Top 10 Tips for Maintaining a Positive Attitude [Dumb Little Man]

I've told you a billion times: your attitude seriously affects your life! Dumb Little Man knows this too, and they are here to give you 10 ways you can give it a boost. My favorite:

Understand that Things Won't Always Go as Planned
If you plan and expect everything in life will go as you planned, you will be quickly disappointed. One of the keys to maintaining a positive attitude is to understand that things will go wrong. If you expect things to go wrong, you won't be phased when they do. So have a plan, but understand that things won't follow the plan. The plan allows you to adapt to what went wrong and move back towards what is important. (Bonus article: A Beautiful Method to Find Peace of Mind)

Added bonus: the list includes bunches of links on how to implement these tips. Check it out!

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A couple days ago, I realized that I had access to a tool like no other. A tool that contained billions of pieces of information that I had at my disposal any time I wanted. A tool that could transform my life in countless ways. A tool that could keep me entertained until the day I die. And, most importantly, a tool that is FREE. What is this magical, wonderful secret?

The Milwaukee Public Library.

Wait! Don’t go! Hear me out!

Okay, so we’ve been trained from an early age to think the following:

1. Learning is boring.
2. Reading books is lame.
3. Libraries are places where people quietly sit around and read books.
4. Therefore, the library is lame.

I won’t argue the effectiveness of those points. I’ve lived by them for years. But let me walk you through my thought process behind why I’m heading back to the library and ways you can use the library to really spruce up your life (and when was the last time you spruced up anything, anyway?):

I’ve loved to read since I was a child. Books were cool, but I usually grabbed comic books and old WWF wrestling magazines (the “Nerd” was strong in this one at a young age, you see). But then I would snag an Encyclopedia Brown or something and enjoy those. Oh, and the Choose Your Own Adventure series. Those rocked. Anyhoo, as school began to take over my life, the reading of books had to fall by the wayside for the reading of textbooks, homework, and… *shudder*… forced reading. I hated forced reading. I hated teachers encouraging you to read by picking books for you. It drove me insane, and it’s the reason why, to this day, so many of us have this strong aversion to reading. Plus, why read when you can just watch something on TV?

After I graduated from college, I started my own business. As such, a lot of business blogs recommended books for me to read. As I dove in, I discovered the unthinkable: I still enjoyed reading. The beauty of reading books as an adult is that I can pick and choose what I want to read and when. So I became a member at Barnes And Noble and started purchasing books two or three at a time.

But wouldn’t you know it: money started getting tight. Bills piled up, clients started drying up, and I didn’t have as much money to just blow on whatever I wanted. I found a cool service called BooksFree, which promised a Netflix-style service for books. I thought, Wow, I could rent books, read them, and then send them on back and get more books for only $15/month! Anybody else see the absurdity in that thinking? Was renting books a novel idea? Plus, I was waiting on that service because I didn’t have $15 a month to spend, at least not yet. But then, a few days ago, it hit me: I’ve already got a free service that I can use to rent books! I decided I should check out the library once again, for the following reasons:

• There’s going to be something there for me. It’s easy enough for me, given my interests: self improvement, business, and American history. Those topics are prime for the library! But anybody can find something there: there’s plenty of science fiction, horror, suspense, romance, etc.
• It’s freaking FREE. I hate paying for stuff. I can drive 10 minutes to the library, grab a stack of books, check them out, and read them to my heart’s content. I just have to either make sure they’re back by the due date, or renew them before then.
• There’s always somebody who can help you find anything. The downtown Milwaukee library (pictured above) is pretty big. And while librarians working there may not be the friendliest people in the world (one of my tweets today: Sign needed at library saying: "The old ladies at the library card desk are not interested in your small talk or your lame, awkward jokes."), their job is to help you find stuff. Use them.
• You can find books on the internet before you go. One of the crappiest things about going to the library as a kid was looking through the online card catalog and finding out that a book you needed was at some library across town and you wasted a trip. You can find all that information from your home computer now. Punch in the name, find the listing for the book you need, and check to see if they’ve got it on the shelves. Slick.
• Books can go anywhere. Power’s out? Crack open a book and a flashlight. Going on a road trip? Read in the car. Camping this weekend? Kick back in a chair and read a little bit. Carry a book with you when you go places that you know there will be a wait, and you can always keep that short attention span of yours entertained.

And nowadays, there are tools and resources that go beyond the library that take the stuffiness out of the whole process. Here’s how I’m approaching the library to maximize its usefulness:

Tip #1: Grab Evernote and take your notes to the library without writing anything down.

I’ve talked about using Evernote before, and I’m in love with the software. For those who still don’t know, you can take notes in Evernote and access them from the Web, from your mobile phone, and on your desktop computer. I have a Windows Mobile phone, so I have Evernote installed on there as well as my desktop. I take notes in Evernote at home and I can carry them around in my pocket at the library. If you don’t have an internet-enabled phone, you can still access it from any library computer through Evernote’s website. This comes in handy for the other tips listed here.

