Stupid, stupid and more stupid, or…

Stupid, stupid and more stupid, or “Hey, Apple, wanna know what I want?”

I want dividers for icons. I want to have my hard drive window open, and have it divided into different groups.

Well, really, before we even get to that, I want your freakin’ OS to stop rearranging my icons at random for no apparent reason. I want that a lot.

I have my hard drive window arranged by function, do you hear me, function. Not alphabetically, by date, by size, by anything else, except how I use them. Revolutionary idea, I know. And for the last year or so, at unpredictable intervals, the window just rearranges itself, usually alphabetically. And before any smug, superior smartass suggests it: yes, I have both “arrange by” and “sort by” set to “None.” NONE, dammit!

For a while it got a little better, or at least a little easier to recover from that stupid, stupid bug (yeah, I’m going to charitably assume it’s a bug and not just that you think you know better than I do how I need it organized). I used different color tags for the different groups, so I could see at a glance how to undo your stupid rearrangement. So I could enlarge the window, move everything out of the way and just start re-sorting. But now, with “Mavericks” (and that is a godawful stupid name, BTW), the tags are little bitty dots beside the folder name. So it’s much harder to see it at a glance. Much harder to recover from your recurring bug. Mission accomplished, Apple!

Okay. Now, then. Anyway…I want to have dividers so that I can group files and folders by function and keep them separate. Right now it looks like this:

I want it to look like this:

Or this:

Or even this:

Can somebody tell me why this isn't possible?

(And stop rearranging my icons!)

How close is Monday?

The late, great Shari Lewis talked about something she learned from her father. He always said, "The day begins the night before." She went on to say that he was telling her that she had a choice about what the next day would be like, how it would go, by being ready for it—getting a good night's sleep, having her homework done, having everything ready to go in the morning, and so on. By being prepared.

Look at any time management system or process—any one at all, just pick your favorite—the one thing it's sure to say is that you need to take a moment before your day begins (some say the night before, some say first thing in the morning) and get organized: decide what you're going to be doing, what priority each task has, etc.

I used to know someone who would take a few minutes on Sunday afternoon to pick out her work clothes for the week. She'd put together outfits, gather accessories, make sure everything was clean and nothing needed attention, all that. Doing that, she saved herself a little anxiety and probably more than a few minutes each morning that week.

Our house actually faces west but let's just call this morning, shall we?

I like to think of myself as too much of a free spirit to be constrained like that, but the truth is that I've never consistently been that organized. Or, maybe, that motivated.

Fact is, some of us (and I do mean us) work better under a little pressure. And I like to tell myself that I use my free time to rejuvenate. Recuperate. Recharge. And that's how I prepare for the week's stress.

(But I'm afraid the reality is that I just enjoy vegging out in front of the TV a little more than I should.)

When does Monday begin for you? What do you do to prepare for the week?

Creativity (and how close it is all the time)

If you're involved in doing something creative—like, say, writing—it's important to keep your mind clear and ideas flowing. If you're involved in doing something that might not seem at first glance to be a creative activity—like, maybe, running a business—it's equally as important.

Back in the '70s, some big corporation* came to the conclusion that executives who were creative got all-around better results from their departments. So the company hired a research firm to come up with a way they could identify creative people during the hiring process. The research people went away and did their thing, then came back with a report. Their results: What makes someone creative is the fact that they believe they are.

So that's the first step. Recognize that you're creative.

The next step is to understand that the biggest part of creativity is just being open to ideas. It's not always a brilliant flash, but sometimes just a notion seeping through the noise in your mind, building slowly and finally—if you let it—getting your attention. To help that happen, there are a few things you can do.

Set aside time to think.
That may seem obvious, but how much time did you schedule today to just think about something? Not do research, not outline solutions, just think. Give yourself time, and you'll be surprised how valuable it becomes. It doesn't have to be a big chunk. Set aside ten minutes a day, and you'll discover yourself making a mental list of things to consider during that time. (Which, incidentally, frees up your mind for the other things you're working on in the meantime. Win, times two.)

Make a note of it
Just as having that few minutes set aside can lead you to collect things you want to give some thought, having a place to make notes or keep track of random thoughts, websites that might be useful, articles of interest to you, etc., will make you tend to notice more things that can help the process. App, notebook & pen, voice recorder—whatever form suits you.

Just make sure you review them at some point. Unless having an idea dump gets rid of the clutter and frees up your thoughts, you have to look at the notes you've made to gain the advantage of making them. That might be another good item to put on your calendar, even for just a few minutes a week.

Leave the office
At least get up from your desk. Take a walk, if that's practical; walking outside is even better. A change of scenery can do wonders.

Most of us have experienced the phenomenon of going into another room and not being able to remember why? There's a neurological reason for that. Going through a door has an effect on your brain, kind of telling it to reset and prepare for something new. During your workday, that's something you can put to good use.

Talk to people
Even if you're not specifically talking about what you're doing, interacting with other people does good things to your brain, not to mention your emotional well being. (That's assuming the people you're interacting with aren't asses. Don't hang around asses, and that's a pretty good rule for life in general.) In fact, even if you don't talk at all, but only listen, you'll still be making a connection and introducing new perspectives into your thought process. It helps!

