Five things

It’s been a little quiet around here, so I thought I’d just post a little list of some things we’ve been doing.

1. We went to the beach

Have you ever been to the beach? It’s marvelous.

We went for the kids’ Spring Break back in March and being there made me want to sell everything I own and move there.

This year, as part of our quest to find the perfect South Carolina beach, we hit Isle of Palms. And ladies and gentleman, I think the search might be over. Our stay on Isle of Palms in the middle of March was fantastic.

For all I know, the place could be 10x worse than the Jersey Shore during the thick of the summer, but it was the perfect family getaway while we were there.

2. Tool time with Tim Taylor

Home improvement has been the name of the game for the past few weeks as we’ve been knocking out projects around the house.

Having lived most recently in a house built in 1930, we’re accustomed to having someone around almost all the time fixing old house stuff. The strange thing about being in the new house is that we really haven’t had anyone here to fix anything in the year we’ve been here.

Until a few weeks ago. That’s when we broke the seal on repairs and maintenance. The compressor died on the A/C that cools the upstairs, so we replaced the whole unit with a dual fuel deal that ought to save us a few bucks in efficiency over the long-term.

Since then, we’ve rebuilt our front porch, changed a few exterior light fixtures, and looked at how to landscape a few spots in the yard. And I’ve cut the grass a bajillion times already.

3. We paid our taxes

I guess it would be more accurate to say we filed our return, because the taxes were paid during the year.

When everything shook out, the return showed we’re due for a pretty nice refund.

I set a goal this year of having everything in to my CPA by March 15. I delivered my stuff to his office this year on April 9.

There’s always next year.

4. Someone told me I say “Um” a lot when I speak

… which I have found incredibly helpful to know, but now it is also making me crazy.

5. Facebook is buying Instagram

Okay, this doesn’t really fit on a list of things we’ve been doing, but this is my blog, so I can steer this ship in any direction. Pardon me while I digress for a moment…

Instagram has just about moved into the top spot as my favorite app on my phone. It’s quick, it’s not spammy, it’s just un-anything the other things are.

Plus, it’s fun. It’s not like people Instagram buckets full of dead rats or “Hey, I found this old crab salad sandwich in my trunk. It stinks!” People post pics of sweet things or fun things or good food or cool things they’re doing.

And for now, at least, it works.The following, the liking, the privacy … it all works.

I don’t want to see the Facebook style of following, liking, and privacy applied to Instagram. It’ll jack it all up.

___________________

I said this post would have Five Things, but here’s an important freebie that I didn’t want to miss. I was on a  Twitter sabbatical when this happened, so I didn’t get to mark the occasion:

6. @bluthquotes hits 100K followers

My brother has a couple of Twitter accounts. He has his personal account, and then he has another one.

With the second one, all he does is tweet quotes from the brilliant but short-lived TV show Arrested Development.

A few weeks ago, that account – @bluthquotes – earned its 100,000th follower.

Watching that account grow has been fascinating and hilarious. And the feed is really funny. Congrats, Brian!

When you’re the only encouragement

A few weeks ago I had to have an ultrasound.

Before we get too far, let’s get something out of the way. Just because I had an ultrasound and I’m sharing that with you on the blog doesn’t mean you’re entitled to know whether I’m carrying a boy or a girl. Stop being so dang nosy.

Anyway, I had an ultrasound because my doctor thought I might have a kidney stone or gall stone. And because I sure as heck thought I might have a kidney stone.

So I showed up at the stroke of 7 a.m. and waited in an empty waiting room for a few minutes while the world’s loudest TV blared the day’s headlines. The TV was so loud I couldn’t make out everything I heard, but I caught, “Meth. Weather. People don’t like taxes.”

Eventually a nice lady in scrubs fetched me and we went back to her room. She very clinically asked me to take my shirt off and lay on my side on the table. So while she cranked up her ultrasound machine, I peeled off my shirt and gave her exactly what she asked for: my ripped, shirtless midwinter goodness, flat on an exam table.

As she slathered that gel all over my ribs (nasty – I don’t like stuff on my skin) I looked around her room. This lady does ultrasounds, alone, in a dark room in the basement of a building all day. From what I could tell, there wasn’t much chance for someone in her position to interact with coworkers, or for that matter, with supervisors.

