Going Postal

(infomercial)
The other day at the Post Office, USA, I saw a notice announcing a postage increase of .02 for 1st class letters and .01 for postcards, taking place in January 2006.

(irrelevant musing)
Seems like a tough circle for the Postal Service (fewer sales, higher prices?!) With each increase, people may be more inclined to ditch snail mail and go digital. As it is, I pay most of my bills online and send documents/invoices/receipts via email. This basically just leaves Thank You notes to get a postal stamp from my end. If this trend continues (taking this to the logically absurd extreme), this could leave nothing but Thank You notes and junk mail/catalogues in the mailbox. Those who open the mail may begin to confuse Gratitude with Impulse Shopping. Would this infuse more Heart into Shopping? Would it inspire Impulse Gratitude?

(challenge, take as a Call to Action if you dare)
Could we, collectively, send so many Thank You notes that they would out-number the catalogues and unsolicited mailers arriving in everyone’s mailbox?!?! :)

the 10x rule

If you plan on growing your business, even if you are doing everything yourself, consider this when setting up your office systems:

[Perhaps not an actual rule.... but a pretty darn good tip.]

When planning a system, or considering whether to change a system, ask yourself, will this system's integrity hold up with 10x more use? and then you can follow this question up with: Could someone else stepping in to do this be easily oriented?

Moral of the story, plan for growth all the way down to your filing system :)

Bcc: vs To:

Ok, so it's been a while since I've written and let me assure you, 'tis not from lack of desire. So much going on, so many changes--life is truly wonderous and beautiful. So much so that I find it funny that something as mundane as email etiquette is providing the impetus to make this blog entry.

Ok (part 2), you receive an awesome email about breast cancer awareness month (October) that you want to forward to your friends, family, acquaintances, anyone you've ever emailed before, etc. Of course it is an email that all these recipients will be thrilled to receive. So you hit "Forward."

Test Question: where do you enter all of the email addresses of your lucky recipients? in the "To:" field? in the "Cc:" field? or in the "Bcc:" field?

Score winning points for Bcc:
Score losing points for To: or Cc:

Now for the bonus question: Why?

Answer: SPAM and unsolicited emails are a huge problem these days. We go through great lengths to keep our email addresses from opportunistic senders. To see my email address listed with 50 other strangers' addresses makes me cringe. They may not be strangers to the sender, but I didn't ask for that email in the first place. Besides, I'm already involved in Local Breast Cancer Awareness activities. Besides (part 2), who wants to scroll through 3 screens of addresses? it's just plain unnecessary.

Tip: taking on too much?

Organizations fill an enormous role in our society. They do great work and their power lies in human resources. Being the helpful humans that we are, we pledge our support to a number of organizations and they, in turn, call on us to help out with their programs. Sometimes we say yes because we have the time, sometimes we say yes when we really should say, "no."

When someone asks you to take on a new commitment or responsiblity, get all the details from them and then tell them you will think about it for a day or two and get back to them. Once the excitement of new-adventure and flattery has worn off, review All of your current roles and priorities, listen to your instincts, and only then determine whether to accept or not.

tv interview

I had the honor of being asked for an interview on the INsight TV program which is produced by Suzie Daggett, publisher of the directory of same name that focuses on mind, body, & spirit. My very first interview for Project Simplify was aired last night! The interviewer was fellow Toastmaster Lori Burkart-Frank, who is, when not interviewing for the program, a Life Coach.

Ah, to see a visual representation of oneself! Yikes! Do I really sound like that?! Look like that? Getting over the initial Oh-My-Gosh of it all, I'll say that I'm relatively pleased with the whole deal. Of course there are many improvements (like not looking like a stiff board) to be made and additional concepts to cover.

