number of things scares me more than anything. The day I turn 25, I want to be happy, secure, organized, healthy, feel beautiful both inside and out and to have experienced those things I have wanted to experience before turning twenty-five. I want the next two years to be the happiest years of my life. Therefore, instead of setting extravagant resolutions for 2010, I will set small resolutions to keep until February 1st 2012.

According to Gretchen Rubin, author of the book that inspired me to start my own happiness project, “If you really want change, THINK about it, plan it, probe it, keep yourself accountable, have a plan.”

I will use this blog as my personal tracking journal for the next 760 days. I will record my accomplishments, my goals and my failures. I plan on starting slow.  First, I will THINK about the change I want and then I will plan it.

I really don’t know where I am going with this yet, but I am THINKING about it. For 2010, I plan to start by test driving  Gretchen Rubin’s plan for happiness (The Happiness Project Blog) along with Leo Balbuta’s invaluable advice at ZenHabits. For 2011, I plan to test drive Cathy Alter’s Up For Renewal idea since there is nothing I love most in this world than reading magazines; however, I rarely use the advice I spend 700$ on every year, so it should be interesting to actually follow it through.

For now, let’s see where this is going and how far I can go.  I will start by taking out those bedsheets I forgot in the washer two days ago and make the bed. I bet they are extremely smelly. Then, I will make my plan.

“I keep watching what I do to see what I really believe.” ~ Sister Helen Prejean

In February of this year, inspired by a post on Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project blog, I posted Ten Things I Believe. It was the first time I’d ever attempted to answer the question, “What do I believe?” and it took me a couple of days to come up with my list.

I had an inkling at that time that something significant was going on inside me. I didn’t realize the extent of it, though. As it turns out, I was at the beginning of a year that would be spent regrouping, figuring out who I am, what I’m capable of, what I want. I’ve learned so much this year. In so many ways (maybe in the most important ways), I feel I am a different person than I was when the year began. So as 2009 comes to a close, I wanted to revisit the list, spend some time again thinking about what it is that I believe.

Here’s my list today (mostly the same, but with just a few changes because that’s how evolution works).

Ten Things I Believe Now

1. Normal life is extraordinary.
2. We are all capable of magic; it’s important to perform some every day.
3. The quickest, easiest way to produce something beautiful and lasting is to risk making something horribly crappy.
4. Creativity itself is an act of faith.
5. The act of listening is not instinctual; it’s an art. Let’s all be artists.
6. Everything that ever happens to you, happens right now. Pay attention.
7. Generally speaking, you get what you expect from people.
8. Being yourself  attracts people who love you. (Who better to fill your life with?)
9. This cliché is true: Laughing is the best medicine.
10. A beautiful spirit is irresistible.

So… what do you believe?

The Drinking Diaries published an interview with Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project, www.gretchenrubin.com) about the correlation between happiness and the consumption of alcohol.  It is a thought provoking interview.  For some, alcohol (in moderation, of course) brings out more positive characteristics.  For others, the opposite is true.  This leads each of us to ask the ultimate questions:  Am I happier when I drink alcohol? Are the people around me happier when I drink?  Is the world a happier place when I drink?  Does the consumption of alcohol bring out my positive or negative traits?

http://www.drinkingdiaries.com/2009/12/15/interview-with-gretchen-rubin-author-of-the-happiness-project/

In case you’re wondering about the power of Thank You and appreciation in the workplace, consider the loads of information being shared on creating workplace happiness and the importance of this concept in achieving productivity.

Peter Warr and Guy Capperto’s new book “The Joy of Work?” is among the work being presented on this hot topic. We spend one quarter of our lives at work, so it’s important to make the best of it, says Warr, emeritus professor a the UK-based Institute of Work Psychology. It’s important, Warr explains in a New York Times article, to focus on job satisfaction or finding meaning in your work, describing nine necessary elements of happiness in work and life. These include: having some sense of empowerment, using and expanding your skills.

There’s more:

• Consultant and author Alexander Kjerulf (self-dubbed Chief Happiness Officer) offers 10 reasons happiness at work is the top productivity booster. Among the benefits of workplace happiness Kjerulf cites: less complaining, more energy, higher optimism, increased motivation and fewer sick days.

• Performance Coach Arvind Devalia chimes in with his 12 steps to workplace happiness. He cites a  UK survey that found that two out of three people are dissatisfied with thier jobs and encourages workers to “See your work as a game. Life is meant to be fun and if you are going to spend a third of it at work, you might as well enjoy the game.”

