How can a list of good sunscreens simplify your life?

Well, you can spend less time wondering which one to get. But I guess I should start with, Why use sunscreen in the first place?

Call it an investment in your healthy future. Rather than have to deal with removing potentially cancerous skin issues, take care of your skin Now.

Last week I saw an article by Julie Deardorf called “Is sunscreen a smokescreen?” (on Julie’s blog connected with the Chicago Tribune)Not all sunscreens protect you from both UVA & UVB rays, and the U.S. basically allows manufacturers to claim whatever they want.

She reports that the Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org — site seemed to be down when I tried today 7/28/07) has conducted studies and research to find which sunscreens are doing a good job protecting our sensitive skin (and which don’t).

The 5 best suncreens according to the Environmental Working Group:

1. UV Natural Sport SPF 30
2. Badger SPF 30
3. Peter Thomas Roth Titanium Dioxide Sunblock 30
4. Lavera Sunscreen Neutral SPF 40 (company website?)
5. Vanicream Sunscreen Sport SPF 35 (company website?)

rosacea
About-Rosacea.com (I’ve got my radar on for rosacea products as I have that sensitivity on my nose) has their own list of recommended sunscreens. Here are the brands that show up on the above “best 5″ list as well as the About-Rosacea list:

• Vanicream SPF 15
• Peter Thomas Roth Day Protection Cream

other sun exposure tips
The article “Sizing Up Sunscreen” from MSNBC.com’s Newsweek refers to the same Environmental Working Group study as well as includes other sun safety reminders like staying out of the sun during peak hours, apply sunscreen liberally and before exposure, wear a hat, the kind of things we can be reminded of repeatedly and still not head.

The costs is just too distant for most of us. “What’s a little sun now?” One look at all the little scars my dad now has from “minor procedures” after years in the So. Cal sun as a kid is a good enough reminder for me to keep the sunscreen on my nose and the sun off my shoulders.

I’d like to introduce my new ride. It’s a 2003 VW, dark gray, standard transmission (couldn’t adapt to my last car, the hybrid–an automatic!). Yes, it has windows, seats, and a hatchback, too. Most interestingly, it’s a diesel. I sold the hybrid for a diesel so I can fill ‘er up on biodiesel, the veggie fuel.

Unfortunately, I’m several months ahead of the supply side of the equation in my area. According to local grassroots biodiesel sources, sounds like we’ll be getting a retail pump sometime before December.

Fortunately, I was called to the thriving metropolis of the Bay Area, population: many. I got to spend the weekend with my good friend Leila who currently lives in Minneapolis. We cruised around to beaches, to San Francisco, and to yoga studios. She’s now at an Integrated Yoga Therapy training program at Mt. Madonna Retreat Center. Go, Leila!!

I was excited to be able to choose between several biodiesel fill up stations. The first one didn’t fly so well because they require that you sign up with them before filling up at the pump. The pro here is that since it’s cardlock, the pump can be open all day without an attendant. The con is that you can’t sign up right there for the first time, which I found out in San Anselmo. Drats!

Then in Santa Cruz, we found The Oasis (my name, not theirs). They have taken over a former fill up station and converted it to an alternative fuel, people-powered, organic promoting endeavor. COOL! Instead of selling cigarettes and beer, they sell Odwalla and organic snacks. Instead of greasy floors in the garage, they rent bikes. Their actual name is Pacific Biofuel, Inc located on the corner of Ocean and Soquel.

Will, the very friendly guy running the place made my first time easy and fun. In fact, he reached over the counter and gave me a big hug when I said it was the first time for my car and me. He answered all of my nervous, newbie questions and even posed for a picture to record the occasion.

He gave me a bumper sticker for my first fill up. Maybe they should make another bumper sticker that says, “Once you go biodiesel, you never go back”.

You can imagine my friend Leila and I had quite an entertaining adventure at my first biodiesel fill up. Happy car! Happy driver!

Now I’d like to be able to say, no more polluting! No more foreign-country-fossil-fuel dependency! How can you get more American than that?

Alas, ’tis not as rosy a picture than that. Perhaps I’m over thinking it, maybe I’m just ready for teleporting… My friend Mark summed it up with this Big Question (after hearing about my fill-up adventure), “I wonder if it was organic biodiesel?” Indeed. The more soy beans grown, the more likely they are to be grown on mono-crop, monolithic farms using GMOs and chemicals to heavily assist the growing process. Ah sigh. Need to make peace with the whole transportation thing at some point.

[Note: since I wrote the above this morning, I stopped at German Auto in San Luis Obispo for a burnt out rear blinker light.

They informed me that they’ve had increased business because of people switching to biofuel. The fuel is such a strong solvent that it not only cleans out the system, it also drys out the seals and leaves them leaking “like a sieve”.

