Organizational Skills

Have you noticed how much more complexity is added to life with the passage of time? When it comes to tools for staying organized, well I'm just not using them. When I go into houses, I'm always curious about how people store their stuff. And when I see people with packed schedules, I can't help wondering how they stay on top of things. So how do you do it? Share a habit that really makes a difference in your productivity. How were you able to carve out the time required to take this course? Did you drop an activity to add an activity or did you become more skilled in accomplishing your responsibilities more efficiently?

Blogs to Facebook to Twitter and Back

The online world moved from blogs to facebook to twitter in order to increase connections while decreasing the amount of time and energy required. Who even knew the world contained so many online marketers wanting to follow thousands of us? Call me corny but I liked it better when people were publishing their ideas. I suppose it's the difference between watching a movie and reading a million customer ratings of a movie. One great movie has the potential to change a person's whole world view in a way that a million two-sentence reviews of a movie can't.

Reasons to take CCK09

I've initiated a google alert for CCK09 because it's easier to read a trickle of new blogs as opposed to the avalanche of new blogs on the first week of classes. Mike Bogle created a list of his aims and objections http://techticker.net/2009/07/07/cck09-aims-and-objectives/ which seemed like a pretty good idea to me. I'm following suit because it's an efficient way of recommending the course.

List of Aims and Objectives

1. Intellectual Honesty. Self-learning is deceptive. It becomes crystal clear quickly that dilettantes like myself are a totally different animal than full-time, committed academics. In CCK08, I picked Lisa Lane as the person to measure myself against and it was definitely humbling. As far as Computer Geek skills - well I was definitely the weakest link in that chain.

2. Personal Learning Network. I have an amazing group of facebook friends in a wide variety of fields. Not only do I receive a continual flow of interesting urls to explore but sometimes there's a question that you can't find the answer to on the web. I've found that I am now 2 degrees of separation at most from an expert in anything imaginable.

3. A Calculation of Mental Age. It's easy to know one's grown physically flabby and not so easy to turn things around. Mental flabbiness also creeps up but it's not so obvious. At the beginning CCK08 was exhausting. I still have no idea how people took the course, carried a full workload, traveled, did research/publishing, attended conferences and raised kids. I certainly stopped wondering what I was going to do when I grew up and started seeing myself more as a retiree who skipped the whole career thing.

4. Remaining Current. The course has given me a multiplicity of connections across various generational divides. At a stage where people begin to lose their social confidence, I'm broadening my interests and tastes because it's so easy to further explore whatever people are discussing.

5. In CCK08, I had a lot of firsts but there were also a lot of things I didn't get around to trying. The second time around will be an opportunity to build on what I have already learned and explore new ways of putting information out on the web.

Loose Change Jar

This post is inspired by http://paperbackjack.net/2009/05/20/the-loose-change-jar/
Jack Weaver suggests that random writing ideas should be regarded like the change that disappears from pockets into the recesses of the sofa.

I've been on the receiving end of more loose change than the average kid. My American uncle would bring up a mason jar full of pennies whenever he came to visit. Every night he dumped the change from his pocket onto a tray on his dresser - the pennies eventually were mine. I also learned very young that just about everyone in my family was prepared to part with at least a dime (usually a quarter) if I promised to get lost for awhile. And then there's the laundry. The one that washes the clothes gets the loose change left in the pockets or at least gets to dump the loose change into a jar that no one else bothers with. You'd think with all the loose change flowing my way that I would have developed a plan for it - spent in on something I really wanted. But if truth be told, I have no idea what eventually became of any of it.

The same no doubt is true of ideas - lots of input but not much output. Maybe tomorrow I'll design an idea catcher reminiscent of dream catchers. And maybe the next day, I'll start thinking about having a plan for the ideas that get caught. Perhaps I can create gossamer wings, attach them to the ideas and set them free to fly into the moonlight.

Blogs I Read

I haven't made any changes to my google reader but I have dramatically pruned the blogs I list on my blogger sidebar. It's a bit like pulling all the clothes out the closet and then deciding which to put back. I know which bloggers that influence me enough that I send off the occasional email to them. I'll be slowly putting bloggers back on my sidebar as it becomes clearer which ones have the most impact on my life.

Stand Up Desk

In theory, I'm quite intrigued with the idea of having a desk where I could world standing up. This sitting while on the computer does nothing for a woman's legs. I saw a small table that would have been perfect at Camp Borden but the stores on Canadian military bases are no bargain. The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking the right solution would be to create a broader top for an old bookcase so I can have my reference books near at hand. Next on the dream list is a drafting table. Maybe I'll look around for ideas of what has the potential to be turned into a drafting table.

The Twitter Song

Hope there are more social networking songs produced.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYP-wBaqQAI
It's great to have songs produced that one can identify with. I'm a bit past the love song/hurting song phase of life but I really could use some music to twitter, blog, facebook by.