• Finally, author Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project shares 16 practical tips for feeling happier at work.

This offers more proof that employees, and companies, gain from thankfulness and appreciation.

Rick Kiley is President of gThankYou, LLC, based in Madison, WI.  gThankYou® Certificates of Gratitude™ are one way  savvy companies demonstrate commitment to valued employees. The company is best known for its Turkey Gift Certificates, Ham Gift Certificates, and Grocery Gift Cards.

“I had everything I could possibly want — yet was failing to appreciate it. Bogged down in petty complaints and passing crises, weary of struggling with my own nature, I too often failed to comprehend the splendor of what I had. I didn’t want to keep taking these days for granted. The words of the writer Colette had haunted me for years: ‘What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.’ I didn’t want to look back at the end of my life or after some great catastrophe, and think, ‘How happy I used to be then, if only I’d realized it.” ~ Gretchen Rubin

Have you heard of The Happiness Project? Well, I’m joining the 2010 Happiness Challenge and will be blogging about my experience beginning in January. I encourage you to get involved too!

I’ve been a big fan of Gretchen’s blog for a long time now, and I recently won an advance reading copy of the book (through Goodreads, that blessed site!) Suffice to say, I am filling up the book with notes and underlines galore.

What I particularly love about this whole project is that it’s not about changing the essence of who you are, but rather embracing your life and discovering how to live it to the fullest:

“I didn’t want to reject my life. I wanted to change my life without changing my life, by finding more happiness in my own kitchen. I knew I wouldn’t discover happiness in a faraway place or in unusual circumstances; it was right here, right now.”

Of course there’s no magic bullet happiness fix, but there are a lot of practical steps you can take to maximize happiness and minimize anxiety, anger, guilt, etc. And Gretchen’s book/blog lays out some great advice on how to get started.

Are you joining the Happiness Challenge?

P.S. Can I also just say how much I love those “Secrets of Adulthood”? Like “People don’t notice your mistakes as much as you think” and “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” and “What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while” and “You can choose what you do; you can’t choose what you like to do.” Hello, forehead slap. I need to repeat those to myself every day.

This Friday I point you to some recommended reading around the blogosphere:

1. You may be Tigered out, but of all the volumes of things I’ve read on Tiger Woods in the last two weeks, this piece by Jay Michaelson about our (absurd) cultural attachment to the ideal of monogamy struck me as the most intelligent. (And I say this as someone who encourages the practice.)

2. Regardless of where you fall on the abortion issue, this is one of the most compelling interviews I’ve ever heard on any topic in my entire life. It’s an interview on BBC Radio 4’s program The Choice with Dr. Warren Hern, the only doctor who still provides late-term abortions in America.

3. I really enjoyed this in-real-time description of what it’s like to write with small children around by Stephanie McGee in Literary Mama.

4. And speaking of literary mamas, my new favorite Mom blog is Motherese. Kristen has a wonderfully fresh and honest voice and I admire her dedication.

5. I was sad to learn about the death of the book tour (via @gretchenrubin).

6. Finally, for those who are interested, here are my posts this week from PoliticsDaily.com, one on challenges to the restrictive abortion law in Ireland, and another on a prostitute turned PhD called Belle de Jour.

Follow me on Twitter.

Every Friday I point you towards some recommended reading around the blogosphere.

This week, however, I’m going to do things a bit differently. I’m still going to recommend some things for you to look at, but one’s a book, one’s a newspaper and one’s a radio program. (Every once in awhile it’s fun to shake things up…):

1. The Happiness Project (the book)- I’ve often mentioned Gretchen Rubin’s fantabulous blog, The Happiness Project here. Gretchen spent a year test-driving the wisdom of the ages, the current scientific studies, and the lessons from popular culture about how to be happy. Now she’s producing a book on the same topic. The book will come out on December 29, but it can be pre-ordered here. I was lucky enough to read an early draft and I can’t say enough about it…it’s insightful, it’s funny, it’s incredibly wide-ranging and it’s also quite accessible. Plus, it’s a great holiday present for anyone looking to devise – or live up to – all those New Years Resolutions coming your way just around the corner. I know I’ve already got a list of people I plan on giving it to. Please go have a look.

