How best to talk to kids

I was talking with a friend yesterday who has a kid about Kenny's age (2). We were talking about all the advice you get nowadays on how to speak to your children. One particular piece of advice is that you should phrase everything positively. For instance, if they're running where they shouldn't be, say "Put your walking shoes on!" instead of "No running!". The idea is that if you say, "No running!", then they'll focus on the "running" part, and tune out the "no".

Later, when I thought about it again, I thought - what a bunch of baloney. Saying "No running!" is a much clearer and more direct way of saying what you want. The word "no" is one of the first words that children learn - they're not going to miss it, except deliberately.

It's this kind of advice that makes me skeptical of a lot of parenting books. Particularly the "kinder and gentler" ones that advocate more discussion, more understanding, more catering to children. My favorite child-rearing book is 1-2-3 Magic, by Thomas W. Phelan. Great book, very down to earth, and full of great ideas on how to make life with kids happier.

Big corporations function as socialist style command economies

This is my first ever economics blog, so please bear with me. I'm a small-time economics fan - have read some Hayek, read the latest popular economics books like Freakonomics, and read the Wall Street Journal every day. I'm a big believer in the free-market.

I'm currently work at a large online travel company, in a data services group. We do all kinds of stuff with data - purge, merge, consolidate, cleanse, report, etc., for the whole company. Recently there was a big reorganization. And because management felt that there were a lot of uncoordinated projects going on, there was a big effort made to gather all the project plans in one place, and prioritize them.

It was the master plan. And it struck me - this master plan is similar in one very important way to the old socialist style economic planning. There's no prices to determine what's actually important to people! Different groups in the company can't say, "It's worth $10,000 to me to have this new report ready by next week". Instead, they have to pressure management, and be a squeaky wheel to get what they want. If there were actual dollar amounts attached to the different requests, it would be much clearer what's actually valuable to people.

Of course, pricing is not as meaningful without competition. As in, "My group can create this report for you for $5,000 instead of $10,000". That would be interesting, to have multiple data (or other) groups in a company, all competing to provide services of one kind or another within the same company. It certainly wouldn't be a corporation as we currently understand the term.

It's not too likely that this kind of company will come in the near future. But I think that experimenting with some elements of a free market economy (meaningful prices, competition) inside the corporation could shake things up a bit, and introduce some of the efficiencies of a free market into the inner workings of large corporations.

Another productivity enhancement

I'll admit that I tend to think more than most people about how I could make my life more productive and efficient. Okay, okay, a lot more! Hey, at least I'm not like some people whose blogs I've read. They seem to spend far more time thinking and writing about the lastest time management methodology than actually doing anything.

One of my recent posts (My latest productivity enhancement - dump the junk!) was about how my new plan was to totally cut out all time-wasting activities. This eliminated web surfing, TV, and leisure reading. I knew it wouldn't last long, because it was pretty extreme, but it really didn't last long - about 3 days. That's 1 day after I wrote up a post on it.

What didn't work? It felt too punitive. I expended too much willpower in not doing things, as opposed to doing the right things.

Anyway, I'm back to the old standby now, which is

a.) making a list of things to do each day, and
b.) actually doing what's on the list

The main enhancement is that I plan to do this, without exceptions, for a full month. This is supposedly how long it takes to create a habit. I've done it now for 2 weeks, and have 14 little stars on my calendar to show for it. Halfway through! It feels really good.

Grass is greener syndrome

What is it about human beings that causes us to always want what we don't have? I know that our striving for more and seeking improvement is what has caused us, as a species, to do so well. But it doesn't lead to a relaxing life

Specifics - I'm the mother of a two year old, and I also have a part-time job. When I was first thinking about it, this seemed to me the ideal situation. And in general, it does seem pretty good. But now that some of my friends with kids are starting to go back to work full-time, I sometimes run out of friends with kids, for playdates and excursions. And then I start thinking - well, maybe I should just go back to work full-time. At least Kenny would then have playmates there.

So, the grass continually looks a little greener on the other side of the fence.

My latest productivity enhancement - dump the junk!

I was getting annoyed with myself recently at how little I've been getting done. Tasks seemed to have an eternal life on my To Do list, irritating me each time I looked at them.

What was stopping me from getting things done? It wasn't my 2 year old - I had time in the evening after he had gone to bed. It was the fact that my time was taken up in doing so many other activities. Just like good food is crowded out by junk food, productive time can be crowded out by "junk time". I define junk time for myself as web surfing, TV, and reading. Reading is tricky, because obviously, certain types of reading can be great.

