Nov 26
Leo Babauta of the wildly popular Zen Habits blog has released an 83-page e-book called Zen To Done for $9.50.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
1 Why ZTD?
2 Overview - What is it?
3 Minimal ZTD - the simpler alternative
4 Forming the 10 Habits
5 Habit 1: Collect
6 Habit 2: Process
7 Habit 3: Plan
8 Habit 4: Do
9 Habit 5: Simple, trusted system
10 Habit 6: Organize
11 Habit 7: Review
12 Habit 8: Simplify
13 Habit 9: Routine
14 Habit 10: Find Your Passion
15 A Day with Zen To Done
16 ZTD FAQ
17 Resources
If you’re a fan of GTD - Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
by David Allen or a Stephen Covey fan - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
, then you’ll like this e-book.
Leo teaches you his ZTD or Zen To Done by combining and simplifying some of Allen’s and Covey’s productivity concepts. Narrrowing your focus on what you need to get done by way of MITs or Most Important Tasks.
Habit 10: Find Your Passion is one of the best sections of this e-book because it helps guide you through that over-arching question everyone needs to answer or update in their lives - What Are You Passionate About?
Leo guides you a long a path of questions that put you in the right mindset to help you determine what it is you’re passionate about.
I highly recommend this e-book as you can’t beat the price. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with all the stuff in your life and need a way to get organized Zen To Done will help you.
written by Bill Stevens
Nov 25
Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com recently released the Kindle (see below). When I saw the Kindle, I said to myself, “Self, I want to buy the Kindle NOW!!”
I grabbed my credit card and browsed over to Amazon.com.
I was ready and “Gung Ho” to buy it. But, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in the back of my head. My wife was watching me the whole time and the back of my head met the palm of her hand. OUCH!! She reminded me that I write about saving and investing at this blog and it wouldn’t look right to my readers. I reluctantly agreed. 
Besides, she’s still waiting for a new $12,000.00 diamond ring she’s been eying for a couple years. Yikes!!
The Kindle is something that would be really nice to have and I’m sure it will appeal to a niche audience. I think you have to pay a minor fee for downloading books and I’ve read in the blogosphere that the book selection isn’t that great - yet. You can also read newspapers and magazines, as well as blogs. The books typically can be downloaded for $9.99. Which is a steal.
My only beef when it comes to technology is that everything costs something and you have to decide when enough is enough.
The cost of the Kindle just like the iPhone is more than advertised and sets you up with a new recurring expense. So this might not be the most frugal thing to buy. But doggone it, it’s just plane cool.
I’m secretly hoping Jeff Bezos reads my blog and will send me one to do a full review. 
More reviews and controversy on the Kindle:
written by Bill Stevens
Nov 24
I heard an interview on NPR about this book and how to teach kids the lessons of giving. I cannot find the interview, but the book includes ways to teach your kids for a lifetime of giving. Absolutely fantastic!!
I will continue to look for the interview. I believe it was on the “Children’s Health” segment of NPR. It aired during the week of Thanksgiving 2007 but might have been done earlier.
The main points centered around starting to teach kids why and how to give. Making giving a lifetime event and the different ways and times to give.
written by Bill Stevens
Nov 22
From John Bradshaw’s Homecoming.
“One never comes home until one prefers a gentle heart to mastery over other lives. One comes home when one learns how to bring a gift and how to receive one.
When one is home, he gives love, makes comfort, hurts for justice. One is homeward bound when one is more tormented by the death of innocence and innocent children, than by the frustration of ambition. One makes a home every time he allows a person to feel at home with their self.
One is on the right road, not far away, close enough to run the last mile when he realizes that the greatest of all gifts to give another is home, and that the most surprising and wonderful gift to receive is homecoming.”
-John Bradshaw
written by Bill Stevens
Nov 22
Happy Thanksgiving Folks!!
Here’s one of my favorites from the pen of Paul Claudel (I think).
“There is no one of my brothers - I can do without.In the heart of the meanest miser, the most squalid prostitute, the most miserable drunkard, there is an immortal soul with holy aspirations, which deprived of daylight, worships in the night.
I hear them speaking when I speak and weeping when I go down on my knees. There is no one of them I can do without.
Just as there are many stars in the heavens and their power of calculation is beyond my reckoning, so also there are many living beings - I need them all in my praise of God.
There are many living souls but there’s not one of them that I’m not in communion in the sacred apex where we utter together, thee Our Father.”
-Paul Claudel
written by Bill Stevens
