Unless you’re willing to toss something in the garbage within about five minutes of getting it, without ever having really used it, you pretty much can’t get anything.
— Colin Beavan, on Day one of the No Impact Man experiment

Early in the 2009 documentary No Impact Man, the subject shows how much trash his family has created in the first week of the yearlong experiment to create zero impact on the earth; barely enough to cover the bottom of a standard wastebasket.

And now I can’t stop paying attention to everything I throw in the trash can. Plastic wrap. Paper towels. Straws. Gum wrappers. Candy wrappers. Diapers. Deli counter ziplock bags. Yogurt tops. Takeout containers. Leftovers. Before we started composting a few months ago, all our table scraps went in the trash as well.

It’s just so depressingly easy to make trash. I hardly even think about it; things pass through my fingers for moments, and then boom – in the garbage can. We probably produce a full bag every 1.5 days, and that’s after recycling as much as we can get into our city-issued bin.

Part of my motivation for starting SmallForGood was selfish; I wanted to educate myself on sustainable living, and the ways we negatively impact our world. It’s certainly been eye-opening.

I promoted the documentary on SmallForGood today. It’s funny, approachable, challenging without being preachy, and it’s immensely inspiring. I also love that it’s controversial (people have called it elitist, unrealistic, and misguided) because that usually means you’re on to something. Watch for yourself and see what you think. I guarantee you won’t look at your consuming habits the same way afterwards.

The following is a hodge podge of humor and inspiration that caught my attention the last quarter of this year (when I finally started using the favorites feature).

• 
  @santheo
  http://neversaidaboutrestaurantwebsites.tumblr.com/
• 
  @srobbin
  As an early 35th birthday present, Blue Cross has increased my rates by 15%. I’m going to celebrate with a burger and pack of cigarettes.
• 
  @factlets
  Innocents Day, Dec 28, was considered the unluckiest day of the year. No work should be begun today. http://factlets.info/Childermas
• 
  @khoi
  I hadn’t! RT @mrgan: @khoi Wonderful. I assume you’ve seen Paul Rand’s gravestone, but just in case: http://j.mp/gFybIy
• 
  @khoi
  Just caught wind of this shockingly beautiful gravestone for Factory impresario Tony Wilson http://bit.ly/dXslfe
• 
  @jasonfried
  Reminder: It’s not a redesign until you redesign the redesign just before launch.
• 
  @weightshift
  Reminder to self: anything worth doing takes time to be great.
• 
  @bjfogg

  Reward can win a few battles in behavior change, but habit always wins the war.

• 
  @FictiveCameron
  Just bought @khoi‘s book. You should too unless you want your bookshelf to start eating ice cream out of the carton & crying itself to sleep
• 
  @jjudge
  Reason #15 why I like being a dad: watching movies like Up and Monsters, Inc together
• 
  @jasonfried
  “It’s healthy now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.” -Bertrand Russel
• 
  @rjs
  Good group design tactic: Agree on what is worth trying, not what is “right.” Trying it will prove if it was right or not.
• 
  @khoi
  Robert X. Cringley on how email is dying. http://j.mp/eIkjiA
• 
  @jedsundwall
  Really impressed by all the badges and other things my friends are unlocking and earning on the Internet! GOOD JOB EVERYONE
• 
  @rjs
  You can’t improve a design when you’re emotionally attached to previous decisions. Improvements come from flexibility and openness.
• 
  @iversia
  What if the remaining IE6 market share is composed completely of web designers still testing for IE6? http://bit.ly/cr19At
• 
  @weightshift
  Caught in a design loop today. Enough tinkering. Time to just put it up. Afterwards, iterate, iterate, iterate.
• 
  @jasonfried
  Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc. are modern day smoke breaks.
• 
  @GapLogo
  
  First order of business for these Chilean miners? Update them on this whole logo situation.

Instead of getting oxygen to the idea as quickly as possible, I started kicking around ideas for layout, a logo, color choices, imagery, and so on. I’m a designer, I thought. Of course I’m going to do this custom.

