Rest and rejuvenation are the intentions behind the Friday @ Five entries. Often these are inexpensive and low key because you recharging your batteries can be more easily achieved without running around and doing, doing, doing. And most Friday @ Five entries are geared to do with your family or friends.

So, this weekend make some cookies from scratch!

Around here oatmeal cookies with raisins and chocolate chips are the #1 choice to make at home.
I think traditionally the good old Toll House Cookies made according to the recipe on the Nestle chocolate chip bag are the most popular.

If you’re thinking, "I’ve never baked a thing…" the power of the internet brings you a video tutorial so novice and youngsters can succeed at making these cookies. Here’s the link: Toll House Cookie tutorial at ExpertVillage.com.

Imagine the aroma of the cookies in the oven tickling your nose. Visualize the reaction of you sharing your tasty treats (especially with those who think you never go in the kitchen). Picture snitching a bit of raw batter before your plop it on the cookie sheets.

Enjoy!

I refreshed a lesson the last couple weeks. The lesson: it is more effective to operate strategically than to just be organized and fast about getting things done. I am buying an investment property and the financing requires a whole lot of paper work. That is no surprise.

Being organized and able to access any necessary piece of paper in a few seconds, I was able to meet the paperwork requirement of the loan company who, for now, will remain nameless. I met the requirements in about 3 days and fax’d off some 80+ pages (it included past tax returns). The requirement I ignored was that it was due within 5 days of closing. Silly me, I got it in 35 days before closing…

Julie Morgenstern wrote the book Making Work Work a couple of years ago. It was presented to me when I attended a lecture by Julie at a local networking group. I have found that her concepts are a mixed bag. On some pages I would categorize the advice as that which is good for a professional in the first five years of their career. That is to say it seems very basic.

Other times the recommendations are mind bending. She suggests, "Should you be deciding between doing A and B, pick the activity that is closest to the revenue line." For some jobs this would be confusing guidance. For many their job and tasks are of the similar types of activities – all universally the same distance from the revenue line.

It seems to me that Julie hasn’t worked as a corporate employee. It looks like she has observed corporate environments and consulted to corporations but not dealt with the political and position pressures of huge departments and organizations.

A very interesting recommendation is "Don’t open your email for the first hour you are in the office." Radical thinking… and one most people resist stubbornly. But, this is potentially the most powerful reorganization you could do and recommendation in the book.

Skim this book but don’t buy it – borrow it from the library. Do NOT listen to it on CD. Julie reads it herself at 1/2 the speed of most audio books (I’ve listened to thousands of hours of audio books, lectures and interviews and know a good one when I hear it!) . My mind kept leaping to other topics because listening to it was so drawn out.

Spring fever is in full force here in the Mid-Atlantic region and this weekend let’s take advantage of the release from cabin fever by doing a little garage keeping for this weeks R&R (rest & regeneration). Here’s a proven step-by-step framework for you to accomplish this in one day.

1. Recruit all your family members and even a few good friends to help. (promise you’ll return the favor soon)
2. Grab some scrap paper and write category names for the items in your garage on the paper (examples: kids toys, lawn, home maintenance, hobby, and throw away)
3. Stick the labels to different areas of the driveway.
4. Empty the garage putting items by the label for their category
   While emptying the garage… put as many things as you can in the trash and donate heaps.
5. Go through each pile and put 50% more of them on the donate and trash heaps.
6. Now move your labels to the part of the garage that each category of thing will go.
7. Examine what has to go there and determine if you need some shelves (most garages need shelves end to end on every wall!) and containers.
8. Go buy the shelves and container (Home Depot, Lowe’s, Box store such as BJs) and set them up.
9. Meanwhile, sweep the garage.
10. Return items in the garage and their new home.
11. Step back and be refreshed by the easy-to-move-around-in garage 

We often talk about reducing stress and having good systems in place. Creating a back up procedure with superior equipment and software could help you avoid the single largest stress you may endure ~ losing your photographs of great vacations and loving family members, losing your business plan that took a month to put together and refine, or losing your entire address book with business & personal contacts. Did I mention losing your entire record of bookkeeping and accounting transactions?

