Tag: tips

Categories
House

How to hang things on the wall with screws

Liked Mercury Stardust on Instagram (Instagram)

“How to hang a mirror in the wall. This will work on plaster & lathe and drywall. This also works on pictures, but for shelves and TVs I recommend always finding at least one stud. (The wood frame holding up the wall behind the plaster) #DIY #Lgbtqqia #Homerepair #Askmercury”

Using tape to mark the locations then moving the tape to a level — brilliant! šŸ˜‚ Those EZ anchors look way easier to use than the ones you need a drill for… probably not strong enough to hang my curtain rods tho šŸ¤”

Categories
Writing

Developmental edits on your own work

Bookmarked Self Editing Tips: Development edits (KJ Charles)

So here are some ways you can start to whip your MS into shape. (Again: this is not a substitute for a professional edit.)

Categories
Entrepreneurship Getting Shit Done

Goal setting considerations

Watched Watch this before you set goals for 2023 āœØ from YouTube

Watch this before you set goals for 2023.

Appreciate this reminder to pace myself in goal setting, and to consider what lifestyle I want and how I want to feel about achieving goals.

Right now I am hoping I have waded through the years of ineffectualness and pushing myself without a break, that I can finally publish the book I’ve been working on for years. Her points about dealing with trauma and prioritizing mental health rings true for me too.

Her explanation of pushing towards goals no matter what makes me think of land nav: you can shoot an azimuth for the destination and scramble cross country on a straight line even though it means climbing straight up a mountain, or you can take the gradual trail that cuts around the slope and is a longer distance but less exhausting and less dangerous.

Categories
Marketing

Conversational copywriting

Bookmarked My guide to conversational copywriting (Marketing Examples)

Conversational copy is writing how you talk. No sales megaphone. No corporate drone. Just a conversation. But that’s easier said than done. So I’ve put together this guide (packed with examples) to help teach you.

Categories
Entrepreneurship The Internet

Looking better on video calls

Bookmarked

Categories
Self Care

Carry a book instead of your phone

Liked Daydreaming is better than doomscrolling (gilest.org)

Anna carries a book around the house the same way the rest of us carry our phones. She reads it in those same moments when the rest of us reach for the comfort of our black mirror.

I already read a lot, but like this idea of replacing the phone as my go-to distraction around the house with a book.

Categories
Learning

Engaging online classes

Bookmarked The State Change Method: How to deliver engaging live lectures on Zoom by Wes Kao (Wes Kao)

State Change Method: Aim for a state change every 3ā€“5 minutes to break up the monotony of a monologue-style lecture.

Categories
Relationships

Read We Should Get Together

Read We Should Get Together by Kat Vellos

Have you recently moved to a new city and are struggling to make friends?
Do you find yourself constantly making plans with friends that fall through?
Are you more likely to see your friendsā€™ social media posts than their faces?

You arenā€™t alone! Millions of adults struggle with an uncomfortable and persistent ache: platonic longing, which is the unfulfilled wish for authentic, resilient, close friendships. But it doesnā€™t have to be this way. Making and maintaining friendships during adulthood can be hardā€”or, with a bit of intention and creativity, joyful.

Author Kat Vellos, experience designer and founder of Better Than Small Talk, shares the best tools to overcome the four most common challenges to adult friendships: constant relocation, full schedules, the demands of partnership and family, and our cultureā€™s declining capacity for compassion and intimacy in the age of social media. Combining expert research and personal stories pulled from hundreds of interviews with a diverse group of adults, We Should Get Together is the modern handbook for making and maintaining stronger friendships.

With this book you will learn to:
ā€¢ Have deeper and more meaningful conversations
ā€¢ Conquer awkwardness in social situations
ā€¢ Become less dependent on your phone
ā€¢ Identify and prioritize quality connections
ā€¢ Balance friendship and everyday obligations
ā€¢ Create closer, more durable friendships

Full of charming illustrations, relatable stories, and practical tips, We Should Get Together is the perfect gift for anyone who wants to have dedicated, life-enriching friends, and who wants to be that kind of friend, too.

A fitting follow-up to read after Seek You‘s discussion of American loneliness.

Different from but complementary to Frientimacy, with some overlap but more of a focus on looking inward at your own blockers to spending time with people and getting to know people on a deeper level. Probably more similar to The Art of Showing Up.

Her four “seeds of connection” for making (and keeping) friends are:

  • compatibility
  • frequency
  • commitment
  • proximity
Continue reading “Read We Should Get Together”
Categories
House Lifestyle

Household Changes to Make in 2022

“[V]alue the ease of putting something away above the ease of finding it…” – Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD by Susan C. Pinsky

To Do

Stuff to Set Up

  • Name the kitchen shelves
  • Install hooks for jackets / hats / robes / towels in bedroom, bathrooms, by front door
  • Create an Active Paperwork area
  • Replace toilet paper holders with ones without a spring to load
  • Get lidless, clear plastic tubs or open- front stacking bins to corral items

Habit Change

  • Designate a spot in the house that’s allowed to always be messy
  • Buy only items for which you have an imminent plan or need
  • Designate a weekly time for admin

Prompts

The Art of Showing Up by Rachel Wilkerson Miller:

  • What messy, cluttered, or dirty areas in your home make you feel bad or make life more difficult?
  • What specifically makes you low-key mad every single day?
  • What gets in the way of cooking?
  • What causes tension?
  • What makes it harder to engage in or enjoy the other things you care about?
  • Rate how you feel about each chore on a scale of 1 to 10

Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD by Susan C. Pinsky:

  • Can I find what I need? Where would a stranger look for this?
  • Is this storage conveniently located? Where does this item most often get used?
  • Is it easy to retrieve and put away? How can I make it more visible?
  • Does this storage require little or no maintenance?
  • How can I change this room so I can tidy it in 2 minutes?

Designing a joyful home:

  • What kinds of moments do I want more of in my life?
  • Where specifically do those happen?
  • How can I change my house to create opportunity for more of those moments?
Categories
Getting Shit Done Lifestyle

Read Indistractable

Read Indistractable by Nir Eyal

You sit down at your desk to work on an important project, but a notification on your phone interrupts your morning. Later, as you’re about to get back to work, a colleague taps you on the shoulder to chat. At home, screens get in the way of quality time with your family. Another day goes by, and once again, your most important personal and professional goals are put on hold.

What would be possible if you followed through on your best intentions? What could you accomplish if you could stay focused and overcome distractions? What if you had the power to become “indistractable”?

International best-selling author, former Stanford lecturer, and behavioral design expert, Nir Eyal, wrote Silicon Valley’s handbook for making technology habit-forming. Five years after publishing Hooked, Eyal reveals distraction’s Achilles’ heel in his groundbreaking new book.

In Indistractable, Eyal reveals the hidden psychology driving us to distraction. He describes why solving the problem is not as simple as swearing off our devices: Abstinence is impractical and often makes us want more.

Eyal lays bare the secret of finally doing what you say you will do with a four-step, research-backed model. Indistractable reveals the key to getting the best out of technology, without letting it get the best of us.

A quick read with a useful approach to countering distraction. I agree with the author that we like to blame the thing that distracts us; to overcome distraction, we have to face the root of our distraction — basically, discomfort. He breaks his approach into four chunks:

  1. Internal triggers
  2. External triggers
  3. Make opportunities for traction
  4. Prevent distraction with pacts

This book is broken into parts composed of very short, focused chapters, each closing with a bulleted list of key takeaways. I think I liked the format? But sometimes the brevity of the chapters left them feeling hollow of content.

I skipped the section on kids and some of the work chapters.

Continue reading “Read Indistractable”