It’s the curse of having no client. I had no budget to keep in mind, no timeframe, and no one telling me “no”.

As a result, the project quickly languished. With a busy family life, I told myself I’d get to the site later. And of course ‘later’ started to become ‘never’. Two years went by. I occasionally thought about the site, and how much I liked the idea. I’d promise to start designing soon, and I never did.

A few months ago, the idea popped up in my head once more. I wondered where the site would be today if I’d actually launched it when the idea first came to me. I knew I’d never launch the site if I hung on to my self-imposed requirements.

So I started acting like the client again, prioritizing the site’s needs. Yes, a custom design would be great — I’d love to see Small For Good develop it’s own recognizable brand.

But I also wanted to launch as quickly as possible to see if the idea would catch and – ultimately – grow. What good is a site that took months to produce if no one visits?

After an evening’s work customizing a spare, sturdy WordPress theme by Automattic, I was ready to start focusing on the content of the site. You know — the content? The site’s reason for being?

After another few weeks of populating the site and adding some social-ness and interactive-ness, I launched.

From two years to two weeks.

Now I’m actually managing the site and thinking of new ways to spread the word and — hopefully — live out the site’s goal. And that’s the most critical thing.

Do I wish the site had a custom design? Sure. Is there time for that? Absolutely. And if the site truly takes off at some point, I’ll revisit. In fact, the custom design will help signal that momentum is building. For now, I’ll just see if I can blow on the kindling and get a roaring fire going.

It’s been an invaluable lesson. I’m all for investing time and treasure in your life’s passions, but the timing of that investment deserves careful consideration. Why put up roadblocks to the realization of an idea? Can you start with less? Odds are, you can.

I find the spirit behind the question endlessly inspiring. As such, I’ve created smallforgood.com, a site that seeks out those small, simple ideas so they can be performed by anyone every single day. The goal is to care for our world at an individual — yet global — level.

The idea for this site has been rattling around in my brain for years, and I’m thrilled to finally get oxygen to the concept. It’s also refreshing to approach a project as the client, as opposed to a designer. More on that later.

We wield great power as individuals when we work collectively. Few of us have the chance to change the way our businesses handle waste or how our communities provide energy. But we can take small steps each day to cut emissions, reduce the amount of material we put into landfills, save water and energy, and so forth. Through simple steps, we can live more sustainably within the framework of our lives, in ways that tangibly effect change.

I’d love to see ideas flow in to the site; by no means am I an expert on the sustainability front. Rather, I’m just looking to centralize this kind of information for myself and others who might be interested. I hope you’ll bring ideas and opinions — or simply stop by on occasion to see what’s new.

“We can always convert the office to another room if it doesn’t work out, and I can just work… somewhere else,” I reasoned.

And then, in a moment of Not-So-Big-House inspiration, I struck upon an idea.

“We could convert our closet into an office,” I tossed out, not sure if the suggestion would be met with derisive laughter, or actual consideration. While there may have been an initial smirk, I could see the wheels turning in Renate’s head.

And so we set out to convert our banana-yellow, L-shaped, smallish walk-in closet into a working studio.

First thing, though — we had to stop calling it a ‘closet’.

“The Annex,” Renate suggested.

“Yeah. Good. I can’t be working in the closet.”

The Annex, pre-construction:

Since moving in a year and a half ago, we’ve painted nearly every room in this house and put up a wall in the basement (well — my Dad put up a wall in our basement). But this was definitely the largest home renovation project we’d undertaken, and I relished the idea of ripping out those built-ins. DEMOLITION…

First, though, everything in the closet had to be relocated. We made our way to Ikea (two hours away in Cincinnati) twice during the same weekend to buy new wardrobes for the bedroom. We also picked up a new light for the closet annex, and about five pounds of Swedish chocolate.

After three long nights of wardrobe assembly, followed by several days of spackling, priming and painting, we were ready to move in the furniture. I learned a few things along the way, namely that painting trim is certainly a pasttime in one of the seven circles of hell.

