Be Efficient - Paperless

In this day and age, e-mail pretty much always trumps snail-mail. Sadly, impatience has replaced the excitement once felt when postmen rounded the block. I always enjoyed getting real mail as a child and for some reason, I’m still much more anxious to check my mailbox than my inbox. So when day after day, I came home to a bundle of envelopes with my name typed beneath a cellophane window instead of colorful, hand addressed ones, I started to rethink what I was so excited about and began accepting a (more) paperless society.

I quickly and easily got to work at reducing my mailbox clutter by first enrolling to receive paperless statements for all of my accounts. Not only are the current statements due emailed to me, but I have a paperless record of all my statements on electronic file in one place on my computer, which has resulted in reducing home office clutter, as well! Another benefit to handling your bills on-line is you never have to worry about someone getting their hands on your information because it essentially disappears once you’ve navigated away from the page or it’s been idle for too long. With secure login access that requires a username, password, and frequently a security question as well, it sure beats all the dangerous paper shredders people have around so they can “safely” destroy the paper counterparts to e-statements.  While you’re at it, go ahead and set up online bill pay with your bank. Making e-payments saves the checks, the stamps, and most of the hassle associated with paying bills. You can even set up reminders to be emailed to you so you can avoid annoying late fees, ugh! Why stop there? Remove yourself from catalog mailing lists and shop online from the retailers you actually like. And remember, whatever junk mail you may be solicited with should never, ever end up in the trash. If it’s paper, guess what? It’s recyclable; creating post-consumer material for the production of other things (I bet you’ll never look at your Starbuck’s sleeve the same way again)!

Be Active - Running Late

I'm convinced that I'm in on a secret. It wouldn't seem this way if more people talked about it or if I thought it was at all obvious, but they don't and I guess it's not. Normally tight-lipped when secrets are concerned, this is worth sharing and I'm talking! This heightened perspective dawned on me as I routinely walked past the gym this morning en route to my favorite running destination. Today, however, I took notice to the people I could see through the glass who were pounding away on rows of treadmills Not seeing how running in this way could possibly be enjoyable, I felt sorry for all of them; probably completely unfulfilled, unpresent, and unmotivated. They must not know...There is another way....
Running is running, right? Wrong! I choose to run somewhere beautiful, ever-changing, challenging and full of endless destinations. Where is this place and how can you find a location near you? I have good news, it's called the Great Outdoors, you can find it anywhere, it's always open and, best of all, it's absolutely free! As I began my run in Central Park, I tuned into all of the reasons running has become this craving I don't feel at all bad about feeding. I look forward to it and actually consider it an activity I enjoy instead of counting down on a digital display the minutes/calories/miles left until the self-inflicted torture can end. Don't get me wrong. Any efforts to raise your heart beat are admirable in the eyes of health. The benefits are apparent even besides the obvious; the über convenience of starting a workout as soon as you walk out of your front door, no special equipment is needed, no judgments, no memberships or fees. The earth has provided us with the perfect landscape to run on and use. So why don't more people use it? Consider this: Oxygen does, in fact, come from trees and other plant life, not an HVAC. Doesn't it make sense to be breathing in fresh, from the source air you need and breathing out the carbon dioxide plants need instead of running on some plugged in machine that is sucking energy from the grid and polluting the earth? It's the perfect relationship of give and take! Did I mention the part about no judgments?!