What's Your System?

Who: Lauren Young, Wealth Editor, Thomson Reuters

System: Brooklynite Lauren Young has had a love affair with her hands for as long as she can remember. Below are her tips to caring for and maintaining perfect paws.

What products do you use?  “Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Hand Cream, Fragrance Free, and Essie nail polish. I usually like Essie’s Pink Glove Service. I keep hand cream by my bed, on my desk at work, and in my bag.”

What’s so great about that hand cream? “You just need a dab – it’s very thick and rich. I also use it on my feet. It creates a wonderful seal to protect skin from soap and cold weather.”

 How long have you had this love affair with your hands?  “I’ve always had long, very hard nails, so I’m lucky. I probably started using this hand cream in high school when I worked at Gladwyne Pharmacy (outside of Philly) and got to try lots of products. All of the women in my family have beautiful hands. My dad also has lovely hands.”

Did you ever think about becoming a hand model? “Several people have suggested it. I’ve shot several ads over the years, mainly for my parent’s jewelry business, but hand models have NO LIFE. You wear gloves, don’t cook or do anything fun. It’s not for me.”

 What do other people say about your hands “My friend Michelle is obsessed with them. She says I have pretty extremities. I also have nice feet, by the way. I just went on a first date with a guy who couldn’t believe how soft my hands were, he said they were like the bottom of a baby’s foot.”

What would you never do with your hands? “I’m really careful about breaking my nails, but I still do everything. I hate doing dishes. I always try to wear gloves.”

What do your hands say about you? “I take good care of my body.”

What tips can you give other people about taking care of their hands? 

• Moisturize at least twice a day, morning and night. ”It’s very important to care for your skin – not just your hands. I put on Neutrogena body oil after the shower and then I slather on lotion.”

• Manicures are essential. ”I try to get one every week. Some people say the eyes are the windows to your soul, but I’m really unhappy when my nails look bad. I also get pedicures every three weeks or so. My toes are just as important as my fingernails.”

 What is YOUR system for glam hands?

Here’s part II of my interview with Buster Benson. It is more than 750 words, thank you very much.

How did you get started in the habit mapping concept? Does this track back to something you did as a kid?

I would write in my journal every single day as a kid. It wasn’t until I graduated from college and learned how to build websites that I got more interested in [habit tracking] though. The first web-related habit I did was back in 2002 or 2003 called Moblogging — these days that’s just called taking photos with your phone. I’d take these 640x480 tiny little pictures but there was no site to really capture the photo so I built a service that would capture tag and add it to my blog.

From there I started tracking my mood.  Along with the photo, I would add a +1 or -1 and that got pulled into my “morale-o-meter” which was supposed to check whether I was interacting with things that were uplifting my mood or bringing me down. I wanted to see if there were any correlations between how much I ate, slept how much I drank and my happiness. I did that for about three years and the interesting thing was there was really no correlation. You could sort of tell a story some things by looking at the graph, but really it was just random. That made me really, really interested cause I thought I just must not be capturing the right information. That’s really what sparked my interest: I didn’t want to track just anything, I wanted to track the things that have meaning to me or that told me information that I didn’t already know about myself.

So tell me about 750 words. I’ve read the Artists Way and have tried to do the “Morning Pages” but it’s a struggle to do everything by hand, which Julia Cameron requires as part of said, “Way.” Your app which lets you do it digitally, and lets you know when you’ve written 750 words and stores it. You’ve pretty much solved my issue.

For years I’d been doing Morning Pages, but I was never very happy doing it in a paper journal either. I wanted to know that no one going to find it.  For the same reason, I was never happy doing it on my computer or blog because I was paranoid someone was going to be able to log in or I might accidentally forget to make something a private post. That all made me censor myself more. So I really just built that for myself. I really didn’t think more than 50 people would use it. It’s now probably one of the most loved things I’ve ever built which is awesome.

Have you talked to Julia Cameron about it?

I’ve tried a few times and people have tried to introduce me. One of her adamant rules for Morning Pages is to use a pencil or pen. I don’t think she would necessarily like it.

Oh I don’t know, if that’s the barrier between me doing it and not doing it, It’s much better that I’m doing it.

Yeah, true.

So you have all these sites, and you do your morning pages and you’ve been taking photos of yourself at 8:36 every morning for the last 1445 days. Have you conquered stress? That actually sounds really stressful to me.

Good question. I have no idea how stressed out I’d be if I didn’t do those things. In general my life is pretty stressful. The last five years it’s been up and down but I now have tools to recognize when I’m stressed out and knowing which tool or exercise or behavior can help me get out of it. Before I was on this downward spiral, running an art gallery in a bar, trying to get city permits, losing lots of money, unable to sleep at night, my blood pressure was high and I was quick to anger. I did acupuncture, mediation and writing -  that helped a lot. It was doing simple things that really helped, like having a nighttime ritual to calm myself down. I only do them when I need them. But at least I know what works for me. That’s the really important part of self experimentation. I’m not trying to create a chain of habits that I can’t vary from day to day. I need variation, I need serendipity, I need to break the chain every once in a while.

