- RT @bargainr: Life in North Korea is absolutely dreadful http://nyti.ms/dAcL26 #
- RT @bitfs: Weekly Favorites and Gratitude!: My Favorite Posts this Week Jeff at Deliver Away Debt threw together the .. http://bit.ly/9J0gGo #
- @LiveRealNow is giving away a copy of Delivering Happiness(@dhbook). Follow and RT to enter. http://bit.ly/czd31X # #
- Baseless claims, biased assumptions, poor understanding of history. Don't bother. #AnimalSpirits #KeynesianCult #
- RT @zappos: Super exciting! "Delivering Happiness" hit #1 on NY Times Bestseller list! Thanks everyone! Details: http://bit.ly/96vEfF #
- @ericabiz Funny, we found a kitten in a box last week. Unfortunately, it was abandoned there, not playing. Now, we have a 5th cat. in reply to ericabiz #
Distraction
At work, there are a dozen coworkers who can(and do) interrupt me. Though its not in my actual job description, there are a dozen customers with my direct line.
On an average day, I get interrupted at least ten times with issues that require my full attention. When an issue requires my full attention it throws me off my stride. Is an issue requires ten minutes to resolve, discuss, or explain, and it takes another ten minutes to recover my “groove”, that is twenty minutes wasted out of about every fifty. That is almost half of my day unavailable for the things that are strictly within my job description. On a good day.
Naturally, this takes a toll on my productivity.
Avoiding Distractions
1. Warn People. If you have been allowing interruptions and distractions, it may come as a shock to your coworkers that easy time is over. Send an email to everyone who normally expects your attention.
2. Turn off your email. I check my email three times per day. Morning, noon, and night. An auto-response explaining your plan may be helpful.
3. Unplug the phone. I’m fortunate to have a “Do not disturb” button on my phone. Unplug it, turn off the ringer, or drop it in the sink. Just don’t answer it.
4. Close your door. This isn’t always possible, but if it is, do it. It provides a wonderful psychological barrier to anybody thinking about interrupting you.
5. Block the internet. If you have an opportunity to work unmolested, don’t waste it on the internet. BE PRODUCTIVE!
Now, is this a sustainable solution? I’m not sure. I work in a small company and have varied responsibilities, including reviewing potential contracts, demonstrations, and a bit of high-level customer care. It doesn’t appear to be possible to sequester myself every day, but I’m making an attempt to do so on at least once every other week.
How do you keep work distractions to a minimum?
Resolving Legal Disputes
Dispute resolution has to do with the impartial rectification of conflict between individuals or parties. More specifically it is the utilization and execution of methods that are designed to resolve conflicts. In a case in which there is a dispute between people or groups, often times a third, neutral, party is selected to be an impartial representative for the disputing persons. Although dispute resolution can refer to resolutions both in and out of the court, it mainly applies to disputes that are settled outside of the legal framework of the judicial system.
Two of the most common types of dispute resolution are known as adjudicative and consensual. While adjudicative resolution requires a third party to mediate the outcome, such as a judge or jury, and usually involves some form of litigation, consensual resolution is the attempt to solve the issue between the two disputing parties without involving a third party, although at times a neutral arbitrator will be selected to preside over the case, though they will often be there not so much for authoritative purposes but more as a council to keep things fair. There is also a third upcoming type of dispute resolution, online dispute resolution, or ODR, which has become more popular in recent years with the rise of the internet’s prominence in daily life, but it is mainly the application of traditional consensual resolution practices, only adapted to the online environment.
Many disputes can be solved simply through adherence to the law, however, sometimes issues arise that the legal structure isn’t equipped to handle, and so a third party is chosen to resolve the conflict. These types of conflict fall within the jurisdiction of the law and so will be relegated to the political system for arbitration. Judicial resolutions are conflicts that will be, hopefully, settled by the court. In the United States, this is often the case with dispute resolution. This form of resolution usually involves litigation. This is the use of outside individuals to argue for or against the disputing parties. In a courtroom, the lawyers are the litigators, while the judge and jury listen to the arguments in order to come to their decisions.
