twelve things
get a new journal
Piccaddilly or Guildhall journals cost a fraction of a Moleskin so there’s no thinking about buying one. I like having a notebook around for a few reasons. one of which is that these black books make you looks smarter. another is that it’s a notetaker that is not a yellow line note pad. I’m not a list person so I don’t like the tear off nature of this kind of memory tool. and I use a tado.txt for that anyway. a journal is a good place for lots of things. I can’t tell you how to use yours only that you should use one.
make a backup
stop reading this now and go buy a new big drive. get something external, firewire (or networked) and very large. this drive is the drive that all of your everything will go on every day from now on. if you have a sister or brother make sure you send them the link of what you bought with a note BUY THIS RIGHT NOW so you don’t forget. it’s so cheap that you have no excuse other than I don’t have a drive to make a backup which is solved and delivered with 5 minutes of effort.
clean a drawer(s)
every hose has one. a drawer that catches everything. it’s full and it’s time to sort it. the most effective way to do this is to remove everything from it then replace the contents one by one. make a point to put things you will never use into a bag that you can either recycle or give away (which is like recycling).
make a year book
iPhoto has a tool for making a book. it’s really simple. you just pick the shots you want, choose a style from the list, arrange them, then click make. it’s that easy.
make 3 party mixes for you iPod
normally I’d say music player but iPod will do. the task here is to make party mixes. the idea of three mixes is to be ready for several parts of the party. new playlists give you a fresh look at your old music. if you wait until the last second it won’t be fun. build them and after building them don’t listen to your mix. you can come up with a theme yourself but I will offer you these: beginning, middle, end. traditional, childhood, now. the xmas I remember when I was 7, 12 and 18. let it snow, ready for the beach, road trip. the morning comes alive, busy leaving for lunch, five o’clock.
quit something
getting something out of your life is as important as starting new projects. the end of the year is a great time to give the heave ho to something you don’t want to keep doing. there are a few ways to quit but by far the best way is to just not do that whatever anymore. being non-dramatic about the end is important because whatever you are leaving behind is something your are leaving behind. you are over it so just leave it there and keep going.
rewire the computer
under every computer desk is a rats nest of cables, power cords and other things wire related. the task is simple. unplug every thing then plug all back to working. you should have two things at the end. extra cables and a neater system. be sure to label things that you aren’t obvious. and be REALLY careful with external power supplies for hard drives. they may look the same but they actually are not the same. you will fry the circuit board on the drive if they get mixed up.
develop the film
lots of people don’t take the time to get things off of their media devices. they leave hundreds of pictures on their camera as if it this is permanent. this is lots like how people never developed the film in their cameras. don’t do this! the habit that you want is to pull, organize and share your images while they are fresh memories. there are lots of ways to share with things like blogs, flickr, facebook and even printing the pictures. do start using something. don’t worry about getting “stuck” with one service as it’s pretty easy to move to other places.