First, do those things that are both important and urgent. Taking your wife to the hospital to have a baby is an excellent example.

Next, do those things that are important, yet not urgent. If you don’t, you’ll never get the important things done.

Next, do those things that are not important, but urgent. Some of these things simply must be done to avoid the annoyance if you don’t.

Avoid doing those things that are neither important, nor urgent. This sounds like useless advice, but how many hours are blown on computer Solitaire, or aimless worrying?

Worry scientifically. We all know that worrying doesn’t make any sense. It’s a waste of time and energy. The past is a canceled check, the future is a promissory note, and the only cash currency is the present. We all know that, but the fact of the matter is that some of us still worry. Worrying need not be a bad thing, if we just worry in a scientific manner.

When you find yourself worrying, write down immediately what it is you are worrying about and commit to worrying about it at a future date specific. The act of writing it down seems to remove it from our active thought process. It only works if you honor your commitment to worry about it later. Make a weekly appointment with yourself to worry. I’ve found that four o’clock on Thursday is a good time for me. There’s usually not a lot going on then. I can sit down in a quiet place with my list and worry hard about each item on the list. If I can’t live with something, I must change it. If I can’t change it, I’d damn well better find a way to live with it.

When I have finished with my scientific worrying, I am then free to go forth and start a new worry list for the next week. It’s a simple little tactic, but it seems to free the mind for more productive activities.

Keep the monkeys where they belong. The people in your life will do everything they can to get the monkeys off their backs and get them on yours. They want you to be responsive to them and solve their problems for them. You need to train them to take care of their own monkeys.

When I had a real estate company, most of my day was spent stamping on snakes that were the responsibility of other people. I had a small sign made for my office door that said I would help anyone solve any problem when they had completed, in writing, answers to the four following questions:

1. What is the problem? A prime obstacle to the solving of any problem is a lack of specificity in defining the problem. The answer must fit on the back of a business card. If it’s longer than that, the problem is not understood.

2. What caused the problem? I don’t mind solving a problem as long as I don’t have the same problem again next week, and the week after. Knowing what causes problems helps us avoid recurrences.

3. What are all the possible solutions? Encourage brainstorming. Often the most ridiculous solutions are the nucleus of a workable idea.

4. What, in your opinion, is the best solution? When this question is answered, you’re usually pretty much done with the process. You just say, “Sounds good to me. Go do it.”

When people get used to going through these steps, most of the problems never reach you, as the person responsible solves them. Life is better with only your own monkeys on your back.

Time Savers. Here are just a few hints that may help you get a few more useful minutes out of every day.

When ordering a meal, ask that the check be brought with the meal, or give your credit card to the waiter. You’ll avoid waiting for the bill.

When reading technical or business articles, read the first paragraph and the last. You may find no need to read the rest.

Instead of reading magazines from front to back, read the table of contents and tear out the articles of interest. Throw the rest away and avoid the ads and other time wasters.

Read selectively. Just because you bought a book there is no commitment on your part to finish it. If it sucks, dump it. We keep hoping they will get better, but they seldom do.

This is obviously just a gloss treatment of time management. If you’re really into the subject, you might enjoy How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, by Alan Laiken.

Getting hold of your time won’t add any length to your life span, but it will certainly seem like it.

DARWIN AWARDS (2009)

The Darwins” are awarded every year to the persons who died in the stupidest manner, thereby removing themselves from the gene pool. Some may submit a list for your consideration that is nothing more than a “resend” of last year's winners. Here is the official 2009 list. Notice the interesting spin for this year's first place award which comes to us - from of all places, Arkansas. How surprising is that?

This year’s nominees are:

Nominee No. 1: (San Jose Mercury News):

An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to break a former girlfriend’s windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a hole in his gut.

Nominee No. 2: (Kalamazoo Gazette):

James Burns, 34, (a mechanic) of Alamo, MI. was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police describe as a “farm-type truck.” Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the source of a troubling noise. Burns clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns “wrapped in the drive shaft.”

Nominee No. 3: (Hickory Daily Record):

Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death in December in Newton, NC. Awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson 38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.

Nominee No. 4: (UPI, Toronto ):

Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining the strength of the buildings' windows to visiting law students. Hoy previously has conducted demonstrations of window strength according to police reports.

Peter Lawson, managing partner of the firm Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was “one of the best and brightest” (Ed note: ????) members of the 200-man association.

Nominee No. 5: (The News of the Weird):

Michael Anderson Godwin made News of the Weird posthumously. He had spent several years awaiting South Carolina's electric chair on a murder conviction before having his sentence reduced to life in prison. While sitting on a metal toilet in his cell attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire and was electrocuted.

Nominee No. 6:

A cigarette lighter may have triggered a fatal explosion in Dunkirk, IN. A Jay County man, using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzle loader, was killed Monday night when the weapon discharged in his face, sheriff’s investigators said. Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents' rural Dunkirk home at about 11:30 PM. Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a 54-caliber muzzle-loader that had not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder ignited.