Extrajudicial resolution is non-court settlement of conflict. Also known as alternative dispute resolution, or ADR, this is what people are usually referring to when discussing dispute resolution. ADR is usually more efficient, cost effective, and less time consuming than judicial resolutions. Extrajudicial resolution concerns various types of ways to settle conflict. These include arbitration and mediation. In arbitration neutral individuals will listen to both sides of an argument and render a decision based on evidence. Unlike the court systems, this proceeding doesn’t necessarily include a binding agreement with the parties.
Mediation is used in extrajudicial resolution as a way to open a dialogue between conflicting parties. The idea is to use a trained neutral third party in order to come up with unique solutions to solve the issue. A mediator is trained to be both an effective negotiator as well as an excellent communicator. A mediator is like a judge in that they cannot take sides, and they do not give legal advice either. Their decisions are not obligatorily followed, though they tend to be followed since the mediators are trained to make decisions that benefit both parties.
The techniques used in dispute resolution can be used both in and outside of the court room. It is often used by individuals who wish to speed up the process by not having to get into the political system. However, they are useful in many cases where individuals wish to come to the most beneficial agreement for all the parties involved.
Charity is Selfish
I try to give 10% of my income to charity. I don’t succeed every year, but I do try.
I don’t give because I’m generous. I give because I’m selfish.
If you give to charity, you are too.
I’m not talking about people who give to charity strictly for the tax deduction, though that is selfish too. I’m referring specifically to the people who give to charity out of the goodness of their hearts.
If I give a thousand dollars worth of clothes to a homeless shelter, I get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that I helped people stay warm.
If I send $100 to the Red Cross for whatever terrible disaster happened shortly before I made the donation, it makes me feel good to have contributed to saving those lives.
The put-the-inner-city-kids-on-a-horse thing we do? Makes me happy to get those kids into a positive situation.
Donating blood? Yay, me! I’m saving lives!
While it’s nice to help other people, that’s not the ultimate reason I’m doing it. I do it because it makes me feel good about myself to help other people, particularly people who–for whatever reason–can’t help themselves.
That’s the basis of altruism. It’s not about helping others, it’s about feeling good about helping others.
The truly selfish, the evil dogooders, are the ones who want to raise taxes to give it away as “charity”. They get to feel like they are doing something and helping others while not actually contributing themselves and, at the same time, stealing that warm fuzzy feeling from the people who are providing the money to start with.
Evil.
Charity has to be done at a personal, local level or the benefits to the giver are eliminated while the benefits to the receiver are lessened. Bureaucracy doesn’t create efficiency.
For the record, if it’s taken by force, by tax, it isn’t charity. Charity cannot be forced. Forcing charity is, at best, a fraudulent way for petty politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, and activists to feel they have power over others.
Again, evil.
Vacation, Shmaycation, Staycation?
Last week was our family vacation. This year, we decided to keep it cheap, since we raided our savings a few months ago to cover my son’s vision therapy.
Here’s what we did:
Friday (Yes, I started vacation on a Friday): My wife worked a half day, then we drove to visit my parents, roughly 120 miles north of our house. $110 for gas, round-trip, and $10 for drive-through lunch. $120 total.
Saturday: We went to the county fair and Dairy Queen. $18 for admission. $30 for ride tickets. $35 for food and ice cream. The ride tickets were totally worth it. My son and I discovered that he can handle the fun rides, which thrills me. $83 total.
Sunday: We had a picnic at the bottom of Inspiration Peak, the third highest point in Minnesota, followed by a hike to the top. That evening, my brother, his wife, my wife, and I tricked my parents into babysitting and escaped for several hours of adult time. After a couple of overpriced drinks at a crap restaurant, we went somewhere nicer and cheaper. A nice dinner, a few drinks, and a round of drunken go-karts later, we spent $90 for the evening.
Monday: Back to the go-kart park for the afternoon, and the return drive home in the evening. The go-kart park included 3 rounds of go-karts, mini-golf, and a round of bumper boats. $40.