2. San Francisco Panorama - Also on the list of “not-yet-out-must-reads” is Dave Eggers’ forthcoming, one-time-release San Francisco Panorama. Eggers will be familiar to many as the wunderkind who wrote A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, his post-modern memoir of raising his little brother while still barely an adult himself. He’s also the founding editor of McSweeney’s, which will publish Panorama on December 8th. Panorama was inspired by Eggers’ belief that in the age of the internet, we are in serious danger of losing the newspaper as we know it. So as a paean to the broadsheet of yore, he has pulled together journalists, writers, comic strip artists…even kids to recreate that old-fashioned thing we call a newspaper, one more time with feeling. Pre-order here. (Hat Tip: Book Snob.)

3. A National Day of Listening – Finally, if you like family stories (and let’s be honest, who doesn’t?) you should check out Story Corps’ National Day of Listening. The idea behind this project was to get families talking to one another and to preserve those conversations on line for posterity’s sake. Stories will be aired starting today, and you can still go and download your own. As we used to say in radioland, have a listen! (Hat tip: Motherlode.)

*****

Finally, if you live in the U.K. and ever wonder whether Big Brother is watching you, he is. Read all about how the British police are now spying on protesters in my article at PoliticsDaily.com here…

Follow Delia on Twitter.

BrightSight Group speaker Gretchen Rubin’s latest Happiness Projectblog entry.

Even though she hasn’t asked me to, I’ve taken the liberty of answering Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project questions.  Mostly because her interviewees’ answers always make me think, and so it made me curious what my answers would be.

Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
My daily Ashtanga practice.  But since “yoga” was what Gretchen’s last interviewee said, too, I’ll add another one: avoiding stale tasks.  Particularly re: housekeeping.  I love coming home to a made bed and a clean kitchen and I’ll take the extra fifteen minutes to wash up and tidy up to make sure it stays that way.  (I was trying to find a good definition of “stale tasks” written by someone else–I think I first read it in Getting Things Done–but it’s essentially any task that you should have done right away but only gets harder the longer you put it off, the classic example being “cleaning dishes with food stuck on them.”)

What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?
This is hard.  The biggest thing, I think, that contributes to my happiness is my knowledge that actions—my actions, not anyone else’s—are responsible for everything.  I knew that when I was 18, though.  I kept a lot of journals and I analyzed everything that happened and I figured out pretty quickly the onus was on me.

I didn’t realize how happy I would be when I became self-sufficient, though.  Even though I could always manage my actions, managing my own home is such a wonderful pleasure.

Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?
Staying up too late on the weekends.  The mornings are my favorite time of day, and I don’t like sleeping through them.  My favorite day of the week is Monday, because I finally get back on schedule (bed at 10:30, wake up at 5:45).  I feel so refreshed!

Is there a happiness mantra or motto that you’ve found very helpful? (e.g., I remind myself to “Be Gretchen.”)
I’ve already mentioned if you really want to do a thing, you’ll do it.

If you’re feeling blue, how do you give yourself a happiness boost?
I go for a walk, if I can.  A long walk is good for clearing things up and lifting spirits.

Is there anything that you see people around you doing or saying that adds a lot to their happiness, or detracts a lot from their happiness?
I don’t like to see people complain about a situation without trying to fix it.

Have you always felt about the same level of happiness, or have you been through a period when you felt exceptionally happy or unhappy – if so, why? If you were unhappy, how did you become happier?
I was very unhappy during the period between undergraduate and grad school.  I was working at a really unfortunate job—I was a mailroom assistant, but I was the only mailroom assistant, which meant I spent most of my day in a room, alone, sorting and processing mail and stuffing stacks of envelopes—and the job didn’t pay enough to have a lot of fun afterwards.  I was trying to save money (I’ve always believed that a certain percentage of one’s paycheck should be saved whenever possible) so I spent most of my time after work holed up in my studio apartment with library books.  This was a mistake, in retrospect.  I should have invested in clothes (I barely had enough clothes for the workweek, nothing for being seen in public afterwards) and in social activities.  Making friends would have helped me considerably, but I thought at the time that I couldn’t afford what was necessary to make them.

I became happier by setting goals for the future (namely, get into grad school) and working towards them.  I didn’t really become happy until I started school again, though.  I don’t think I believed I would become happy until I started school again.  That was probably also a mistake.  I could have concentrated on moving up out of my job or finding ways to leverage my skills into a different position.  (On the other hand, I wouldn’t have the job I have now without my graduate education.)