Tip #2: Build a reading list of stuff you want to read.

I keep an ongoing reading list in Evernote cleverly and originally titled, “Books I Need to Read”. I know the thought of reading lists make you think of grade school summer vacation assignments, but nobody’s going to make you read Catcher In The Rye if you don’t want to. Put together a list of funny books from comedians. Or autobiographies of celebrities. Or the sordid histories of America’s most violent Mafia gangs. Figure out your own interests and keep a running list. Anytime you hear of a book you might want to read, open up Evernote and throw it in there. Then, when you are at the library, you can just pull up your reading list on your phone or on one of their computers and mark them off as you find them.

Places you can find books you might be interested in could be any blogs you follow (I got lots of mine from Marc and Angel Hack Life’s list of 40 Modern Nonfiction Books Everyone Should Read), or book suggestion services (Lifehacker has a beautiful guide with plenty of suggestion services in their article, The Bookworm’s Guide To The Lifehacker Galaxy).

Tip #3: Find the books before you go.

I have to park on a metered street outside my library. It’s $1.50 an hour. Seeing as my last name isn’t “Rockefeller”, that means I don’t have any time to waste when I get to the library. I need to get in, grab the books, and get out. Remember how I said you can search for your books online at home? Instead of going to the library, logging in, and writing down the book’s card catalog reference number on that little piece of paper with the tiny pencil next to the computer, why not search for the books and find the numbers at home? Then throw them into Evernote, and you can bring the numbers up immediately when you get to the library, go straight to the shelves, grab the books, and get out. I might try to see if I can make a full library visit with one quarter next time…

Tip #4: Take some notes. Seriously.

“Waiiiiiiitttt a second…” you say. “I’m out of school. Screw taking notes!”

Okay, that’s fine. But if you’re a nonfiction lover like me, there might be some good information you want to remember. But you won’t get to keep the book, right? So now Evernote is your invaluable friend again.

If there’s a passage or a quote that you are going to love and want to keep, you can pop open Evernote and type it in. Better yet, you can even scan the page or take a picture of it and throw it in Evernote, and the program will recognize the text of the book and make it searchable for you, for when you need to bring it up later.

Part of reading is expanding your knowledge, so using Evernote as an extension of your brain isn’t a bad idea. It will help you remember valuable information, and you can still return the book to the shelves for others to enjoy.

Tip #5: Use Google Calendar for due dates.

Don’t want to pay 15 cents, or whatever the late fees are? Put the due date for your books in Google Calendar right away, and set up a reminder. Reminders can be sent to you via email, or even via text message. Then you can ensure that you won’t forget to take those books back, or renew them before it’s too late!

Tip #6: Read in bed.

The computer screen is not made to relax your eyes. And guess what? Neither is the television screen. Wind down your day by taking 15-20 minutes to read a book in bed with a little lamp on your nightstand. It will relax you and ease the transition into sleep. Then you fall asleep quicker, sleep deeper, and wake up more relaxed and refreshed. Don’t believe me? Try it for a week or two. I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Tip #7: Find magazine articles, press releases, and other bits of research for free – at home.

Sometimes, for work, or even to win an argument, you need to do a little research. Access My Library is a free service made possible through your local library that lets you access and search through over 30 million articles from various publications. You don’t even need a library card for this one: just enter in your email address and postal code, and you can sift through all kinds of useful articles, if you need it.

Do you have any arguments for or against using the library? How about some tips on maximizing its usefulness? Share it with the rest of us Practical Nerds in the comments below!

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Okay, so you read 6 Ways The Average Person Can Use Twitter Without Feeling Like A Loser. You’re convinced you want to try this thing out and see where it takes you. But when you hop onto the Twitter homepage and sign up, you still don’t quite “get it”. And that’s okay, because to be honest, the native Twitter interface is kinda clumsy and is missing several key features. You want Twitter to be easy on the eyes, contain what you want it to contain, and be insanely easy to use. Enter HootSuite.

HootSuite is billed as the “professional Twitter client”, but it’s much more than that. I was looking for a place to handle multiple Twitter accounts (for business purposes). I found every Twitter-related need fulfilled under one roof. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Need #1: Sending out a new tweet.

Easy as pie. The Hootsuite box at the top lets you type up a new tweet with a running counter of what you’ve got left (for those unfamiliar, Twitter only lets you use 140 characters in a tweet). I can click on the profile picture of whichever Twitter profile I want this to post to (it will put a little green checkmark on top of the selected picture). If I want to, I can post to all of my Twitter accounts, or just a select few. It also has a wonderful little box for you to enter in a URL to shrink using Ow.ly, HootSuite’s URL shortener.

Need #2: Scheduling future tweets.

When you click on the “Send Later” link, the box opens up to reveal a little scheduler, allowing you to post tweets for the future. This is a great piece of integration. Just like URL shortening, tweet scheduling was something that previously needed a separate service. Here it is, just a click away. For example, I will be scheduling a tweet to announce this post that will hit Twitter tomorrow morning. I’ll probably still be in bed.

