If you were a fan of the TV show “Monk”, as I was, you will recognize the phrase “a blessing and a curse.” It’s how the title character, a brilliant detective with phenomenal observational and deductive powers, described his talent. I recently found myself in a blessing/curse situation. I was asked by my professional association, the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), to record a class that would become part of a new certificate program. I had delivered this class at…
Read more →
The struggle to avoid telemarketers is real. For many years, I have been screening my incoming calls by not picking up the phone until I hear the caller speak on my answering machine. Since I’ve gotten caller ID, I can sometimes short-circuit the process if I recognize the caller’s phone number. Nevertheless, taking these precautions saps my time and attention. I was intrigued to recently learn of a service called Nomorobo. In 2012, the FTC issued a Robocall Challenge, offering $50,000 in prize money to innovators who created solutions…
Read more →
A few months ago, my iPhone alerted me that an update to the iOS operating system was available for me to download and install. Usually I do those things right away, but my computer guy had advised that the update was buggy and that we should wait for the next one. For several weeks, a visual indicator — a small red circle with the number 1 in it — appeared on top of the Settings icon on my iPhone. It made me…
Read more →
I’m not a big fan of reinventing the wheel. Once I figure something out, I don’t want to have to waste the time to figure it out again in the future. For that reason, I am a frequent creator and user of checklists. When I was younger, my memory was sharp enough that I simply remembered everything. When I was in high school taking geometry, I learned the acronym SOHCAHTOA which explains how to figure out the sine, cosine, and…
Read more →
I hate to shop, so the advent of on-line shopping has been a blessing for me. Since I do a lot of on-line purchasing, I also do a fair bit of returning. I’m usually pretty good about packaging up the stuff I don’t want and sending it back the next day, or maybe the day after that. However, there was one package that sat around for almost two weeks. I couldn’t get myself to do it! Usually the visual cue of the box near…
Read more →
