Category Archives: This is how I do it

See all posts explaining how I do stuff

Google Local Guide

[GENERAL NOTICE]
In the last few months, quite a bit of my time has gone into being a Google Local Guide. In a previous post I already elaborated on this, but off late I have also started posting articles on topics specifically relating to that on Local Guides Connect, the dedicated forum where Local Guides can exchange information and raise questions.

Those articles will now also be published as blog posts here, and for easy access to them, I have even created a dedicated menu item.

Take a look, and who knows… perhaps you will want to become a Local Guide yourself (warning: can get pretty addictive).

SteinRuhe

Not much activity on this blog lately… but for a perfectly good reason. I have been working on another website. And obviously I now also want to use this channel to promote it.

SteinRuhe is a wonderful place in Gerach, Germany (near Idar-Oberstein), where my wife and me will be renting out a few rooms. Do check out the website – you will notice it also contains a button for booking rooms, should you be interested in doing so.P1060319

Do check your email in the morning

9126513137_3c3c553aaf_kOne of the podcasts* I regularly listen to is HBR Ideacast and a while ago I heard an episode featuring Ron Friedman on how to structure your day to get the most done. One of the claims he makes is that you should not check your email at the beginning of your working day. I completely disagree. Continue reading

My superpower

No action figure has been made yet resembling me, but that is merely a matter of time, as I turn out to be the proud possessor of a superpower. Picture by Jason Verwey (https://www.flickr.com/photos/94382772@N00/)At least that seems to be the only plausible explanation for the fact that I can quite easily do something that evidentally must require from other people an effort too huge to accomplish – judging from the factual evidence both at home and at work: I can, with the use of nothing but my bare hands, replace an empty roll of toilet paper with a new one on the holder meant for this sole and wonderful purpose!

You must by now be thinking I’m showing off, but there’s even more than that: I also manage to put the empty roll into the trashcan instead of just letting it lie around on the bathroom floor… amazing, isn’t it?

Would you eat a jar of yoghurt 4 days too late?

A gigantic amount of perfectly good food is thrown away for all the wrong reasons. I don’t want to start moralizing about starving children in Africa (although that absolutely remains a huge and definitely solvable problem*), but rather point to the fact that this is also costing most of you money quite directly – as that more easily causes people to start paying attention (sad, but true).
Picture by JaulaDeArdilla

One of the main reasons is that most people keep confusing the labels Best before and Use by. The latter of the two is the one that is most likely to cause life-threatening situations if not respected. Continue reading

What to say when picking up another person’s phone?

Picture by FredEver come across the following situation? You’re in the room with another person who is engaged in an activity that requires her/his full attention and impedes her/him to communicate clearly and directly with you. Let’s say (s)he is engaged in a telephone conversation on a land line that (s)he is unable or unwilling to interrupt. Then all of a sudden Continue reading

How to escape scripted calls

Picture by Alan Clark (www.flickr.com/photos/alanclarkdesign)Phone calls from call centers – often at the most impossible and/or inconvenient hours of the day. You might be one of those rare few people who like receiving them, but I definitely don’t. I can live with the market research ones (and even have been known to take part at times when I actually did happen to have some time at the exact moment the call came in), but I really hate the sales calls. Continue reading

Suggestions for a slightly better world #2

Traffic Jam by Lynac from SingaporeI don’t easily get angry (which was not always the case – should you want more details: keep following this blog, as a future post will be on anger management), but some things can cause a small internal eruption of the human equivalent of lava. One of them is linked to a specific situation in traffic. Or rather a collection of cases whereby a healthy dose of courteous behaviour is best practice: in traffic jams, when a pedestrian wants to cross the street (with no zebra crossing nearby), when a car wants to leave a parking during heavy traffic, to name only a few examples. Continue reading