Need #3: A clean, sharper, customizable interface.

On Twitter’s official site, looking at all these different things shown above had to be done on separate pages. Here we can see them all at a glance: your home feed (where your tweets are integrated with the tweeters you are following), your mentions (when somebody makes a public reference to you or replies to something you tweeted), your direct messages (private tweets sent directly to you), and the tweets that you’ve sent. These are all columns I added. They can be moved, rearranged, or deleted. Other column options include search terms (great for monitoring a topic of discussion), among others.

At the top of the page, there is also the ability to add tabs – in my case, one for each account that I am managing – and a “Featured” tab, which has two columns: one with Hootsuite’s official Twitter stream, and one of their favorite tweeters. This “at a glance” feature makes it easy to navigate your Twitter account.

Need #4: Twitter Statistics.

Now here’s where things get good: sharing a link on Twitter is great, but it’s nice to know if people are clicking on your links at all. Previously, this meant using a specific URL shortener – bit.ly is the most popular one – and checking back with it to see how it is performing. HootSuite’s URL shortener tracks the link for you, and provides the statistics in real-time with just a click. In this case, it turns out 4 people were interested in watching the 12-minute video of a guy beating Super Mario World on YouTube (hey, give me a break, it’s late at night). When posting links to The Practical Nerd, this can come in handy, so that I can determine how my links are performing.

Need #5: Easy sharing.

If I had a nickel for every service I’ve used to automatically tweet a link… well, I’d have about 15-20 cents. But that’s not the point. When I want to share a link on Twitter, I like to use a solid bookmarklet for one-click access. My most recent move was using TBUZZ, which automatically inserted a shortened URL for me to share with the world. The only snag was that I constantly had to open a new pop-up to log into Twitter any time I started a new Firefox session.

But HootSuite again solves the problem with the Hootlet, a cute name for a sharp little bookmarklet. When I’m on a webpage that I want to share with the world, I click the Hootlet in my bookmarklets toolbar, and up pops a little box for me to fill in:

As you can see, the Hootlet has already shortened the URL for me (using their shortener, meaning I can track the link’s performance), adds the title of the page, and has all the other features of a HootSuite tweet: selecting profiles, scheduling for later, etc. It’s also lightning-quick.

Conclusion: It’s a winner!

HootSuite has all the features that I could possibly think of, under one roof. This is a completely integrated solution for any Twitter user, professional or recreational. It makes tweeting as easy as a few clicks. Want to make it your desktop solution, as opposed to a web-based program? I use Google Chrome’s great feature that turns any web page into its own desktop application. Then I use TrayIt!, a simple little program that allows me to minimize HootSuite to my system tray:

Now Hootsuite runs in the background (using Google Chrome’s extremely lightweight browser), and if I ever want to bring it up, I just click on that little owl there.

Do you have your own favorite Twitter client? Or have you tried HootSuite? Share with all of us in the comments!

Get great, practical advice sent straight to your inbox every week! For more information on The Practical Nerd Rules for Life, click here. Plus, learn how you can get a copy of my FREE ebook!

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How To Apologize Like a Man [The Art Of Manliness]

All you female practical nerds out there are thinking, "Oh, a man's post. I guess I'll go look at other stuff." But hang on a second: this article, while addressed to men, contains plenty of information that is applicable to women as well. So click on through to it!

Part of leading an honorable life is doing so with respect and dignity towards yourself and others. A big part of that is owning up to your mistakes and giving those you've wronged the proper respect. This article is fantastic in laying out how to do that and why we don't do it more often:

Why We Don’t Apologize

Pride. Apologizing can be particularly hard for men because it involves the admittance of fault. It’s hard to say that we messed up. That we were wrong. Our pride gets in the way.

Embarrassment. If we messed up royally, doing something truly boneheaded even though we knew better, it can be difficult to talk about it to the person we hurt or let down. We feel stupid and would rather pretend like it didn’t happen.

Anger. Things that need apologizing for are rarely a one way street (more on this later). We probably did something wrong, but the other person probably did too. And sometimes our anger over how they offended us is so great that we justify what we did and can’t get past it to apologize.

The antidote to all 3 obstacles? Humility. The reason we put up these walls is that we have an overinflated view of our true selves. We’re always right; we always have it together. But it ain’t true. We’re human. We mess up sometimes. You have to accept your imperfection as a part of life. Suppressing it will cut you off from others. Embracing it will allow you to grow as a man.

Does any of that sound like you? Find out more about when you should apologize and how over at the AoM!

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You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. - Richard Bach

What's holding you back? I wrote in this week's newsletter about pushing yourself to achieve your dreams in the faces of those who think you can't/shouldn't/won't. You have the power to make it happen. It's up to you.

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Get great, practical advice sent straight to your inbox every week! For more information on The Practical Nerd Rules for Life, click here. Plus, learn how you can get a copy of my FREE ebook!

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