The worst part of that job was having to work alone all day.  Even now, when my job gives me too much “alone time,” I get twitchy.

Do you work on being happier? If so, how?
I don’t specifically work on being happier.  I work on learning.  Learning is my biggest motivator.  I’m always taking notes, analyzing, studying, adjusting.  I love discovering solutions to problems, or steps to help me complete a project.

How do you cultivate an atmosphere of growth?

Well, if Gretchen says to have an atmosphere of growth you have to have a mission, then… I’ve got one.

So—back to The Happiness Project again—when I was thinking of starting my own Happiness Project I thought for a bit about what my own Personal Commandments or Splendid Truths of happiness might be, and, to be frank, I could only think of one.

And it isn’t really about happiness, except when it is.

Here you go:

We only do what we really want to do.

Or, conversely,

If we really wanted to do it, we’d do it.

Now before I unpack this I’m going to disarm the obvious response.

But I don’t really want to (clean the kitchen, write TPS reports, work at a call center, etc.) and I do it anyway! Think large-scale.  If you want a clean house, you clean the kitchen; if you want to keep/advance in your job, you write the reports; if you want the money, you work at the call center.  (And I did, at one point, work at a call center.)

The converse means, of course, that if we really wanted to exercise, or spend more time in a relationship, or study French, we’d do it.  We might not be able to do it all at once, or every day, and we might not be very successful at it, but we’d do it, at least until we stopped wanting to do it anymore.  We’d find some way to put in the actual action.

This is true for me.  I don’t know if it’s true for you, even though I’ve used “we” in the above paragraph.  I have a suspicion it is.

There are two huge advantages to believing this axiom.  The first, at least for me, is that it helps clarify decision-making.  Often I find that the things I really want to do—well, I’ve already started doing them, in some small way.  Or the things I don’t really want to do, like running a marathon or taking salsa dancing, I don’t have to worry about.  (There’s a world of difference between something you want to do and something you feel you should do, and you know it.)

The second is that it cuts through relationship bullshit very quickly.

Or, in a kinder frame of mind, it helps you see what other people really want—and in terms of careers, find out where you might be most useful to them.

Before we get too far into this I have to admit the huge debt this blog owes to The Happiness Project.  I love checking The Happiness Project every morning and reading about the way people are trying to improve their lives—and that sounds negative, I guess, like lives aren’t good enough as they are—but it’s the idea that Gretchen Rubin and her blog guests are continually trying to find out what works and what doesn’t work, what’s joyful and what isn’t, etc.

I thought for a while about starting a Happiness Project-style blog of my own, but to me it seemed a little static.  I could write about how much I love my little square of 85% Lindt dark chocolate at the end of every dinner, or how I haul myself out of bed at 5:45 every morning to go to Ashtanga class, but I couldn’t get really excited about writing about elements of happiness I’ve already found. What’s interesting to me is learning and writing about new things, which—as we saw in today’s post—is one of Gretchen’s happiness tenets herself.

One of the deeper reasons I like Gretchen’s blog so much is because she is so open-minded about the world and about all of the interesting, fascinating, wonderful things it contains.  It’s also the reason why I love They Might Be Giants—every album is full of “isn’t the world amazing and weird and isn’t it great to experience it all?”  (Incidentally, John Flansburgh said recently* on The Onion A.V. Club that he was tired of the band being described as “quirky” or “nerdy,” saying that he found those descriptors prescriptive and that the only true descriptor of TMBG was “To be original.  To express our most interesting stuff.”)

Anyway.  So, as Gretchen writes, if you want your own Happiness Project, go on and get one—or do what I’m doing and write something that’s also about happiness, but in a different way.  (Or just get all TMBG about it and express your most interesting stuff.)

*If you’re wondering why Gretchen’s “today’s post” is dated nearly two weeks before the TMBG interview… the only answer is that I am a time traveler.

http://www.theyearsareshort.com/

I was at Barnes and Noble reading the latest Psychology Today issue, when I came across Gretchen Rubin’s, The Happiness Project blog. She writes about her experiences as she tests and debunks theories, principles and tips from great minds and leaders on  the pursuit of  happiness. I was curious to see Rubin’s insights and quickly became a fan.  I don’t agree with all her tips (after all, it’s her opinion), but the entries bring ‘a silver lining’ to my destitute, confusing life (exaggerating). A hope that there may just be a recipe to happiness; Contrary to my belief of its existence only in serendipity.

