Asking for business



On a day trip to Carlingford, County Louth spotted this handwritten notice on the glass door of the  Oystercatcher restaurant.... Simple, fun, effective.....

Looking for the bird


There are lots of trees near our home and the morning air is filled with the sounds of birds that inhabit them. Many different varieties are regular visitors to our garden and bring with them their instinctive pecking order. Recently there have been some brightly coloured newcomers that we did not recognise and decided to look up in a reference book of birds.
While the book might be a helpful reference for experienced bird watchers it's not so practical for us as the pictures are in black and white. More practical is a no longer updated reference point on a BBC website page It not only shows colour pictures but provides a sound recording of each bird.
Listening to those recordings brought to mind a piece of advice i was once given on how to slow down a busy lifestyle and be in the moment. The advice was simple: When you hear a bird, look for it.
Now that's easy for the large doves that think they own our property and for the magpies that cackle noisy warnings of approaching cats. It's a different matter for those smaller birds singing from those nearby trees. They are not that easy to find and it can take five minutes or so before eventually spotting one.
The advice is sound. The search is relaxing and takes your mind from everyday concerns for a while.
Got 5 minutes? Why not spend them in the "hear" and now?


Note: This post first published on my Improving with Age blog..


Better looking at it than looking for it



We had some electricians at home recently.  They were fitting extra power points and  we talked about where the new sockets would be positioned.  That decided we also agreed that rather than remove some existing sockets we would leave them in place in case they were needed.  The electrician sparked something in my mind when he said, "Better looking at it than looking for it!"

That got me to thinking about applying that notion to working life; to office equipment in general and desktop organisation in particular.  How much time do we spend looking for one item or another that if it was close to hand might actually make us more time-effective?  Where do we keep that stuff?  On the desktop? In a drawer?  And if it is shared office equipment, are we quick to return it to where we got it?  That brings to mind another piece of homespun wisdom, "A place for everything and everything in its place?"

Question?
What items of office equipment do you think should be close to hand when you are working?  What do you think you are better looking at than looking for?