Can you imagine the work and great things that you have created on your computer going up into thin air? For some the sick feeling would be like driving in the driveway seeing smoke coming out the windows of the house. While no one can be harmed by drive crash the effort required to rebuild the history on the computer is trying and sometime impossible.

Today I received an email from a new client saying, " I’ve been swamped and so sad that the data recovery place couldn’t retrive my photos.  Five years of photographs, garden tours, my gardens, my family and on and on.  It’s like losing everything in a fire."

Protection via duplication and strategic storage of the information on your computer is the single biggest work protection you could take. Unless you’re a geek (and I say geek in the most positive way) then go hire a geek to ensure you’re protected.

Things to consider in the discussion with your geek:

The first day of spring today is a special day in my region. Rita’s Water Ice (think Dairy Queen or Starbucks) gives away free regular water ice on this day. I’ll give you the link here: Rita’s Spring Countdown and warn you that the website is so busy today that the page isn’t even coming up. Try the main site: Rita’s Home Page.

Driving by my local Rita’s at lunchtime I saw a line that was at least 20 people long (this is a hot promotion even though it’s only 40F outside). I’m going to guess that it takes at least one to two minutes to serve each person so if you joined that line, you’d be looking at at least 30 minutes in line. And the free item you’d be getting is worth what… less than $3.

Supplement your rigid traditional power strip with a flexible and friendly power squid. Some of the equipment that we have with our computers comes with those bulky transformers right where the plug into the wall or power strip goes. In my world that has meant that I couldn’t plug a device in every one of the power outlets on the power strip.

The power squid lets you use every single outlet for a plug. It’s a handy update to a good old standby – the power strip.

Steve, who introduced me to the squids (thanks Steve!), got his at BJs. While preparing for this article I found a provider that is all about the PowerSquid. Take a look.

Jim was spending an hour or two getting started every morning after arriving at his new office. He called me to help create a routine for being able to start with meaningful activities each morning. He doesn’t know it by David Allen’s GTD name and it’s still working for him. We began to empty his mind and multiple incomplete lists onto a single list of things to do – the master list.

For the first time Jim is able to look at one place (his master list) and have prioritized direction for his day. At the end of each day he labels the ‘must do’ items for the next day on his list and puts them at the top of the list. Jim reports that he’s able to focus on and accomplish the important things each day. At 60 years old this new routine is giving him an uplifting sense of progress ~ and completion of some things that have been ‘on the back burner’ for literally 7 years. He knows the 7 year time is accurate because that has to do with settling a family member’s estate.

Are you using multiple lists and your mind to try to track the myriad of things you have to do? Whether you’re 26 or 60, a simple master list to keep ‘to dos’ in front of you is a key to using your time better and getting projects crossed off your list!

This weekend consider having a family photo event. Thanks to easy-to-use digital cameras or inexpensive disposables you can snap a whole series of family photos for creating memories. Mother nature is offering cooperative outdoor weather and beautiful spring or autumn skies – depending on your hemisphere. Climb a tree, pose in front of the horses (they don’t have to be your horses), or stand under a street sign with your family name. If the weather won’t be cooperative, try some indoor setting(s). How about indoor rock climbing, at a fountain in a nearby mall, or at the table of a lush restaurant?

Be crazy, be serious, be thinking about a shot for this year’s Christmas card, let the kids set things up, dress in team colors (all in jeans with navy shirts, perhaps). Remember to get up close!

(That photo is my niece doing her favorite sport)

Friday @ 5:00 is a weekly suggestion for R&R (rest and regeneration) on the weekend. Recharging your batteries so you’re energetic is an important part of be productive. For related posts, click on Friday @ 5:00 under the categories heading in the left column.

So many of us have our days scheduled with meeting after meeting. Once a meeting starts late it probably will run late and the domino affect hits each subsequent meeting of the day. Or, you’re running from one meeting to the next without time to breathe.

Scott Berkun gives some impactful thoughts on starting meetings on time in his article: How to Start Meetings on Time. Some of his key thoughts: If you call a meeting, do your job; enforce the clock; and most importantly: only have meetings that matter.

You may find it’s effect to say, "We’re aiming to keep this a 30-minute meeting so we must move on to another topic."