Nominee No. 7: (Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario):

A man cleaning a bird feeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment in this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death. Stefan Mack, 55, was standing on a wheelchair when the accident occurred, said Inspector Darcy Homer of the Peel Regional Police. “It appears that the chair moved, and he went over the balcony,” Homer said.

Finally, THE WINNER!!!: (Arkansas Democrat Gazette):

Two local men were injured when their pickup truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early Monday. Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly after midnight Monday.

Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc, and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock, were returning to Des Arc after a frog catching trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole’s pickup truck headlights malfunctioned. The two men concluded that the headlight fuse on the older-model truck had burned out. As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the 22caliber bullets from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering- wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet the headlights again began to operate properly, and the two men proceeded on eastbound toward the White River Bridge. After traveling approximately 20 miles, and just before crossing the river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged, and struck Poole in the testicles. The vehicle swerved sharply right, exiting the pavement, and striking a tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident but will require extensive surgery to repair the damage to his testicles, which will never operate as intended.

Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released. “Thank God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his n**s off, or we might both be dead,” stated Wallis.

“I've been a trooper for 10 years in this part of the world, but this is a first for me. I can't believe that those two would admit how this accident happened,” said Snyder. Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavinia (Poole’s wife), asked how many frogs the boys had caught and did anyone get them from the truck.

Priorities, after all! Though Poole and Wallis did not die as a result of their misadventure as normally required by Darwin Award Official Rules, it can be argued that Poole did, in fact, effectively remove himself from the gene pool.

A GOOD LESSON

Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock, did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks out of her classroom.

When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks.

'Ms. Cothren, where're our desks?'

She replied, 'You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk.'

They thought, 'Well, maybe it's our grades.'

'No,' she said.

'Maybe it's our behavior.'

She told them, 'No, it's not even your behavior.'

And so, they came and went, the first period, second period, third period. Still no desks in the classroom.

By early afternoon television news crews had started gathering in Ms. Cothren's classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room.

The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the deskless classroom, Martha Cothren said, 'Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he/she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.'

At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it.

Twenty-seven (27) U.S. Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand alongside the wall. By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned.

Martha said, 'You didn't earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it's up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education. Don't ever forget it.'

By the way, this is a true story.

—Patrick McVay, Elite Investments, Huntington Beach, CA

RANDUMB THOUGHTS

1* I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.

2* Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3* I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4* The letters T and G are very close to each other on a keyboard. This recently became all too apparent to me and consequently I will never be ending a work email with the phrase “Regards” again.

5* There is a great need for a sarcasm font.

6* Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what was going on when I first saw it.

7* How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

8* I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

9* I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

10* The only time I look forward to a red light is when I'm trying to finish a text.

11* Was learning cursive really necessary?

12* I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

13* How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

14* I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent an idiot from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

15* MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

16* Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

17* Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

18* I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

19* Bad decisions and bad experiences make good stories.

20* Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?

21* You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

22* There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

23* I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

24* I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

25* As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

26* Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

27* It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

28* I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

29* Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time...

—Kim Fitzpatrick Calgary, Alberta, Canada

NO BULL SHOTS

“Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying.”
—Fran Lebowitz

“A principled compromise is always better than a compromised principle.”
—Dr. Mardy Grothe

“There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.”
—Mary Wilson Little

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
—Edmund Burke

“You can always tell a real friend: When you've made a fool of yourself, he doesn't feel you've done a permanent job.”
—Laurence J. Peter

“If you go looking for a friend, you're going to find they're very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you'll find them everywhere.”
—Zig Ziglar

“Once you consent to some concession, you can never cancel it and put things back the way they are.”
—Howard Hughes

“Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then—we elected them.”
—Lily Tomlin

“At every crisis in one's life, it is absolute salvation to have some sympathetic friend to whom you can think aloud without restraint or misgiving.”
—Woodrow Wilson

“It is more important to try to be effective than it is to try to be impressive.”
—W. M. Pepper

“Cherish all your happy moments: They make a fine cushion for old age.”
—Booth Tarkington

“High station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace.”
—Tennessee Williams

“We've sent a man to the moon, and that's 290,000 miles away. The center of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week, but for some reason nobody's ever done it.”
—Andy Rooney

“True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body: the two are united.”
—Alexander Von Humboldt

“You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours.”
—Colin Powell

“I've made up my mind both ways.”
—Casey Stengel

“Snow and adolescence are the only problems that disappear if you ignore them long enough.”
—Earl Wilson

“Character is much easier kept than recovered.”
—Thomas Paine

IT’S ABOUT TIME

DARWIN AWARDS (2009)

A GOOD LESSON

RANDUMB THOUGHTS

NO BULL SHOTS