[Niko sits in for his Dad on the 8:36 project]

Has having a baby [his son Niko] added the inspiration for a new tool or app?
I haven’t come up with any new habit, but any parent will tell you, being present for a new baby is a really rewarding and actually relaxing experience. It’s very easy as a start-up person to always be thinking about the future or planning things. I try to explain this to my friends who don’t have kids, that it’s maybe the cheesiest or cliché thing to say, but just being able to forget about the future for a while and realize these moments of connection with your family are probably the most rewarding experiences in your life. If I had a billion dollars in the bank it couldn’t create the same experience that I could just get playing with my kid for 10 minutes.

That might answer my next question which is when are you happiest. When does everything comes into full view and you feel like, ok this is the moment when it all makes sense.

When I’m building something, figuring something out. Kellianne, my wife, often makes fun of me and says that when I’m burned out at work, I start a new project. I’m thinking things through, iterating and the ideas are fresh. It feels like it’s meaningful to me.

This blog is in awe of Buster Benson.

A man who was once Erik Benson and then Buster McLeod and now Buster Benson. (At least that’s as of today.) He’s a guy that isn’t afraid to test and retest; reinvent and rename. He doesn’t worry about it, he just does it.  And if he can’t figure out how to get it done, he’ll build an app for it.

“If I have an idea, I don’t do a to-do list. I just spend a couple hours building it to see if it’s interesting to me or not,” says Benson.

The former Amazon.com developer and current CTO and co-founder of Habit Labs, 35.96-year-old Benson creates apps that track “habits” and, ideally, help people tackle their big lifestyle hurdles (diet, exercise, smoking etc) that have them stuck. He estimates that he’s created about 30 of these apps to date, including seasonal food-finder Locavore; the list-making 43Things.com; the health-improving game Health Month; online “morning pages” journal, 750Words; the recently launched Gonna Try; and the burgeoning Budge.

His apps are marked by intuitive and fun designs that encourage public pronouncements, community bonding and simple goals.

Case in point:

[from GonnaTry.com]

After seeing Buster speak at Camp Mighty last year, naturally, WYS wanted to dig into the Buster brain. Calling him as he walked to work in Seattle, we asked this humble code-cruncher how he does what he does, and how the heck he stays stress-free while making all these life-improving apps for the rest of us. 

In the first of our two-part interview we talked about the healthy benefits of jotting down your behavior. Read on:

Your site, BusterBenson.com, tracks how many emails you’ve read today. So I tried to guess if you’d read the one I sent you just now. It looks like you did? That’s just crazy. Do you have people checking up on you like that?

That’s the whole reason I did it. Generally I’m pretty good at responding to people but every once in a while I fall behind and get really stressed and feel bad about it. This way I can let people know when there’s a little bit of stress in my life. It’s a start.

They say that tracking in and of itself can be a stress-reducing behavior

Taking the time to pay attention to something can be a calming, often enlightening experience. We see this with Health Month: It takes a few months for people to realize “Oh I thought I was having 2-3 drinks a week when in fact I’m having 9-10. ” That becomes their new reality, not the story they’ve been telling themselves anymore. 

Hey, it just got a little noisy…

I’m walking over the freeway but I should be over pretty soon [laughs.]

Is that one of your Heath Month goals? Walk more?

Oh no that’s something I’ve been doing for a long time. I’ve been walking to work for 10 years, it’s really one of my favorite parts of the day unless it’s snowing or sleeting. I always need a little bit of time to prepare for the day or wind down after the day.

What made you decide to start Health Month? Were you trying to get healthier yourself?

It came from a bunch of inspirations. The most successful about my previous company, 43 Things, were always the daily self habits. Studies always show the best ways to improve happiness is to change a daily habit rather than take a month off and go to, say, India. A trip might have a short-term impact and a high cost versus something that’s simple like walking to work or having a healthy snack at your desk.

And you come back from India and you have a huge slog of email because you were away for a month!

Right, they seem like great tricks to improve happiness, and it might work for that week you’re first there when you’re on the train with a backpack and you feel like you’re super free,  but it doesn’t last. It’s also not something most people can do. So it’s on your list but there’s no way to work towards that goal on a daily basis and you eventually forget it and you feel bad about it and realize it’s been on your list for so long and never did anything about it.

Oh man, that’s my life. Feeling bad about “to do” lists.

Health Month also evolved from a thing a bunch of my friends and I would do every January. We did a really strict version of Health Month where we’d have no alcohol or dairy or caffeine or sugar or wheat and we would all do it as a group. It wasn’t necessarily the healthiest thing in the world, but it was a yearly reset and bonding experience for us. We did that for five years, and in those five years we realized that we’d lose weight and feel crazy and different, but then a month later we’d gain the weight back. We didn’t actually change any habits… I wanted to create a version of what my friends and I were doing, but let everyone create their own rules and their own month to play. You don’t have to wait all year if you want to do it right now. You bond with other people around the fact that you’re just trying to change habits

Choosing to make your mission public is a great motivator, too. What do you think about sites like StickK where you actually pay money when you don’t meet your goals?