The Annex, post-construction:

I have to say, I love working in this room. It’s peaceful and filled with natural light. Plus it’s just the right size; it doesn’t feel cramped, but it doesn’t leave much room to pile up papers, so it stays tidy.

Still. I’m working in a closet. If I hadn’t come up with the idea myself, I might wonder what this communicates about my spot on the family totem pole.

The decision was surprisingly easy; having contracted with the company for awhile, I liked both the folks I’d be working with and the work itself. Plus, I relished the idea of being part of a team again. I really enjoy working collaboratively, and that was missing when I was on my own. I suppose I’m a social beast at heart, though I still work from home and use IM for most of my communication with my coworkers.

Looking back over those years on my own, I’m struck by a few things:

1. If you have the chance to work for yourself at some point, you absolutely should. Two sizable freelance projects simultaneously knocked at my door, convincing me to take the leap. It was the best thing that could have happened. I was forced to build out  my skill set, learned a bit about business, and met a ton of people (including my current employer). It was freeing to know I could work for myself; my decisions became focused more on want to’s vs. have to’s (though of course there was a healthy dose of the latter).
2. Working for myself was easier than I expected. I say that to underscore the reality that there’s a lower barrier to entry to self-employment than I initially thought, not that I’m a savvy entrepreneur. I’m sure it depends on the industry, and there’s plenty of web work out there. But I did little marketing beyond my online portfolio and business cards; every project or client I took on came through friends, clients and a trusted network of fellow freelancers (who also fall under the friends category). Anchoring project-based work with regular clients made things a bit more predictable and sustainable.
3. Meeting other self-employed folks was huge. I got involved with IdeaXchange in Chicago, a fantastic group of writers, artists, designers and PR folks, most of whom worked for themselves. We met monthly to talk shop and share ideas, and it didn’t matter that we all worked in different industries (though I got mixed up with crew of local web design freelancers shortly thereafter, which was/is great for talking nerdery that no one else understands).
4. The benefit of setting your schedule when self-employed is only partially true. There’s a glaring catch to this concept; time off actually costs you double, as you’re paying for travel expenses while not working, and thus not billing. I probably took a total of two weeks off per year, partly because I enjoyed the projects, but also because every hour was billable. My experience was definitely not cocktails at 2pm every Friday afternoon.

By and large I felt challenged and engaged by my work, and that’s fortunately still the case with my new role. Now if only the company would move to Indianapolis so I could fully enjoy the team lunch on Fridays…

Should a logo be self-explanatory? It is only by association with a product, a service, a business, or a corporation that a logo takes on any real meaning. It derives its meaning and usefulness from the quality of that which it symbolizes.

[...]

The role of the logo is to point, to designate-in as simple a manner as possible. A design that is complex, like a fussy illustration or an arcane abstraction, harbors a self-destruct mechanism. Simple ideas, as well as simple designs are, ironically, the products of circuitous mental purposes. Simplicity is difficult to achieve, yet worth the effort.
— Logos, Flags and Escutcheons, Paul Rand

I love that last sentence (emphasis mine). There’s so much in that article that relates to design in general, but that one held my attention for awhile.

Trading anonymity for accountability has led to radically improved conversations.
— There is an inverse relationship between level of anonymity and quality of conversation

I can’t stand the state of comments on news websites. If the internet is the great democratizer of content, it’s a horrible place to have an actual conversation with people.

Name-calling runs rampant. Commenters belittle one another. People make up nicknames for politicians — Barack Obummer. John McShame.

What’s the point of hosting this kind of feeding frenzy? To prove that you have readership to support ad dollars? It certainly doesn’t add any value, and it depresses me to think that we can’t be just a bit, well, nicer to one another in our disagreements.

I’d love to see a comment stream that projects thoughtful, respectful debate, and there’s really only one way it’ll happen: we have to use our own names.

