The Feeling Good Handbook by David Burns. A nuts-n-bolts handbook for DIY cognitive therapy—a sort of "look under the hood" of your moods and emotions. I would recommend it not just for individuals with clinical depression, but for anyone who struggles with negative thoughts and self-defeating behaviors.

I think his tips are sensible, but if he can actually triple his productivity using them, then his baseline productivity has got to be pretty pathetic. It seems like it's geared toward the "young and restless" set, who are perfectly capable of spending a day accomplishing precisely zero. Me? On a typical day I…

Let's see—

I am currently freelancing "mommie hours" from 9:30 to 3:30 or 4:00, plus an hour here or there in the evenings and on weeks, which brings it into the 35-40 hour range. Those hours allow me to get by without having to mess around with childcare. I'm very efficient at what I do and accomplish more in that time than a…

@fhic

I dunno. When "the path he took" winds up different from the one he planned out, and the plan needs to be rewritten ever few months to match reality, it starts sounding like the "plan for victory" in Iraq. No 'fense to J.D. I guess I have a hard time understanding why failing to meet a "budget" led to guilt-induced…

@GEEKGRRL77

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I think there are two conceptually different types of procrastination: one is the type where you're supposed to be working and instead you are playing Freecell, or writing blog comments. The other type is when you are supposed to return a phone call "sometime today" or pay your bills "sometime this week" or change the…

Nowadays I'm a freelance editor. I use Word in part because I need cross-platform compatibility with clients for things like tracked changes, comments, and footnotes. Even if I got to pick, though, I'd stick with Word, because I'm one of those rare birds that actually DOES use a lot of those obscure features that are…

I ditched MS Money when my BoA started to charge me for automatic account updates. I use Wesabe now, which I'll call "semi-auto." Money in your deposit accounts is positive, purchases on your cc's are expenses, and you don't have to enter a d*mn thing to know at a glance how much you've spent on your cc's and whether…

I think I should be able to buy "procrastination credits" for every minute I spend doing work stuff when I'm off the clock.

It's a good idea to get fitted at a good running shop when you're first starting out. I've seen people make the mistake of buying the most expensive shoes, rather than the shoes that are best suited to their foot shape and biomechanics. You can save a few bucks by buying last year's models, once you know what line(s)…

The goal of entertaining a preschooler for free is pretty easy. A four-year-old is the ultimate cheap date! I sometimes get annoyed when "kids" is used as shorthand for "5-and-unders." If I told my 12-yo to amuse himself with a paper-cup telephone, he'd look at me like I had just sprouted a second head. The poker idea…

One technique I use is the "3 things" habit—which is to get yourself in the habit of putting away or dealing with 3 things when you're about to leave a room. Even tackling a small area can take 10-15 minutes if it's gotten really bad, but" 3 things" takes only a couple of minutes at most, and you can almost always…

I don't think the human brain is really designed to work effectively for 2-4 hours at a shot, 8+ hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks out of the year. Mental burnout is the white-collar equivalent of repetitive stress injuries in factory workers—except that while factory workers are relatively interchangeable, many…

A trip to a U-pick produce farm is a great cheap family outing. You have to pay for what you harvest, obviously. But if you think about it as just a funner way of buying groceries, the entertainment factor is free. Sometimes big U-pick operations will have additional fun-and-games as well, and a season that runs from…

Does the CDC recommend we boil our Kool-Aide(tm) and Nestea(tm) as well to kill off harmful nasties?

When I used Outlook, I put a due date on my actionable e-mails. I some e-mails required me to take some specific action 6 months in the future. This allows you to "set it and forget it"—6 months from now, bam, up pops the alarm.

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