My plan (in effect a whole 2 days now) is to BAN all the life-energy sucking activities mentioned above - web surfing, TV, and reading. I've gotten so much done in the past couple days! Things that had been dragging me down for weeks - I got them done, because I had nothing else to do!

Is this a sustainable system? Probably not. I've built in some exceptions (Friday night movies, etc) but I still don't see this lasting forever. I'll learn something from it, though, which will be great.

The Microsoft Permatemps Fiasco

I recently became a beneficiary of what's known as the Microsoft Permatemp class action lawsuit. Basically, a number of people who worked at Microsoft on a contract basis over the years decided, "Hey, the stock has gone up tremendously, why don't we sue Microsoft to see if we can squeeze some money out of them, even though we signed contracts specifying that we aren't employees and aren't entitled to anything other than hourly wages".

When I worked at Microsoft, I worked on a contract basis, getting paid for each hour of work. This was clearly detailed in the papers I signed when starting work. The employees who got stock options and ESPP (employee stock purchase plan) were frequently there 60 to 80 hours a week. This was part of the deal - employees worked for salary, stock options and benefits, including the employee stock purchase plan. If the stock went up, they did well. Contractors worked for their hourly rate, period.

Yes, I got some cash out of the deal, but I certainly don't feel that it's money I deserve. And overall, it's been a huge net loss because now the job market is much more limited for contractors. Almost all large companies that hire lots of contractors now have a mandatory break period for contractors, to protect them against lawsuits. This mandatory break period means that after you work a year, you must take a certain amount of time off. At Microsoft, it's 90 days. What does this mean? Basically, if you enjoy the contractor lifestyle (flexible scheduling and vacations, less stress, high hourly rates) and want to continue being a contractor, you're screwed. You'll have to take 90 days unpaid leave after one year of work. Doesn't matter if it's mid-winter and you don't particularly want to be taking a vacation, you have to take leave anyway. Also, this usually this means that you'll need to be looking for another contract every year, since very few groups are able to have a potentially critical person gone that long.

How much did your average contractor make out of this deal? Anywhere from hundreds to potentially tens of thousands of dollars. And how much did the lawyers make out of it? A total of $27 million in attorney fees. This is our legal system at its worst.

For some more background, search on google for Microsoft Permatemp or check out this link

Getting back into camping

Camping, hiking, and backpacking - these used to be some of my favorite things to do. That was before my two-year old, Kenny. Except for a few very short little hikes, it was all over.

I've really been itching to get out there again, though. To wake up outdoors, climb around in the mountains, identify wildflowers, see wildlife - just generally get away from the indoors environment that surrounds me 99% of the time.

There's some problems, though. Even before I had a two-year old, I never found camping very comfortable. I didn't like sleeping on hard ground, being cold, and especially having to set up a tent in the dark. The payoffs made it worthwhile, but it sometimes got a little uncomfortable.

So now I'm thinking - how to get out into the great outdoors again, go camping, without getting cold and wet and miserable? I love the idea of a little pop-up camper, something we could tow with my Toyota Highlander. There's lots of decisions to make (Is this even a good idea? Where would we store it? Should we just buy a big tent instead?). But I'm jazzed about the idea of getting into the wilderness again, and the Pacific Northwest has so much to offer in terms of natural environment. I also love the thought of being away from electricity and the internet.

The FleetwoodRV Elements trailer is looking good to me now: http://www.fleetwoodrv.com/

Kenny and the never-ending "Why?"

Before I had Kenny, I had heard and read about parents getting irritated with constant "why?" questions from their children. I thought to myself that these parents were just not patient enough, and that they failed to consider how beneficial, in terms of language skills, that this type of interaction was for their children.

Well, the shoe is on the other foot now. I, too, find myself getting a little bit impatient when faced with the "why?" that just never ends. Cute, but also kind of irritating. For example, when I tell Kenny that I'm dropping him off at daycare because I have to work:

"Why are you going to work?"
"Because I like to work"
"Why do you like to work"
"Because it's fun"
"Why is it fun?"

At about this point, I pull out some techniques to cut short the questioning. For example, "Look, do you see that bulldozer!", that always work. Or I say, "Why do you think? I almost never get a real answer to that one, but it points the conversation in a different direction.

On the plus side, I'm now getting some real "conversations" with Kenny. For instance, on the way home from daycare he might tell me about a fire drill, where there was a loud siren, and then they all had to hold hands. I love it.

Zero Tolerance for Donuts

The group I work in at Expedia holds a "donut day" every Wednesday. What this means is that every Wednesday, somebody in the group brings in 2 dozen donuts to share. Responsibility for the greasy treats rotates around the group. I decided about a year ago that I would not participate in eating the donuts. Previously, I'd try to restrain myself to eating a half.