Depending on the way you’re wired, that setup may sound pretty nice. You’ve got your own space, with no one breathing down your neck. But I’d imagine if you take someone who feeds off the energy of other people and put them in that setup, they’d get a little squirrelly after a while.

Something I’ve come to realize lately is that whether the person you meet works alone or is surrounded by dozens of coworkers, you may be the only encouragement they receive that day.

When I walk into grab my dry cleaning and see people scrambling around getting work done, I assume there’s at least one person back there saying, “Good job! Keep it up!” But there might not be.

And when the ultrasound tech finished studying my kidneys and (reluctantly, I think) invited me to put my shirt back on, I missed the opportunity to thank her and encourage her for the day ahead of her. I was too anxious about getting the nasty ultrasound goop off of me.

You may be the only encouragement someone gets today. Go give it!

Taking a step backward to move forward

A few days ago I made a decision that brought order to my life.

Like a drink of water to a thirsty man, it was something I’d needed for a long time.

I bought a paper appointment book.

Until I got my iPhone a few years ago, I kept my schedule (and managed my life, really) in a black At-A-Glance Weekly Appointment Book. At the end of every year, I’d go to Office Depot and get a new one, and the old one would earn its spot with its friends on the shelf at home.

But when I got the iPhone I figured out how to sync the iPhone calendar with Google Calendar, so I thought I’d give that I shot. I figured having my calendar with me anywhere I was would be better than lugging around my big ol’ appointment book, so for a couple years I’ve had everything on Google.

That system has been convenient, but it hasn’t been effective. Here’s why: I’m a visual person. The act of writing something in my appointment book helps me learn where that commitment exists in time. Flipping through pages of the appointment book helps me see how particular blocks of time relate to other blocks of time and how it all fits together. I never got that with Google.

One other thing I like about keeping a paper calendar is that it’s the cheater’s diary. I don’t journal as much as I’d like, so the calendar is a decent supplement. I can always go to the shelf and grab the appointment book from a few years ago and see what I was doing on a certain day. In that way, the paper calendar helps preserve memories more tangibly (if not more safely) than a digital calendar.

What’s crazy is that I’m so much more productive after switching my to my old school, analog tool. The first day in the office with my paper appointment book was just like riding a bike. I remembered my old process of looking at the week ahead, then looking a few weeks out, setting priorities for the day, etc.

Long live the weekly appointment book.

How do you keep everything organized? What works for you?

 

Why you win if you make things simple

When we take a look at all the commitments, responsibilities and relationships we have, life can start to look pretty complex.

If you’re not completely sold on that idea, just grab last year’s tax return. A tax return is just one small slice of life, but it’s a tricky and complex document in itself.

In that context, life always seems to be getting more complicated. As we move through seasons, we earn all new joys, opportunities, rewards, issues, frustrations and challenges.

On its own, life will always revert to the complex. That’s our nature. We put stuff on our plates without taking other things off. We keep saying yes without working hard at saying not now.

What that creates is an incredible untapped opportunity for people who make life simple.

Here’s why you’ll win if you can make life simple for other people:

1. You’ll be the contrarian.

As I’ve said, the current flows toward complexity; toward mess. The easy thing to do is plant another bush in a garden that’s already growing out of control. It’s another thing altogether to be the gardener who gets into the tangled mess and prunes, divides and removes.

2. You won’t have to fight to show your value.

While the other guys beat each other up over price, you get to sell something completely different. You sell peace. You sell a person’s time back to them. You make problems go away.

3. You’ll always be in demand.

To go back to the gardening metaphor, complexity is like weeds that grow in a garden. It’s rare to find a once-and-for-all solution. If you’re someone who makes selling a house easier, handling investments more understandable or fixing a car less of a hassle, you will earn repeat business. And people will talk about you to their friends, unless they hate their friends and like seeing them stressed out and overwhelmed.

The trick that we usually have to learn the hard way is that life gets better not as we cram more stuff into it, but as we learn to take everything but the most important stuff out of it.

What’s one thing in your life that could stand to be a little more simple than it is now?

Sick days and vacation days

Not too long ago, I was tired.

Feeling burned out by the pressure and stress of all the stuff I’d let creep on to my plate, all I could think about was how nice it would be to get away for a few days.

I was sure that a vacation would give me the perspective and the energy boost that I needed. The only problem was, there was no vacation on the horizon. Vacation wasn’t even in the vocabulary.