One answer I'd like to change was in response to what I've studied, or philosophies contributing to where I am now. This was my opportunity to highlight some important influences and I biffed mightily. Really, I was a bit overwhelmed by the question. Every single person in my life, every book I've read, every experience lived has contributed to shaping who I am today. Where to begin!?!? I'll work on that question for next time :)

Here are two ammendments, with more to follow in time:

Yoga has been a huge influence in my life. Physically, mentally, & spiritually, yoga has continually helped me 'come back to center' and to myself.

Very specific to my work, Stephen Covey is a pioneer in time and life management whose writings successfully bring universal principals into our day to day living. Most specifically, his book First Things First.

Practice practice practice

I’ve never considered myself a good joke teller. In the middle of, what is supposed to be, a humorous story, I’ll hear hear myself floundering and even worse, hear my own delivery of the punch line fall flat. Today my job at Toastmasters was Humor Master. Determined to do well, I Googled “humorous story” and came up with, what I’ll call, the ‘driving pope story’ from a humor site. I read it several times, told it to myself out loud several times. I spent extra time on the punch line. I imagined myself telling the group of 20 people. I said it out loud some more.

This morning at Toastmasters I was ready. We went through the speeches, then the evaluations, then the Table Topics, then the Grammarian’s report, then the announcements, then we voted on next term’s officers. All the while my arm pits are singing quite loudly, ‘anticipation!’ Finally the president calls on me, “you’re up!”

“Start and finish strong,” words I’ve been advised are flashing through my head. Deep breath, open mouth, project voice, here we go! “Did you know the pope made an unpublicized visit to the east coast this weekend?” heads shake no in surprise. good start.

Voice a little erratic at times, hand gestures a little out of sync at times, was I turning my head too fast to acknowledge both sides of the room? Delivery moving along, no blank spots, keeping focused, working up to the punch line, ack! a little rushed! slow down... Kaboom! There she is! The elusive, the foreign (to me) Punch Line! People laughed! They clapped! They said, “good job!”

Whew, adrenaline still coursing, half an hour later, a bit faster than normal. Armpits still a bit warm and wet (too much information?) Celebrate! And acknowledge that Yes! with practice, we can do anything we set our minds to.

the newspaper

*!&#%!# (bleep!) is reading the paper depressing. The world reported on in the papers continues to get super ugly super fast. HP laying off another 10% of their workforce. Bush fighting to continue pesticide testing on children (are you kidding?!?!?). Legislature trying to block the appointments of 2 oil industry attorneys to the superior court. Government trying to ‘Weaponize’ space. This is all Saturday paper. It goes on. And on.

What am I willing to do about all the issues in the paper? Continue to put ever more energy into supporting those that want better for themselves, their families, & the world in a respectful, mutually supportive way. Harmful and short-sighted are: testing pesticides on kids; spraying pesticides on our food and landscapes; a war based economy; fighting for oil is not respectful or supportive. Is that the reality we want?

How about changing our stories and putting the force of our mass momentum into the following stories:
“Innovative work and research done for poly-culture agriculture.”
“Kudos to farmers that naturally build their soil year after year.”
“Nation supports an education based economy.”
“Community bands together to install alternative power sources on every house in county.”
“Increased production on vehicles not dependent on fossil fuels.”
Keep the list going!

Tip: Outlook backup

Outlook (Entourage for Mac which is what i have) is a great program to use as your email client, address book, calendar, and ToDo manager. I sync my file with a palm pilot (PDA) and my digital schedule book is automatically updated and with me everywhere.

There is also quite a bit of info stored in emails that are organized in folders according to client, subject etc. In short, there is a LOT of valuable information stored in my Entourage (Outlook for you PC users) user data file.

Working with a client yesterday, I found that her Outlook user data file wasn't in My Documents, which is where we are consolidating her user files for easy backup. Going through the help files, I came across:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8b081f3a-b7d0-4b16-b8af-5a6322f4fd01&DisplayLang=en

to back up all the folders, calendar items etc. Then, for a great explanation of how to use it and restore data:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010875321033.aspx