The remarkable thing about my new decision (and what makes it blog-worthy) is how much easier it is now. There's no mental stress, no decisions, no angst about should I eat a half or a quarter. Nothing. I just set zero as the tolerance level, and haven't had a problem with that.

Too bad eating as a whole can't be like that.

Keeping websites simple and easy to use

I learned something about the importance of keeping things simple in the last few months. I had been working on a new website for our community association (it's a big one - 1,300 houses). I wasn't developing the website from scratch. Instead I choose between service providers that do this type of pre-built website.

After a lot of evaluation on my part, and on the part of other committee members, we came to a decision, and set up the website on OneCommunity. I had very high hopes that lots of people would register, post content, interact with other community members, and keep on coming back online. There were tons of features - a calendar, classified ads, discussion forum, profiles, notice board, you name it. I did my best to encourage people to use the site.

What's happened so far? Well...nothing. Okay, not absolutely nothing, but not very much. When the site first went live, I went crazy putting up ads and posting in the discussion forum. But I was almost the only one, and the site never really took off.

Why is nobody using the site? It could be so useful (so I thought to myself). People could sell stuff they didn't need anymore to their neighbors. They could ask for and receive recommendations for babysitters, housecleaners, yard care services. They could post items of neighborhood interest.

But the bottom line was, it just wasn't easy to use. That critical fact was hidden to me, because I work with computers. I understand how websites work, and how to work around whatever doesn't work. Most people didn't understand it immediately, and weren't interested in investing the time into learning it. This one fact has been critical in making the new website bomb.

Why is Google so successful? Lots of reasons, of course, but mainly - they're so easy to use! There's one box to imput text, and there's 2 buttons (although frankly, I think they should get rid of the "I'm feeling lucky" button). Anybody can jump right in there and get information almost immediately.

There's a superb book on web usability called Don't Make Me Think. It's my all-time favorite book on web usability, but it also has a lot of lessons on how people process information in general, too.

Preparing for a possible bird flu pandemic

Recently I've been spending WAY too much time on a website devoted to bird flu (http://www.fluwikie.com). I tell ya, you can really get sucked into this. There's a lot of people - thoughtful, intelligent people, but probably leaning more than a little bit to the paranoid side - who are preparing to hunker down and have enough stocked up to be able to live on their supplies for months on end. The idea is that the flu will be raging outside, so the more that you can avoid going to stores, and contact with other people in general, the less likely it will be that you'll catch the flu.

I spent a few hours reading the posts, then starting making lists of what we need to buy in order to be prepared. And I actually did go out to Wal-mart and buy lots of canned goods, and other things that I thought would be useful. No harm done - I tried hard to buy things that keep, and that we use regularly anyway. Plus, this is earthquake country, and it doesn't hurt to be prepared for power outages.

Intereseting to note, though, that a few of things I bought - namely a wind-up, no battery needed LED flashlight from LLBean, and also a simple one-burner propane stove from Campmor - exactly what people would be buying when preparing for emergencies - were backordered, and only expected to be available in a month or so. Also some bulk food storage containers from the Container Store were out of stock. Coincidence? I don't think so. What with all the coverage of the potential flu pandemic, and also the New Orleans hurricane, people are stocking up on these kinds of items.

My strength workout - making it easy and quick!

In my quest to get the best workout in a relatively short period of time, I'm looking at my strength workout. How do I motivate myself to actually do this? What's the minimum I need to do in order to stay strong?

My regular aerobic workout is 30 minutes, 4 times a week. I work out on the treadmill while watching TV (yea for TiVo!) and try to break a good sweat by going uphill or doing some jogging. I also do a 15 or 20 minute brisk walk on the treadmill on those days that I work and have very little time in the morning. I have no problem at all motivating myself to do the aerobic workout - it's my chance to watch some of the home decorating/home organization shows I've taped!

However, motivating myself to do strength exercises is a different story. I tried doing some strength exercises in the evenings, while watching some TV with Eric. It doesn't work well for me. It requires an enormous effort of will to get off the couch, plus I'm tired in the evening anyway. So, I'm going to tack the strength exercises onto my morning workout, though time is very tight then. My goal is to add only 5 minutes to my workout time. This means a limited number of exercises, and only one set. I'm tentatively thinking push ups, leg lifts and sit ups (both on the exercise ball), and maybe a few others. I'd have to rotate them to keep under the 5 minute deadline.