They said the new cars, with their rubber seals, just aren’t made like the old school diesels which had steel parts and could take any oil for fuel. Their suggestion was to wait for the diesel-low sulfer that came out last month and should be making its way to fill up stations soon.] Not sure if I’ll completely heed their advice and cut out biodiesel altogether. Though car in shop is a sad car indeed.

What’s happening with new diesels going biodiesel? What are other people’s experiences?

The little things that make a difference…

If you were going to cut a good friend’s hair, would you use a pair of dull-ended kid’s scissors? Not likely!

If you had to move a pile of compost from one side of your property to the other, would you use a hand trowel? Of course not!

If you needed to get to a city 200 miles away quickly, would you hop on a moped? I hope not!

And now the biggie:
If you wanted an easily flowing office and all the systems to support you in your work, would you use a 3-hole punch that can barely make it through 4 pages at a time (you know the variety: the low-end, entry level, now-you-can-say-you-have-one, who-in-their-right-mind-would-pay-more-than-$10-for-a-hole-punch)? Apparently!

Could it be a coincidence that the last two organizing clients I’ve had didn’t like putting things in binders because they didn’t like having to punch the paper and it “just so happened” that their 3-hole punches were practically falling apart and on the verge of achieving the designation of “paperweight”? I think not.

Make it easy on yourself!

Maybe it’s not the reminder you need. Maybe you just weren’t thinking simple enough. We talk “systems” and we think, “must be complex, complicated stuff”. Your tools to do the job are part of your systems. Right tools for the job. That’s what sets the Simplifiers apart from the wanna-bes.

This one has a handy handle & lists for about $23 at Staples:

The forty-second issue of the Project Simplify newsletter The Simplifier is now archived on our newsletter archives page.

Here is a brief summary of the contents:

1. A Note From Shawn
Doing things differently to make life a little sweeter
2. Our Featured Quote
by Arnold Glascow
3. Article: Doing it Right
by PS Head Simplifier Shawn Tuttle
4. This Week’s Simplification Tip
Magic in the 21st Century
5. In the News
Get financial records in order, Review: “The 4-Hour Workweek”, and Organizing the Empty Nest
6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com
Novamind
7. Keep Smiling
Clark and Michael

Read the full issue here.
Subscribe to The Simplifier here.
[posted by Lance]

This article originally appeared in The Simplifier #41.

Planning Your Own Personal Masterpieces

By Shawn Tuttle

This article is part of a series on the 5 Core Concepts. We’ve covered creating meaningful goals, visualizing & clearing obstacles. Next up: planning…

Nature has done an outstanding job designing magnificent trees. They can grow in the most unlikely places, reach outstanding heights, and sway in the mightiest winds without breaking. A single mature tree may have hundreds of branches, thousands of leaves, and miles of roots—all in perfect proportion for the survival of that tree. Considering the sheer number of parts of the tree, this could seem a daunting task! But the tree inherently follows a process that creates each individual part, and each of these parts fit together to form the tree. What seems complex and grand is really just an ordered collection of smaller, simpler parts and processes.

It’s quite similar to creating, say, a five-course meal. Ingredients, utensils, pots and pans are combined in a step-by-step process that results in a variety of (hopefully!) delicious dishes. And it all starts with the vision of a delicious dinner…

Now say your meaningful goal is a little more complex than a dinner. For example, you want to write your first book, or some equally-big goal tied to your hopes and dreams. The vision would be you as a published and successful author. Now how to cook up that vision? Time to start planning!

The goal of planning is clarity. Planning is identifying the various parts of your vision and breaking them down into doable actions. Those actions performed in a certain order allows you to create masterpieces—whether they be grandiose meals or a finished book!

Here are the main parts of the planning process:

-Take stock of resources
Examples: my friend Joe is a published author, I’m getting an ezine for first time authors, my friend Mary is a writing coach and editor
The resources that you identify here may or may not be ones you end up utilizing. You may go to a certain website for cooking techniques and instead end up finding a great recipe. The point is that we often need assistance, education, coaching, and camaraderie through the hard or unfamiliar segments of the journey. Taking stock of your resources helps you identify who (or what) might serve in these capacities.

-Ask questions
Examples: Should I get an agent? Should I self-publish? How long should the book be? Who is my target audience? What’s in the way* of my achieving this?
Who, what, where, why, when… there will be a lot of questions along the way! Questions help clarify and focus your efforts, so keep asking them. It’s amazing how you become aware of magazine articles, websites, and conversations that “just happen” to help answer your questions.

-Identify sub-projects
Examples: research topic, outline book, interview experts, find publishers
This is a crucial step for turning mountains into mere pebbles. “A five course meal” can be a daunting venture. “One appetizer, one soup, one vegetable dish, one meat dish, and one dessert” is much more manageable. These are your sub-projects. You’ll break each of these down even further.