Her entries, “Do you neglect what makes you happy?” and “The secret is not to care” got me thinking. Yes, I do neglect what makes me happy and I tend to care what people think (though I ought not to on certain exceptions). I decided to follow her advice on this one and do what makes me happy, and not care – that’s where this blog comes in. I have always wanted to rejoin the blog-force, but my writing skill level is embarrassing and I tend to cover topics not very popular; But that shouldn’t dissuade my will. My blog is a testament of doing what I enjoy, feeling uncomfortable and not caring. Those who find my words and posts elementary won’t bother me any longer.

Hope regenerates

(photo is taken from here)

I’ve just finished reading Gretchen Rubin’s post “Act the Way You Want to Feel” and the following quote from William James caught my attention:

“…by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.”

These words struck me and although my sould initially refused to penetrate their meaning, I could not continue reading. I had to let this particular statement sink into my heart and not remain at an intellectual level of understanding.

Usually, my method of achieving this is to pull the words out of the context and try to find a concrete way in which they (i.e. the words) bear significance for myself and my life. What I am doing, in fact, is to stop and analyze what part inside me responded so promptly and why it did so.

Now I will revisit how this mental process unfolded, in writing.

The catalyst was the word “will”, which was almost like salt on an open wound because my will is somehow weak these days. I’ve been quite lethargic in my resolution to mend my wrongs and put my life in order and I mistakenly thought that the will was closely tied to the feeling. In other words, I believed that lacking the feeling of determination was tantamount to lacking the will.

However, my problem was not that I was not willing a change, an improvement. On the contrary, that was all I was thinking about. The problem was that I was not taking action because I was waiting for that feeling of determination to come along. Now I understand that I should do something specific about it, act in a concrete way towards my goal and then the feeling will appear. Put differently, JUST DO IT!
For a while, I will not meditate upon what I am trying to achieve. I will just determine certain things that I believe will help my healing and I will try to DO them as consistently and regularly as possible. To be truthful, even this feels a bit overwhelming for my weak will. But “what is impossible with men is possible with God” (Luke 18:27).

I’ve posted before about what makes for a happy marriage. (Answer: Have common interests.)

I’ve also posted on five tips for staying monogamous.

But this morning I had another epiphany about what makes for a successful long-term partnership: set up an appropriate division of labor.

I realized this about an hour ago when two things happened simultaneously:

a. my cell phone failed to charge properly (again) and

b. I couldn’t locate a tool bar for a new social networking program I’d just set up on my computer.

It’s not that I couldn’t have tried to fix either of these problems on my own. I’m not a technophobe. As an avid blogger, Facebook friend and now Twitter-er, I’m all about technology these days.

It’s just that when something technical goes wrong with a household object – be it the remote control for the VCR or a lightbulb – my first instinct, in the words of my late Irish grandmother, is “to call the man.”

But that’s not always the best strategy. Because “the man” is not only usually quite expensive, he’s also often unnecessary. Rather, these problems are often easily solved if one is just willing to sit down for a few minutes and think things through. Or read the instruction manual (which, in my case, usually gets tossed in a “to be read” pile, never “to be read.”)

Which is where my husband comes in. One of the (many!) reasons I’m glad that I married him is that he is (a.) technologically astute (b.) very helpful and, crucially (c.) incredibly patient. So when my joint technological dilemmas presented themselves this morning, he immediately came upstairs and had them both under control in a matter of minutes.

All of which is to say that in our marital division of labor, my husband is the technological advisor.

He’s also the aesthetic consultant. The son of an architect, he has a really good eye. He always knows what colors match, which piece of furniture ought to go where, and how high a particular painting ought to hang. Me? I’m just not all that visual. (Don’t believe me? Read this post under “comfort zone.” Nuff said.)

But lest you think that this is an entirely one-sided arrangement, let me assure you that I also pull my weight in this relationship. I’m in charge of anything time-sensitive.

So, for example, I recently got an email from an old friend who’d (apparently) been trying to get in touch with us for several weeks. She’d initially emailed my husband to ask if we were free for dinner one night in November when she’d be passing through London. When he didn’t respond, she emailed him again to be sure he’d gotten the first query.

My first reaction was:  why didn’t she email me first? Doesn’t she *know* that I’m the Chief Scheduler? Apparently not. But my husband does. Which is why – once he actually got to the second email – he immediately forwarded it to me.

Done.