By the way, I've dropped stretching entirely. The latest info is that it doesn't do you any good, and actually causes more injuries than not stretching.

The importance of getting feedback from customers

We took a cruise over the Christmas holidays on Royal Caribbean. It was enjoyable, but could have been more so. Quite a few times during the cruise I wished that there was a suggestion box somewhere, where I could give some feedback on what I liked, and what I didn't like. There was actually a customer survey form given out at the end, that you were supposed to fill out before you left the ship, but by that time (it was a 10 day cruise) I had forgotten what the original issues were, and I wasn't necessarily motivated to fill out another form. So, I left it laying on the bed.

Too bad for Royal Caribbean. Feedback from customers is incredibly important, and they were neglecting that important resource.

I have a lot more thoughts on the whole topic of establishing and maintaining a feedback loop with customers (or employees, too). From what I've seen, it's grossly undervalued. I'll be trying to make my thoughts more cogent and writing them up soon.

Kids junk food advertising - and does it really have anything to do with kids getting fatter?

My answer on this on is a big fat "NO". Most of the times when my son Kenny has been exposed to loads of food that's bad for him have not been related to cute little characters advertising junk food. Instead, it's been parents bringing a big spread of massive cupcakes from Costco to daycare, with frosting half an inch thick, for their little one's birthday. Or, I go to a playgroup, and there's a huge spread of food for the kids. There may be some fruit, but there's lots of other snack food. And this is not heavily advertised stuff like Cheetos, but rather fancy snacks, frequently organic, and sold at more expensive groceries like Whole Foods and Larry's Market. Or tasty homemade cookies and cakes. So much yummy food, so much variety. All this food is not good in excess, but that's what the kids go for.

So, the answer is not to restrict advertising. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure really what the answer is to our expanding waistlines (yes, I'm a woman and can actually say "I don't know" without choking. I'll think more about it, and comment in a future blog). But restricting advertising is absolutely not going to make a dent in the obesity epidemic.

Doing what I need to do, every day

A goal I've had numerous times over the last few years is do write up a list of things to do every day. Basically, I figured it would be a good thing to spend some time every morning planning what I needed to do that day. It sounds great, and it worked, kind of. I would frequently write up a daily plan.

However, what good is it, ultimately, to go through your to-do list and choose the items you need to do that day? It's not completely useless, because at least you think about what you need to do. But the bottom line is that you need to actually do the tasks, not just make lists.

So, I've changed my thinking recently. I still try to make a daily to-do list. However, the plan doesn't stop there. I have a little monthly calendar taped to the inside of my Palm cover. If I actually DO those tasks that are on my daily list, then I put a little star on the calendar. It may sound kind of childish, but I really like getting those little stars, and it motivates me to do a couple things:

• Be reasonable about what I put on my daily list. If I only get a star if I finish what's on my list, then I need to be realistic about what I can accomplish in a day.
• Actually do the items that are on the daily list! That's the only way to get a star
• Make my tasks very well defined. So, instead of writing "Organize garage", I'll write something like "Spend max 15 minutes clearing off workbench". I may still have a larger project/task for organizing the garage, but I wouldn't put it on my daily to-do list.

That's the plan in a nutshell. And yes, writing up something in my blog was on my to-do list today! If I finish everything else, I look forward to getting a star.

Exercising...in 10 minute increments

I've read a lot of articles recently that state that doing, say, three 10 minute sessions of exercise a day is as good as 30 minutes at a stretch. I don't have a hard time believing that, as far as it goes.

However, when it comes to cultivating a long-lasting habit of exercise, I don't believe that planning out three 10 minute sessions are a good idea. This is for a couple reasons:

• You're not just allocating 1 chunk of exercise into your day - you need to make room for three. Granted, 10 minutes is a lot less than 30, but you still have to think about it three times a day. I don't want to have to think about exercise 3 times a day - once is plenty
• What about showering? You won't get as sweaty in 10 minutes as you do in 30, but you do break a sweat.

This is not to say that cultivating a habit of, say, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, is a bad idea. On the contrary, I think it's a great idea. What I'm saying is that you need to make exercise as friction-free as possible - easy, routine, predictable. You don't want to need to think about it multiple times a day - do it in the morning, get it over with, and have time for other things.

I have a treadmill at home, and do a more serious workout 4 times a week. This is either walking with some bursts of running, or walking on an incline. A new habit that I'm trying to get into is to do a mini-workout (just basically walking on the treadmill) the other 3 days a week, to get some activity in there.

