Experiencing the World
I felt inspired by an article in the New York Magazine. The article discusses positive psychology and covers multiple studies about what makes us happy.
It is a true gift for a writer to make science publicly accessible. The writer explains multiple scientific studies and experiments and makes them relevant to a wide audience.
Read the full article. You won’t be disappointed.
I often get takeout in New York. Being the environmentalist, I feel a slight tug on my conscience because of the disposable containers. I started to feel more guilty observing that some of the disposable containers felt like a higher quality plastic, and I didn’t like the prospect of throwing them away.
Being a bit curious, I looked up the container online, and, lo and behold, the container is far higher quality than I thought. I discovered that these versatainers have everything a person could want in a plastic container. They are leak-resistant, stackable, reusable, microwave-safe, and dishwasher-safe. In the past, I put these containers in the recycle bin, but now I use them for my food storage needs. I love recycling.
I signed a lease today. I expected a far more stressful experience than the process turned out to be. I also met a great broker who was very upfront with me and forthcoming with his experiences. In all honesty, I really lucked out with my apartment selection. The landlords wanted to meet which I hear is mostly rare in New York and seemed to be intimately involved in the care of the place and their tenants. I appreciated their care.
After reading a New York times article about finding an apartment, I was a wee bit overwhelmed and loathing my search. I expected to spend days looking and mostly being unhappy with whatever I found. So I lazied it out and went with a few websites to help me find and pinpoint locations I was interested in.
I found Streeteasy enormously helpful. Streeteasy is an aggregate website that collects listings automatically from around the web. I set up some rss feeds for the last 3 weeks, and I get daily updates of new searches that match my criteria. Streeteasy also shows complete information of the rental to see the location, the amenities, price, and other information. This information alone is worth its weight in gold. I found plenty of other websites with listings, but they would never tell you the location or anything specific, but it was frustrating to have to waste my time seeing things that didn’t match my location or size criteria.
Once I did find an interesting location, I went to walkscore next. Walkscore lists all the local amenties nearby, and I could make a call about my top priorities in a location. Of course, like all places New York, the scores are always over 95+, but the system lists locations by amenities such as transit, grocery, restaurants, coffee shops, etc. Great information to get to know whether that place you are interested in is going to fit your needs. I wish you good luck with your search and the more time you have to look around, you too will find your perfect place.
Doing moves you forward. But doing only helps if I remember what TO do. Typically I have 4 projects going on top of my own personal projects. To get it all in order, my goal is to offload as much information as possible out of my head. Toward that end, I use remember the milk for all my task tracking needs. The program features a web interface, an iphone app, and a wonderfully ajaxy interface. The program served me faithfully for the past year, and I plan to have it serve me faithfully for years to come.
I stay focused with the pomodoro technique. The technique instructs you to prioritize your tasks and focus on one prioritized task for 25 minutes. The technique includes other details but that is the main idea.
Each 25 minute block is a pomodoro. The name reflects the creator, Francesco Cirillo, use of a tomato kitchen timer when he came up with the idea. I highly recommend using it for your own day to day activities.
It’s easy to do the fun stuff. But when it comes down to making time for the “not so fun” stuff, I turn to my favorite task motivator Stickk.com.
Stickk.com helps me do tasks that I’m not always super-excited to do. The stickk is just a contractual agreement to do tasks with the caveat that you pay out money for failures. Is it gimickky? It sure is, but it’s a gimmick backed by academic research on Commitment Contracts.
As additional motivators, I am accountable to a referee, and my money goes to an anti-charity, i.e. a cause I don’t believe in, if I fail. I’ve only missed a stickk once in the last 6 months, and I hope it never happens again. Give it a shot, it may help you do those few tasks that you never seem to want to do.
“The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is I am not afraid to die on the treadmill. You might have more talent than me. You might be smarter than me. But if we get on a treadmill together, there are two things. You are getting off first, or I’m gonna die.” — Will Smith
Wow, that is some serious drive and I like it. I like it a lot.
We cannot control life but we can control ourselves. We can make a decision to work as hard as possible to give ourselves the best chance of success. It’s possible that your hard work may not pay off in the way you expect, but that’s ok. The point is that you worked hard, and you took a shot at giving yourself a chance for success. You are better off now that you were before for having worked hard, and if you didn’t work as hard as you did, where might you be.
If you haven’t heard, it snowed in New York. Joe and I geared up last night and inaugurated my first snow in New York City with activities. I described the landscape as quiet and pristine. We walked about 10 blocks, meandering through trodden paths disappearing under the drifts of snow. Joe made a snow angel on the corner of Gansevoort and 9th. The cap of the night was seeing a lady cross county skiing which made me excited for ski season this year. It was awesome.
I am going to enjoy it in New York. Being in the city appeals to my explorative nature and it really feels explorative discovering all the nooks and crannies here.
I had some trepidation about change. But now that I am here I am excited to embrace change. Grace made an excellent point that by pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone are we able to expand our horizons and improve ourselves. I plan to be out of my comfort zone as much as possible.
It’s official folks. I took a job at NYU. I will start as a research assistant professor in medical informatics. I am very excited and have been jonesing to get back to my “roots.” Yes, the hard part is about to start now, but I am expecting to wake up every morning excited for work and discovery.
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