-Identify actions (and minor sub-projects)
Examples: call Mary the writing coach, block off daily writing times in schedule, create timeline to follow
Keep breaking the sub-projects into smaller and smaller parts and/or questions until you arrive at an action to take. If an action will take several steps to accomplish, it’s actually another sub-project. As long as the end result elicits a “no problem” response from you, consider it ready for your ToDo list.

-Organize the information
Examples.: notes from interviews, potential publishers, the outline
Get your thoughts organized. You wouldn’t try to create a five- course meal based on recipes written on dozens of scattered Post-it notes. Nor can you always rely on your memory to store all the details involved in a complex project. Organized information gives your brain logical steps to follow, and gives it an opportunity to see what’s missing.
Ideas for organizing info:

• Try a binder with dividers for each major sub-project and for resources. The benefit of a binder is that all the info is contained in one place and it’s easy to take with you. Plus, adding a visual representation of your goal to the front of the binder continually reminds you of what you’re doing all this work for.
  Disadvantages: you take the whole binder with you even if you only want one section. Also, inserting papers the 3-hole punch process.
• Creating a file for each major sub-project has the advantage of being easier to drop in papers plus you can take one file with you if that’s the only one you are working on.
  Disadvantages: they get separated more easily and it’s easier to misplace files than a binder.

-Assign timeframes
Examples: complete research by April, finish first draft by June, send second draft to editor by early August
It’s been said that a goal is merely a dream with a timeframe. And it just so happens that deadlines are very convincing for motivating action. Some sub-projects will take more time than others, get a sense for how they all can work together at the right time. Decide on recipes by Tuesday, get shopping done by Friday, prepare meal on Saturday. The meal is on behalf of a friend moving in August, set dinner date for end of July.

Remember: the goal of planning is clarity. Identifying sub-projects and resources, assigning timeframes, and then organizing your incoming information within a structure transforms your project from an amorphous jumble into your emerging vision. Once the focused action items have guided your sub-projects to completion, you can add the finishing touches of candlelight and fine china to complete your masterpiece!

—

Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify.

*You may want to reference “Clearing Your Way to a Brighter Flame” for more on clearing obstacles.

The answer is yes. I’d go take pictures but ’tis dark right now. Perhaps tomorrow.

About a year ago I wrote about the apple tree in my front yard (in article Grow Your Business Like a Tree). The poor tree has been pruned like no tree should ever have to be pruned in order to exist in a space that is too confined.

Well, after an ideal spring of rains and prolific blossoms that escaped nasty hail storms, the tree sprouted an absolutely unruly number of apples. Truly unruly. These little apples (best in the neighborhood according to late afternoon strolling folks) have been growing at an alarming rate. Still being new to apple tree care (does apple.com support these apples? I think not, but… they’d get good business around here this year if they did!), I was too slow in wondering how much to thin the tree because two branches of significant size have snapped under the weight of apples.

I find it odd that a tree would sabotage itself by growing too much fruit. But then the tree is not of natural shape. Sustainable growth is so important! Not just in the use of resources, but also in consideration of the current infrastructure. Looking ahead, stretching, and growing is important, but working within the current reality is crucial!

I’m a couple months short of 3 years with Project Simplify. While my focus is to help people do what they want and love to do by making their office & life management easier, I am also a strong supporter of full-life simplification.

Years ago, while living in Santa Barbara I was car-free for 3 or 4 years, choosing instead to bicycle commute. I rarely ate out, preferring to make my food. The same clothes would appear on my back for years, finally getting the boot to the local thrift store once the style was just too dated.

So what’s the confession? I still haven’t read Duane Elgin’s (now classic) book, Voluntary Simplicity (oh me gads!!). It’s on order. =)

I probably thought that I was probably already doing the stuff that he’d probably have written about… so why use up more paper and have another book on the shelf? Well, I just finished reading the first half of his report, co-authored with Arnold Mitchell, titled “Voluntary Simplicity“. It was published in 1977. the downloadable pdf is under
REPORTS & ARTICLES
2. Sustainability & Simplicity

OR you can get the (revised 1998–correction 7/10/07 to 1993 per book’s author) book, which presumably would have suggestions, ideas, and even some inspiration here:
Voluntary Simplicity,
Revised Edition: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich

What I found particularly interesting was that even 30 years ago, the authors understood that it would be the desire for inner growth that would provide the fuel to change people’s lifestyles, not the somewhat conceptual belief that we’d either be annihilated by resource depletion (or fighting over) IF pollution doesn’t finish us off first. And that “each person will consider whether his or her level and pattern of consumption fits, with grace and integrity, into the practical art of daily living” (from page 5 of the report).

This has translated to people with widely varying lifestyles and convictions:

• no car, 10 year old car, hybrid
• only grow my own veggies, buy them from the nearest market, only from a health food store
• no technology, phone and electricity, cell phone/laptop

Widely diverse, yet all chosen with personal consideration of “grace and integrity”. Each decision seeking to incorporate energy and material consumption, work, and personal growth “into the practical art of daily living”.

I look forward to reading the book!