Tuesday: A hands-on kids museum, a natural history museum that was hosting a portable planetarium, and a teppenyaki restaurant. We used museum passes for the museums, so this cost a total of $160. By far, the most expensive part was the restaurant. The museums cost a combined $30.
Wednesday: We spent the day at the Monster Mall’s indoor theme park, Nickelodean Universe, where we tested my son’s ability to handle the fun rides for $70. Then we ate at the Rainforest Cafe for $116, and we got my wife’s anniversary present, a family portrait at an “old time” photo studio. We chose a 1920s theme. I must say, I look dashing in a zoot suit. $260 total.
Thursday: My wife had to work on Thursday because she was short of vacation time, so I had the brats to myself. We went to a pick-your-own apple orchard where we picked a large bag of apples, a bottle of real, locally-made maple syrup and 3 cookies-on-a-stick. Afterwards, Brat #1 and I went to a Chinese buffet and the comic book store while the women-folk went to a saddle-club meeting. $60 total.
Friday: We had a fried chicken picnic at the largest playground in the area, and otherwise took it easy. $12.
Saturday: On Saturday, my girls rode in a horse show for the saddle club while my wife put in her volunteer work hours. Registration and the food for the potluck ran $40.
Sunday: I had to teach a gun class, so I made money, instead of spending it. My wife and kids played around the house.
Total, our vacation cost us $865, for 10 days of memories. If we would have skipped the restaurants, it would have cost $465, but we wanted those experiences, too. Our vacation fund has $906 in it, so we did all right.
Kris Jenner’s $125 Million Divorce
In what could end up being an incredibly expensive divorce, Bruce and Kris Jenner, of “Keeping up with the Kardashians” fame have announced that their separation will be permanent. Reports suggest that the couple had no prenuptial agreement and that 125 million dollars is on the line. In California, anyone who decides to get divorced without a prenup will split assets right down the middle.
Bruce Jenner found fame in the 1970s when he attended the Montreal Olympics and won a gold medal in the decathlon event. After that momentous achievement, Bruce was able to set up licensing and endorsement deals that netted him millions of dollars. In the decades after the marriage, Bruce’s star began to fade as he started eschewing his motivational speaking career in favor of staying at home, to raise the two children that came from the marriage.By the time Kris married Bruce in 1991, she’d just divorced famous defense lawyer Robert Kardashian after a marriage that lasted about 13 years. She already had 4 children by the time she married Bruce that year. It wasn’t until 2007 when daughter Kim’s infamous “sex tape” hit the airwaves that the family started skyrocketing to fame, and the fortune started to grow.
Rumors suggest that Bruce wasn’t enthusiastic about his permanent role as sidekick to his wife and that he wasn’t allowed to help with any major decisions impacting the family.
Although a joint media statement from the former couple suggests that the split was “amicable,” it’s difficult to believe that two decades of marriage and a 125 million dollar fortune would just end with a friendly split. What seems clear from rumors and reports about the couple; however, is that there was no specific event which pushed the couple apart.
In their statement, the soon-to-be divorced couple said:
“But we will always have much love and respect for each other. Even though we are separated, we will always remain best friends and, as always, our family will remain our number one priority.”
In addition, sources also suggest that the reality television empire won’t come screeching to a halt. Interestingly, soon after the news broke that Bruce and Kris would be separating, Bruce and some of the couple’s children were seen at a golf course. When the family noticed a paparazzi taking a picture from across the green, the Jenner family each flipped the bird to the photographer while each had a huge smile on his or her face.
Interestingly, it seems that Kris was the first to take her wedding ring off after the divorce announcement while Bruce was photographed still wearing his ring.
There haven’t been any reports of infidelity or abuse between the couple and many of the anonymous sources who have come out to offer insight on the divorce have said that the split was a long time in coming. Bruce was already staying at a rental property for several months at the time of the divorce announcement and hadn’t been living inside the Kardashian compound in Calabasas for some time.