Discipline for kids - how to have kids you like to be around

One thing I think Eric and I do pretty well is disciplining our 2 year old, Kenny. The book that influenced me most in this was 1-2-3 Magic by Thomas Phelan. The title of the book refers to the main technique, which is that of counting misbehavior (1, 2, 3), and then when they hit 3, they get a timeout. But even though that's the title of the book, it's not the main theme. The main theme is that discipline needs to be straightforward, unemotional, and consistent. I know, easier said than done, but this book has some great guidelines.

One of my favorite sections is the distinction he draws between treating your kids like little adults (long detailed explanations of what they should or shouldn't do, lots of words) and treating them like wild animals (don't expect them to be at your mental/emotional level, use one or two words, especially when they're upset). Needless to say, he favors the parent acting as the wild animal trainer.

Our take on discipline is pretty much as follows:

• If there's something he shouldn't do that involves an object (i.e., banging something that shouldn't be banged), he gets a warning, "No banging, Kenny". If he continues to do it, the object goes into toy jail (the fireplace mantle), and he doesn't get it until the next day
• If the offense was particularly bad, like throwing something hard at someone, the object would go into toy jail, and he would get a timeout.
• A timeout consists of him sitting against the wall for a minute or so. If he doesn't sit against the wall, he gets put into his crib. Before, we used to put him in his crib for timeout all the time, now we can generally just tell him, "Sit against the wall", and he'll do it. Again, it's not a long timeout.
• We never threaten without following through with the threatened consequence. I see this a lot, usually in the parents of misbehaved kids. I was just in Target the other day where a girl that looked like she was about 5 had a screaming fit to get another toy (they already had one in their cart). The dad threatened to put the original toy back if the tantrum didn't stop. It didn't stop, but the original toy didn't go back, either. I know it's easier in the short-term to give in, but long-term, you have big problems.
• This is beginning to be a big one, and I really need to be firm about it - whining. I need to just start treat it as regular misbehavior, and give him a time-out when he does it.

That's it in a nutshell. Either it works really well, or Kenny is just in general a kid that's very easy to get along with.

Why can't kids play outside on their own these days?

I was just reading an article in the paper with yet another comment that went something like this: "Of course, nowadays, you can't just let your kids play outdoors on their own". No explanation of why this is, no commentary that it's a bad thing, nothing. I think it was something to do wtih why kids are getting so heavy nowadays.

Here's my take on it. When I was a kid, we spent whole days outside in the neighborhood, in the woods behind the houses, at other kids houses, etc. It wasn't a problem, and it was fun. Nowadays, what with people being paranoid about one thing or another (child abduction mainly?), letting your kids wander about this way, without knowing exactly where they are and what they're doing, is bad parenting. I think that people are just getting more and more paranoid, and that unreasonable standards of safety are being set.

Why is this? Is it going to change? My son Kenny just turned 2 years old a month ago, and I want him to be able to go to his friends house on his own in a few years, without me being thought of as a bad mother.

I love Target

I was at Target the other day, returning something. I love the place for numerous reasons, but right now I want to rave about their returns. It's such a simple, straightforward process, especially if you bought the item on your credit card. I don't even bother saving my receipts from Target anymore, because all they need is the barcode from what you bought, and the credit card. They'll do a credit to your credit card within seconds, and then you're walking away from the customer service area, thinking, "Jeez, that was easy - why can't all stores be like this?".

I was returning some comforters to Ikea this weekend. There's a lot I like about Ikea, but their returns process are a distant second to Target. They were able to credit my return without a receipt, but they had to know the week that I made the purchase, then went off to a back room somewhere to do look it up on their database. Nowhere near as smooth a process as Target.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

(potential spoilers ahead!)

We went to see the movie last night (I loved the earlier movies!), and I'll admit I was more than a little disappointed. I had almost finished rereading the book, specifically to prepare for the movie, but I may have well not have bothered. They condensed the book so much, and skipped so much, that it really doesn't have much of the flavor of the book.

I'm not saying that I have any ideas on how the director should have done the movie differently. It was a very long book, and in making a movie out of it, I guess lots has to be dropped. Including Luna, darn it - I really liked her! And Dumbledore - his character in the movie was so different from his character in the book. In the movie, after Harry's name comes out of the Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore pushes him against the wall. That was so unlike the Dumbledore of the book, who is gentle and wise.

First post!

I've been thinking about putting up a blog for a long time—writing up notes and ideas in my Palm blog memo, looking at other people's blogs, and wondering how people boost traffic on their blog. Well, time to put my ideas into action. Stay tuned for insightful comments, wishful thinking, product reviews, the latest about what my 2 year old Kenny is doing, and other cool stuff.