StickK raised a lot of money and it worked for a group of people. It hasn’t gained a lot of traction in my opinion because [adding a financial component] makes it even harder to change. People like the idea, but they’re more unlikely to put money on the line because they don’t think they’ll be able to do it and they don’t want to lose money. Loss aversion is one of our most motivating feelings. There’s a great episode on that Ulysses Contract dynamic on Radio Lab —  Radio Lab:  You v. You

What do you think about the “gamification of health” as noted in yesterday’s New York Times piece “Dieting for Dollars (or Maybe a Movie Ticket)”

I think most attempts are pretty ineffective.  There’s just no way to do it very easily without creating more problems than you’re solving.  The key is to zero in on something that someone already wants to do, and to help them pay attention to it and remember that they want to do it.  It only takes a tiny sprinkling of gamification to get there, but most people like to go way overboard.  The fact that none of them (including my own attempts) haven’t really taken off in a big way is sort of evidence that it doesn’t really work.

**

Tomorrow I’ll talk to Buster about 750Words, his own daily rituals and when he’s happiest. Track on…

Who: Birch Coffee (@birchcoffee) in NYC

System: Ask a quirky question and get people to vote on the answer with their dollar. I can tell you those jars are always full. Fun and effective.

Oh yeah, the answer: The onion

Who: John Lennon

System: The humble to-do list. Auction site Gotta Have Rock and Roll is auctioning off a to-do list John Lennon apparently made for his personal assistant, Fred Seaman. Scrawled in black ink on regular old lined paper, it includes mundane but rich details of Lennon’s daily life, from getting more marmalade to putting back his son Sean’s mattress (unclear how it got out of place!). The bids on the list close Dec. 9, and the suggested max bid of $5k has already been topped.

Why It Works: There’s nothing like pen and paper to create a system. And the power of a rock star to make it work.

- Diane Davis Otter

[Photo via Gotta Have Rock and Roll]

Who: Diane Davis Otter, brand new contributor to What’s Your System!

System: Just about every Sunday night I make what I call “Changeable Chicken,” preparing me for a week of healthy and quick meals ahead.  I adopted this technique from Jason Denton, founder of panini pioneer ‘Ino in New York’s Greenwich Village. 

 Step-by-Step:

1. Pre-heat a grill pan/grill press or panini press to medium-high heat.

2. Place two thin-sliced chicken breasts each on rectangles of aluminum foil. (Make as many as you want.)

3. Drizzle on some olive oil and rub in salt, pepper and any kind of seasoning spices you like. Flip chicken over and repeat.

4. Fold the foil into a packet, seam side up. (You can actually do this hours ahead and the chicken will be more flavorful for it.)

5. Cook on pan or press, seam side up for about 6 minutes. (Use a thermometer to test for temps at 165 degrees.)

6. After the chicken cools a bit, store it in your fridge in the foil packets, seam side up again. Saving the juices to use with the chicken is key!

System: Instead of sending a holiday card, switch up your Twitter profile with a GIVE graphic and post a different charity every day. In the spirit of the holiday season, engage your network of followers to do a little good.

Here’s why: Sending out holiday cards is soooooo stressful.

Choosing the card, designing the card (if you’re crafty), sending the card, licking the stamp (ok, they’re self-adhesive these days, but still), making your recipient list, checking it twice. Blargh.

So in lieu of that, this year I’ve decided to direct folks to my Twitter page, where I can actually do some good, too, by posting a different charity or way to give back once a day, throughout December. I’m including a hashtag #give2011. Maybe others will join in the fun? I hope so.

Inspired by: My husband’s office holiday card this year: a list of their favorite charities with a link to their website, which has the linked list:

Spread the joy.

What’s your system for holiday cards this year?

Kim O’Donnel, trained chef, columnist for USA Today and author of the Meat Lover’s Meatless Cookbook shares 6 tips for staying sane in the kitchen during the holidays.

1. Don’t Fret. It’s a waste of energy and emotion to work yourself up into a pre-party lather. Before stepping into the kitchen, I actually meditate and/or practice a bit of yoga, or go on a solo walk.

2. Everyone Gets a Job: It doesn’t always work out perfectly, but everyone who comes to our house for a big holiday meal gets a job: Setting the table, dish duty, carving the turkey, making gravy and so on.  I’m done with the days of being the maid and not enjoying the meal.

3. Feed the Cook: Have a grilled cheese sandwich or a fried egg around noon for the cook; a little stove top nosh to keep up the energy level & brief respite from the work.

4. Shower Zen: Allow time to rinse off in the shower before guests arrive. Sounds obvious, but it’s another way to get a “time out” before the noise begins.

5. Just a Sip: A sip of wine before the doorbell rings is very fine.  Then a mindful pace with the pours. (that’s the idea, anyway)

6. Give Thanks: I always initiate expressions of gratitude around the table before the first fork is lifted.  I love hearing what’s on everyone’s minds and in their hearts at that given moment. Sometimes it’s a surprise.