So now I’m curious…what’s your division of labor?

*****

In case you’re interested, here’s yesterday’s post on PoliticsDaily.com about Five Things We Learned At The European Summit.

Image: Blue Lightbulb by Curious_Zed via Flickr under a Creative Commons License.

Over the years, I’ve learned the importance of seeking out books, music, movies, websites that make me laugh, bring joy, or inspire hope.

One of my favorite happiness boosters is reading from Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project.  You can go to her web site and learn much about happiness.  Her book, fittingly titled The Happiness Project ,will be published in late December 2009 (we’ve got it on order already).  For now, you can explore the resources she’s sharing on her website.  I subscribe to her blog posts and enjoy her daily. Her posts are generally thought-provoking and well supported by references to literature or studies.

Her post today struck me so I clicked on all the links and read the related posts.  One of them discusses the importance of and need for a person to feel that he or she is growing.  I know this to be true for myself and I see how it so clearly relates to our library’s mission…as well as our Foster Growth capital campaign slogan.  (See how I can relate most everything back to that?!)

This Friday I point you to some recommended reading around the blogosphere:

1. I’ve long been a fan of Brian Williams, the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News. So when the popular NPR news quiz Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me came to New York City last week and invited Williams on the show, I knew it would be a gem. It was. If you’ve got 15 minutes to spare, do listen to the entire Williams segment as he plays a game called “Not My Job.”

2. On a much more sober note (no pun intended), here’s an essay from the NYT.com’s Motherlode blog by a stay-at-home Dad – Mike Adamic – who explains why it isn’t cool to drink in front of your children.

3. This is a laugh-out-loud list of 50 office-speak phrases that really grate from the BBC News Magazine. (Hat Tip: @gretchenrubin.)

4. Finally, for those of you still wondering what Twitter is, here’s a clever essay by my old pal C.M. Mayo.

Enjoy!

Oh yes, and if you enjoy these reading tips, please follow me on Twitter.

Every Wednesday I offer tips for adulthood.

As a writer, I think a lot about tone. Does any given essay/blog post/tweet that I write convey not just the meaning – but the attitude – that I’m after?

Setting a tone in writing is no less important than setting a tone in person. How we speak to other people and the verbal and non-verbal message we communicate to them often determines whether they want to listen to us, befriend us, or – dare I say it – be our children/siblings/parents/spouses.

With this in mind, I’ve chosen five bloggers I regularly follow whom I think have mastered  “tone” in their writing, which in turn makes them very inviting as people. In each case, I highlight what they bring to their blogs to cultivate this tone:

1. Curiosity. Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project is a must for anyone out there looking for concrete, practical steps to leading a happier life. Sometimes this means cleaning out a closet; sometimes reading more Virginia Woolf. But the main thing Gretchen communicates on her blog  is a deep and abiding curiosity about the world around her. From the diverse range of articles and blogs that she recommends on a daily basis to her willingness to try pretty much anything  – like singing in the morning – in order to see if it actually makes her happier, you get the sense that she is, at all times, drinking in life.

2. Community. Another hugely practical site is the Freelance Writing Jobs blog network, founded and managed by Deb Ng. A lot of people come to this blog for its diverse set of writing tips, as well as its amazing daily listings of freelance jobs. I come because Deb’s passion for building community is almost irresistible. It shines through her daily tweets which always begin with “Good Morning World” (usually followed by an observation about D.C. weather), as well as the way in which all of her posts are infused with an appreciation for- and commitment to – the community of writers she’s gathered around her.

3. Introspection. You’d be hard-pressed to read a single post on Colleen Wainwright’s glorious Communicatrix and not come away feeling that this was a person who was putting herself out there, for all to see, day in and day out. Laugh-out-loud funny – but also brutally honest – this is a “self-development” blog that succeeds in making you feel like you are accompanying the author on the journey, not just listening to her ex-post musings. Check out her trademark 21-day Salutes. (She’s in the midst of one right now.) They will convince you – if you needed convincing – that the examined life is definitely the one worth living.

4. Enthusiasm. Christina Katz’ Writer Mama blog brims with enthusiasm. Written by a team of “writer mamas,”  this blog offers writing tips, links to online writing classes as well as observations on the writing life. But what most stands out about the blog is the indefatigable Christina Katz herself, who sounds so genuinely enthusiastic about writing, parenting, networking and – above all – platform building, that it’s infectious. To Christina’s credit, she not only promotes her own work on the blog. She is also extremely generous about highlighting the success of her co-bloggers and former students.

