Wow. Quite exciting stuff. On my way to writing about this morning’s Toastmaster speech, I found out about Kyle MacDonald’s oneredpaperclip.com adventure. Within half an hour I’d caught up on the basics via his blog: in one year he made 14 trades, starting with a red paper clip, ending with the deed to a house.

Kyle’s goal was a house. He had fun with the adventure. Supporters and unsolicited media tracked his progress and cheered him on. He wasn’t going for major glory, he was doing his thing and having a good time.

Which leads me to what I wanted to report back re: my speech this morning. In anticipation of the upcoming workshop next Wednesday (Parents, let it be easy!) I presented the first eight minutes of my presentation to the club for feedback and suggestions.

After my last two speeches, which went extraordinarily well–I felt comfortable and connected with the audience–I was a little freaked out to see straight faces that smiled only occasionally this morning. “Are they bored? I’m not connecting with them! What’s happening?!” were the panicked thoughts going through my head.

Afterwards, Life Coach Lori came up to me and gave me the low down. She said I could do away with the intro part that I had included as way of “establishing myself as qualified to be in front of them.” She said, “once you jumped into the content, which you know so well and are excited about, I perked up.”

What failed: talking about what I thought people would want to hear.
What worked: talking about what I know and love. (sounds pretty obvious when stated like that, eh?)

How many times do I need to be reminded that the most important thing that I can do today, tomorrow, whenever is to do what I love. That’s what reaches people, that’s what fuels me, that’s where the fun is.

I’m going to rewrite my workshop intro and have some fun with it!

Here is the announcement for Shawn’s upcoming workshop for parents:

Parents can learn simple solutions for staying organized at a workshop entitled “Parents: Let It Be Easy!”, on Wednesday July 19th.

You’ll learn tips, tricks, and ideas for organizing physical space and simplifying head space—make more room for peace of mind and quality family time! The workshop will be presented by Shawn Tuttle of Project Simplify, and will be held at Parents Play in Grass Valley.

Doors open at 3 PM; the presentation starts at 3:30. For more information, visit http://projectsimplify.com/speaker or to reserve a space call 274-3807.

Thanks to Yubanet, NCGold, The Union, and Dawn at Parents Play for their help in promoting this event.

In this week’s issue of The Weekly Simplifier, we highlight our site’s comments feature, and encourage folks to give posting a comment a try. Here is a place where you can test the feature out, without any pressure about what you should post.

So go ahead, post a comment! :-)

The eleventh issue of the Project Simplify newsletter The Weekly Simplifier is now archived on our newsletter archives page.

Here is a brief summary of the contents:

1. A Note From Lance
Lance asks readers to show him the way to computer simplification, and uses the “computer ate my newsletter” excuse
2. Quote of the Week
by Robert Brault
3. Article: Plan to Prevent Overwhelm
by PS Head Simplifier Shawn Tuttle
4. This Week’s Simplification Tip
The Printer Station
5. In the News & On the Web
In The News: Time management for children; plus more tips on dealing with time, and email
6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com
The Best of June
7. Keep Smiling
Happiness is a Perfume

Read the full issue here.
Subscribe to The Weekly Simplifier here.

[posted by Lance]

So my goal to post daily just hasn’t been happening (busted!) There are 101 “reasons” why this has’nt been the case. Here are 3:

• my hairdrier has been broken (I don’t use one)
• there haven’t been mangos at the grocery store
• I think there has been a raccoon rifling through the garbage at night

Ok. For real now. I have had a lot going on in different realms of my life lately, home-wise, emotionally, physically, plus some new adventures in the business realm. While in the midst of an unrelated activity I think, “oh! I need to post today!” but then nothing will be in my mind so that thought is quickly followed by, “not now!” Which, after two days of no posting, leads me to think that I have nothing else to write about. The cycle spiral downwards from there.

Enter an interesting book by James Adams called The Care and Feeding of Ideas: A Guide to Encouraging Creativity. Published in 1986/7, it is based on understanding the mechanics of the creative process so that you can work with that understanding. [Love it!]

The first chapter provided a jewel of great magnitude for me. He writes, “List-making works by forcing the mind to dwell upon the alternatives to a greater extent than it normally would.” Whoa, back up there, girl. Let me preface with 2 items. 1. This sentence was prefaced by another several paragraphs earlier, “If you are a follower of the type of creativity techniques that are oriented toward producing alternate concepts (ideas), you probably have noticed that many of them call for the expenditure of mental effort.” and 2. I immediately replaced “list-making” with “writing” for my understanding, therefore, “Writing works by forcing the mind to dwell upon the alternatives to a greater extent than it normally would.”

KA-CHUNG! Several huge mental gears just clicked into alignment.

This explains why I like to write. This explains why writing was such a pivotal factor in my development in college. Got it!

What it also explains is the importance of sitting down to write. Project Simplify’s own “tech guy” Lance Brown is a writer in his own right. During a conversation in which I was most likely lamenting my lack of writing time, he mentioned that one of the most effective ways to break through writer’s block is to just Write!

By sitting down to write and focusing on the task at hand, all my other “distractions” are pushed to the periphery. And as James Adams writes, I am “forcing alternative thinking”. I know from my own experience that following an idea in my head, say about a potential post, goes as far as, maybe, two sentences in my head. Yet writing, well, you’ve seen what is on this website + speeches + business development materials etc.

Writing often feels like fun and exploratory meandering through the mental terrain for me. It is a creative process and this brain likes new adventures.

[posted by Lance]

Does my computer make my life simpler? I find myself wondering this, after spending the bulk of the past two days doing annoying troubleshooting work trying to resolve two serious tech problems. I’m one of those who “can’t live without” my computer, so when it goes awry, it feels like everything is awry. And troubleshooting mysterious computer problems can be anything but simple.

Yet computers remain a fundamental part of modern living—troubleshooting hassles and all. And despite the challenges that a computified life presents to my growing desire for a simplified life, I remain committed to using this tool that has become an essential part of my world. (In fact, I’m using two computers right now!)

Presumably, most of us intend to keep computers as an integral part of our lives…but do they make our lives simpler? If they don’t now, can they be made to? Have you succeeded in merging “computing” and “simplicity”? If you have, please post your example here in the comments! We welcome any tips, pointers, or stories of successful computer simplification.

I wasn’t around for the struggle against British oppression that we celebrated the end of today. My awareness of our (the U.S.’s) relationship with Britain is one of ally.

This morning I was thinking about what independence means to me. This is what I came up with: complete autonomy of some other force exerting pressure on me. Could be a person, an institution, a government, a limiting belief.

Here are some things I’d like to celebrate freedom and independence of (dream on!)

• intolerance based in ignorance
• war
• violence
• insanely huge mortgages
• complacent and clueless auto drivers, especially around bicyclists
• crappy filler food with minimal nutritional value
• leaf blowers and other ridiculously loud equipment
• people purporting to know everything about something they know nothing about
• fossil fuel dependence
• people manipulating other people
• boring jobs

The list could go on for quite a while. What would you like complete independence from?