I’m not sure how this could technically be implemented, but wouldn’t that be a better conversation? No more “looney libs” and “stupid rethuglicans”. No more contests to see who can leave the wittiest comment about people who’ve died in unfortunate ways. Just grown ups having a talk using their inside voices.

“It’s dehumanizing to have thousands of people passing through our computer screens, so we do things we’d never do if they were sitting next to us.”
— A Real Person, A Lot Like You

It’s true. And it sucks. Someone fix it.

I can’t blame the lad for my lack of writing; our life settled into a routine after a few harried months of negotiating with a newborn. I don’t have the free time I used to, but fortunately he still requires sleep.

No, I’ve just been happy with Facebook and Twitter for keeping up with folks (and, recently, Kontain).

These social networks have spoiled me; I’m now used to simple, fast updates. While we still sporadically post to the photoblog, the process of posting pictures feels laborious compared to posting pics to social networks via mobile phone. The boy does a heart-melting interpretive dance to ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ in the car? Moments later it’s posted where folks will see it. That’s fun and spontaneous.

Remembering to take the camera with me, then downloading, organizing, cropping pics and uploading them to the blog — well, that’s a bit less spontaneous and easy. (Don’t worry, mom – we’ll keep updating the photoblog.)

Plus, there’s a vibrancy to a social network that makes a personal blog seem like an outpost. I’m used to Facebook emailing me when someone comments on something I’ve commented on. You get sucked in to the pulse, the dialogue.

To hopefully bring a bit of that energy here, I’ve incorporated disqus comments, which makes it easy to keep track of chit chat on a post and share comments elsewhere. That said, you don’t need a disqus, Twitter or Facebook account; you can simply post as a guest.

Also, you can subscribe to the blog and receive an email when I’ve (finally) posted something. Click ‘subscribe’ at the top of the page (or just click this link right here).

Lastly, I’ve done a bit of optimizing so the site renders well on iPhones and Android-powered smartphones. Take me with you, eh?

Apologies for the radio silence. Hope to be back in fighting form right quick.

Popped in to the hospital today for a quick EMG on my LUE, or Left Upper Extremity. If you’ve never had the pleasure, an EMG is a test whereby doctors (in my case, five) cram into an exam room and shoot electricity into you for a good half an hour to determine if your nerves work.

“It’s not the most pleasant procedure,” my doctor said apologetically last week.

I’d made an appointment to see the doctor due to some recurring numbness in my left hand combined with a dull ache in my upper left arm. For my trouble she also talked me into the first flu shot I’ve had in thirty-one years on this green earth.

“You’ve got a little one now,” she said. “You don’t want to bring it home to him.”

It is surely a low blow to use one’s child against him in this way. For the next two days it felt as though someone had punched me in the Left Upper Shoulder.

Turns out it was good practice for today’s session.

One of the lab coats stuck a few sensors to my hand while another doctor was brought in to show them how to reset the computer. For the next 30 minutes they talked mostly to one another, asking which knob did what, sharing keyboard shortcuts (“so I just hit pulse twice?”), wondering why the results didn’t show up on the monitor, etc. Apparently the approach during an EMG is: crank the intensity up until you get a result or the patient can power their own appliances.

“Uh, that hurts,” I had to pipe up at one point as the dial went past 15 to 30 to 45 to 60.

“Oh yeah,” one of them laughed, “it is up kinda high.” Ha ha, good times! It felt like someone was continuously snapping a rubber band on my arm from six feet away. My hand flopped about as if in its death throes.

Finally satisfied, they all left the room to share results with the Head Honcho doctor, who returned only to zap me a few more times. Then she turned to me and said, “now they will put the needle in the muscle.”

And thank goodness, because silly me thought the unpleasantness had ended. Nope! For the next twenty minutes they stuck a needle into various spots on my arm, twisting it around as if it were a key and the corresponding keyhole was around here somewhere…

“This next spot is kinda tender,” Lab Coat said before sticking the needle into the flesh between my thumb and forefinger. “Now try to relax this hand. Heh, I know it’s tough, I got a needle in there.”

I mean we had fun today.