5. Wisdom. It’s really tough to try and offer advice to other authors while being sincere and funny at the same time. But Nicola Morgan’s Help! I Need A Publisher! blog does just that. Nicola manages to somehow combine a strong dose of wit and “telling it like it is” with a lot of really smart advice. Read this post where Nicola reacts to the self-doubts of a struggling writer and see if you don’t find yourself laughing while also nodding your head in agreement.

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Image: Tone by Passetti via Flickr under a Creative Commons License.

Gretchen Rubin is the guru behind the phenomenally successful blog (and soon-to-be book) The Happiness Project.  In this post she shares an inside glimpse at her process.

One of the challenges of writing is … writing. Here are some tips that I’ve found most useful for myself, for actually getting words onto the page.

1. Write something every work-day, and preferably, every day; don’t wait for inspiration to strike. Staying inside a project keeps you engaged, keeps your mind working, and keeps ideas flowing. Also, perhaps surprisingly, it’s often easier to do something almost every day than to do it three times a week. (This may be related to the abstainer/moderator split.)

2. Remember that if you have even just fifteen minutes, you can get something done. Don’t mislead yourself, as I did for several years, with thoughts like, “If I don’t have three or four hours clear, there’s no point in starting.”

3. Don’t binge on writing. Staying up all night, not leaving your house for days, abandoning all other priorities in your life — these habits lead to burn-out.

4. If you have trouble re-entering a project, stop working in mid-thought — even mid-sentence — so it’s easy to dive back in later.

5. Don’t get distracted by how much you are or aren’t getting done. I put myself in jail.

6. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that creativity descends on you at random. Creative thinking comes most easily when you’re writing regularly and frequently, when you’re constantly thinking about your project.

7. Remember that lots of good ideas and great writing come during the revision stage. I’ve found, for myself, that I need to get a beginning, middle, and an end in place, and then the more creative and complex ideas begin to form. So I try not to be discouraged by first drafts.

8. Develop a method of keeping track of thoughts, ideas, articles, or anything that catches your attention. That keeps you from forgetting ideas that might turn out to be important, and also, combing through these materials helps stimulate your creativity. My catch-all document, where I store everything related to happiness that I don’t have another place for, is more than five hundred pages long. Some people use inspiration boards; others keep scrapbooks. Whatever works for you.

9. Pay attention to your physical comfort. Do you have a decent desk and chair? Are you cramped? Is the light too dim or too bright? Make a salute—if you feel relief when your hand is shading your eyes, your desk is too brightly lit. Check your body, too: lower your shoulders, make sure your tongue isn’t pressed against the top of your mouth, don’t sit in a contorted way. Being physically uncomfortable tires you out and makes work seem harder.

10. Try to eliminate interruptions — by other people, email, your phone, or poking around the Internet — but don’t tell yourself that you can only work with complete peace and quiet.

11. Over his writing desk, Franz Kafka had one word: “Wait.” My brilliantly creative friend Tad Low, however, keeps a different word on his desk: “Now.” Both pieces of advice are good.

12. If you’re stuck, try going for a walk and reading a really good book. Virginia Woolf noted to herself: “The way to rock oneself back into writing is this. First gentle exercise in the air. Second the reading of good literature. It is a mistake to think that literature can be produced from the raw.”

13. At least in my experience, the most important tip for getting writing done? Have something to say! This sounds obvious, but it’s a lot easier to write when you’re trying to tell a story, explain an idea, convey an impression, give a review, or whatever. If you’re having trouble writing, forget about the writing and focus on what you want to communicate. For example, I remember flailing desperately as I tried to write my college and law-school application essays. It was horrible – until in both cases I realized I had something I really wanted to say. Then the writing came easily, and those two essays are among my favorites of things I’ve ever written.

While scrolling through one of my favourite blogs I read regularly I stumbled about

A Secret to Happiness? Don’t Get Organized.

My first thought was “WHAT?” How can anyone say that! Organisation is good! But reading on it all makes so much more sense and explains exactly what I’m experiencing right now:

When you’re facing a desk swamped in papers, or a closet bursting with clothes, or counter-tops littered with piles of random objects, don’t say to yourself, “I need to get organized.” Your first instinct should be to get rid of stuff. If you don’t keep it, you don’t have to organize it.

So I just can say: Let’s not organize! *g*