Do you ever find yourself there? Just kinda stewing in stressful circumstances? Wondering where the relief valve is? Looking forward to the next time you can steal a few moments alone or with your spouse to check out from the normal routine?

Just as that stress in my life was really starting to ache, something interesting happened. A virus tore through our house.

MC spent four days running around nursing the rest of us back to health and then, just as we were getting everything ready to for the kids to go back to school and for me to go back to the office, she said, “I don’t feel very well.” The virus knocked her down.

While she got better, I ran the show. Meals, school dropoff, play time with the two year old, after school activities, caring for MC…you name it. Until MC recovered from the virus, our house was mine to run alone.

It was busy. It was tiring. It was stressful.

When MC was back on her feet and everyone was headed back where they were supposed to be – me to the office, the kids to school – I noticed something. I didn’t feel that deep longing to get away anymore.

I think all I really needed was to move deeper in the place I was already standing.

Taking even just a day and doing something outside of my routine helped me see the rhythm of a day through different eyes. It helped me see my kids through different eyes. And it sure as heck helped me see my wife (and all that she does) through different eyes.

Moving deeper where we are – in addition to getting away on a vacation or retreat – can refresh us and renew our sense of purpose right where we are.

How are the circumstances in your life right now? Things good? Or could you use a few days to get away and recharge the batteries?

How to be different

This one’s for me. A note to myself.

Don’t hide out being like everyone else. Be a breath of fresh air to the people closest to you and the world around you.

Be a giver. Give these things:

Encouragement. No one gets in bed at the end of the day and says, “People were way too nice to me today.” Encouragment, for some reason, is in short supply in our culture. For that reason, a nice word goes a long way.

Inspiration. People want to be a part of a big story. Help them see and connect to something bigger than themselves.

Accountability. People need to know that they matter, and that their actions have consequences. Accountability demonstrates commitment. Commitment communicates value.

Connection. People want to feel known. They feel safe when they’re linked to other familiar people.

Memories. Make scenes with people and for people that they will remember.

Grace. People expect an eye for an eye. They expect harm to be repaid with harm. Mess it all up by turning the other cheek. Give them grace.

Mistakes. The person who never screws anything up is the person who never tries anything. Show the world around you that it’s okay to try.

Five ways to use Twitter

I’ll admit it. For a while, I didn’t get Twitter.

Right after I started blogging, I started seeing other bloggers embed their Twitter feeds in their sidebars and I couldn’t understand what they were doing at all.

Who are those messages for? Why don’t they turn those messages into a full blog post? Why is everyone always @ing each other?

Then one day, I signed up for a Twitter account and played around for a while and that was all she wrote. I got it immediately.

Twitter, if you give it a chance, is a unique and interesting tool. Here are five ways to use Twitter:

1. You can use Twitter to get news.

All of the major national news outlets have active Twitter accounts. As news happens, you’ll see it on the feed. Your local news outlets have Twitter accounts, too. A bonus is that news usually hits Twitter before it hits the airwaves and traditional web.

2. You can make connections.

I joke that Twitter is the introvert’s Chamber of Commerce. When you post a steady stream of updates and when you consume a steady diet of other people’s updates, you get a feel for who those people are, and vice versa. More often I’m finding that I’m answering the question, “How do you know _________?” with the explanation, “Through Twitter.”

3. You can get fast answers.

Need to find a decent place to eat in the Denver airport that’s not a sports bar? Need to find a place that sells organic linens in Birmingham? Just ask Twitter. You’ll have answers in no time.

4. You can promote your business or blog.

The great part about having a microphone is that you’re the only one with the mic. You’re talking and everyone else is listening. Twitter is kinda like a microphone. You get to talk about whatever you want. If you’ve got a business you want to grow or a blog you want to promote, Twitter is a great place to do it. But when you have a microphone, people can walk away if you wear them down. The same is true for Twitter. If all you’re doing is hyping your biz or blog, don’t expect folks to tune into that forever.

5. You can spoil TV shows for folks in other time zones.

In 140 characters, you can broadcast how the case gets solved, who gets voted off or gets the final rose. This might not be the way to win friends and influence people, but it is a thing you can do with Twitter.

Since joining Twitter a few thousand tweets ago, I’ve come to a deep appreciation for its many uses. If you haven’t given it a look, you should. And if you created an account but you still have an egg for a profile pic and you’ve never posted anything, dip your toe in.

Did you “get” Twitter at first?