And making connections is what it's all about. That's just another way to describe the creative process, making connections between seemingly unrelated ideas, facts, procedures—or anything else— and coming up with something new and better.

That's something you can work on!


*I've been referring to this anecdote for decades. I really ought to go look up who was involved. I'll let you know when I find out.

How do you promote volunteer stuff?

I facilitate a book group that I absolutely love! It's based on the concepts from Tim Sanders' Love is the Killer App. In fact, it was founded by someone who had just read the book. We each whatever we want to read, then come to the group and tell everybody about it. We have fascinating discussions, and leave with a list of what we want to read next (or what we should avoid).

It's rewarding, it's a tremendous source of information. And the group is down to four people. When they all show up.

We had a few dozen members when the group first started. That was years ago, and obviously time has passed, and people have come and gone (even some who seemed really committed to it). And those of us who are left kind of take for granted that it'll be there next month, so if it's not completely convenient, it's okay to skip it. After that…well, we'll see. And so we dwindle.

Now I'm going to spend some time promoting the group, trying to build it back up. The question is how?

Besides the cost to my business to spend too much time on other matters (see all those posts about Oktoberfest), I guess the real deciding factor for how much effort I should put into this is how much I get out of it. Okay, got that.

But what does one do—what do you do—to promote things that don't make money? If it's your kid's band candy sales, you offer it to the people around you at work. If it's a community service group, you might depend on the mechanisms already in place reaching the people who are used to supporting it—the Rotary Club website, the school bulletin, the local paper's Community Calendar.

What else do you do? How far do you go with business development techniques when what you're promoting isn't a business?

No, really. I'm asking.

What kind of pro can you hire for five bucks?

Do you know about Fiverr? It's all sorts of people offering all sorts of professional (we all hope) services for as little as five bucks. Artists. Actors. Business experts. No, really!

There's a woman who'll review your business plan and give you a few suggestions. Five bucks. A guy who'll give you ten tips to improve your website. Five bucks. A woman who'll give you a 15-minutes life coaching session. A man who'll conduct a 15-minute strategy session. SEO plans, speeches, book covers, proofreading, intros, voice overs, advice on how to dress…anything and everything. Starting at five bucks.

All this may sound like McServices, but these little nuggets are actually a fantastic way to meet and evaluate someone who could help raise your business to the next level. A friend of mine got a logo for his new business, designed and executed brilliantly by someone he found on Fiverr. It cost more than $5, of course, but the $5 sample he got showed him that this was a designer who understood what he wanted — and that he could work with.

So it's brilliant in that sense. Another real positive is that, well, sometimes five dollars' worth is about all you need.

Do you want a nice, professional-sounding voice over for the video clip on your website? Five bucks will get you 150 words or up to thirty recorded seconds of a pro's time (in, incidentally, just about any accent that floats your business boat). Need 30 seconds of something original and copyright-free for your "hold" music? Yup, five bucks. No, I take it back — three 30-second pieces of music for $5.

Did I mention there are reviews?

If you're keeping your business afloat on a shoestring, Fiverr might be just what you need to add a nice, polished touch. And if you've got a service you can sell in small chunks and you need a creative way to find new clients, you'll want to check out the other side of it.

Buyer or seller, it's close to perfect as a way to get to know people and see how well you work together with a commitment but without a big commitment.

Nice.

Letting go is harder than it looks

I'm letting go of Oktoberfest, and it's harder than I expected.

Not the emotional kind of letting go. I've known for weeks that I was going to be bored for a while afterwards. And maybe a little let down, not having people asking me for decisions all day. No big surprises there.

It's the actual wrapping-everything-up-and-turning-it-over part. I can't seem to get everything done.

All I really have left to do is plug the final numbers into the budget spreadsheet. Make a few lists (what signs we have stored, who provided which services) for the reference of next year's crew. Plan a volunteer thank-you event, or, actually, just set the wheels in motion and let other people take care of it. Gather together all the paperwork to turn over to my charming and talented co-chair, so he'll know where it all is next year.

And yet, somehow, I can't get it done.

Without the pressure of a deadline (like, say, 75,000+ people showing up), I seem to have trouble getting going. Huh.

How do you handle after-event followup (besides better than me)?

At the risk of repeating myself (if you read my personal blog)

I'm FREEEEE!

Well, almost. I'm still putting together numbers for the budget spreadsheet (we did pretty well), approving invoices, and planning a volunteer thank-you event. Oh! And I spent most of yesterday cleaning up Oktoberfest remnants (actual physical things left lying around) from Town Square, because they're picky that way. (Okay, I'm loathe to mention that the time and effort it took to take note of the broom leaned up against the door outside our staff office and compose an email about it was much greater than what it would have taken to just unlock the door and stuck it inside. But I'm going to think it.)

We had a pretty good crowd, despite rain on Saturday. This was Festival Hall right before the rain.

And Sunday started hot & heavy. I got there at about 11:30, and there were SO many people I wondered if I had remember the starting time (noon) wrong. Nope. They were just there and ready to party. This was the line at one of the food booths. It's all the way across the street.

We don't have any kind of official count of the number of people attending because there's no admission. The ATM company comes up with a number for other events that's been quite accurate, based on the number of transactions. Their estimate is 135,000. Personally, I think we had about 75,000 people who just had no cash with them.

I'm gradually getting back to the real work. Promise!