But everything has its own time, so I thank the summer and excitedly greet the autumn, which I’m sure holds even more fun stuff for all of us.

During last three month tons of interesting and exciting things happened to me. To record the most pleasant experiences, achievements and discoveries I will award top prizes in several nominations “The Best … of Summer ‘10″. So, here we go.

Non-fiction book — “Predictably Irrational” by Dan Ariely

The book acquaints readers with the discipline of “Behavioral Economics” and contains a lot of amazing  experiments showing how predictably irrational people really are. Most of all I liked the chapter explaining the difference between social and market behavioral norms.

Fiction book — “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka

Well, I know that it’s a part of high school curriculum and shame on me for not reading it ages ago. But late is better than never. Fundamental story for an intelligent person to read.

Movie — “El Secreto de Sus Ojos” directed by Juan José Campanella

Recommended by my favorite Spanish podcaster Mercedes León this Argentine movie left a strong impression on me. Thrilling, emotional, technically perfect and with a brilliant ending.

Purchase — MacBook Pro 13-inch

With no doubt this is the best consumer device I’ve ever laid my hands on. Perfect design, incomparable usability and absolute conformity with what I value in things — quality and simplicity.

Event — Rostov-on-Don Salsa Congress “Third Front”

After this event, I can declare myself completely and hopelessly addicted to salsa NY and mambo music. Great organization, unforgettable atmosphere, wonderful people, and a lot of fun. Many thanks to my teacher Dima for introducing to this culture.

Music — Ray Barretto and Tito Puente

This summer I discovered for myself two big legends of latin jazz and mambo. Once you tried dancing to their rhythms, you fall in love with this music forever.

Software — OmmWriter

With switching to Mac a whole world of new software has opened to me. The biggest impression so far left the beautiful and minimalistic text editor OmmWriter, using which I’m actually writing this post. No distractions whatsoever, just a sheet of paper and the flow of your thoughts.

Website — Onoma.es

Great online resource which for Spanish verbs conjugation which clearly shows where the irregularities are. Very light, convenient and usable design. I actually switched to Onoma in my trick for quick conjugation lookup.

Achievement — Improvement of 50m results in swimming

I must admit that the swimming goals which I set for this year may be a bit too  high. But if they weren’t such who knows how I would perform. During summer I achieved 40” in freestyle, 46” in butterfly, 49” in breaststroke and 59” in backstroke on 50m. And we’ll see if I can’t get to where I planned for 2010.

This is about it. Of course I could have added much more nominations, like for example award Rostov’s cafeteria “Пить Кофе” (on the photo above) with “The Most Delicious Food” prize. But then I would probably take too long.

And what about your summer prize-winners in these nominations?

Desde el primer día cuando empecé conocer el español he tenido observaciones interesantes sobre esta lengua. El primero es que todos los aspectos de español que no existan en inglés, existan in ruso y ucranio que yo hablo como lenguas maternas. Y todo que puede parecer extranjero para gente ruso y ucranio, es común para anglohablantes. Lo que sobrentiendo son las cosas como conjugaciones de verbos y géneros de sustantivos que presentan un obstáculo difícil para estudiantes de español cuyo idioma materna es inglés. Por el otro lado los aspectos como artículos y presente pasado son las cosas que producen problemas grandes para estudiantes rusos y ucranios. Así que pienso que tengo muchísima suerte de poder hablar ruso, ucranio y inglés antes de empezar estudiar español.

Otro observación es que todo en español es muy lógico y claro. Ya sé que es muy difícil para creer, especialmente para un novicio mirando a más que cincuenta formas de un verbo. Pero apenas se orienta un poco, cosas vienen en orden. Así creo que español tiene una sistema de escritura genial en su simplicidad. Lejos correspondencia prácticamente total entre letras y sonidos, no hay ningunas dudas sobre acentuación. Es porque hay sólo una regla dirigiendo la lectura, y si no se cumpla, se usa el acento agudo. Otra cosa que me encanta es que todos los verbos tienen uno de las tres terminaciones posibles: «-ar», «-er» o «-ir». Y no hay ningunas otras.

También me gustaría compartir con el mundo los recursos y trucos qué me han ayudado mucho y sin cuales no podría llegar a mi presente nivel. Generalmente los métodos que uso con español son en linea con los dados en mi articulo anterior sobre inglés. Trato de sumergirme en el idioma todo el tiempo libre. Como en todas las cosas es el más difícil al principio y apenas llegas al nivel donde puedes puedes usar materiales totalmente en la lengua que aprendes, se pone muy atraído e interesante.

Alegados abajo son todos los recursos y materiales que he usado durante mi viaje con español hasta la fecha. Quiero expresar mi sincera gratitud a todos trabajando en los. Mi especiales gracias van a Mercedes León de Español Podcast para producir el mejor material de español segunda lengua y distribuirlo gratuitamente a todo el mundo.

Podcasts

• Coffee Break Spanish podcast (80 episodios, ≈24 horas de audio)
• Show Time Spanish podcast (40 episodios, ≈16 horas de audio)
• Spanishdict.com podcast (60 episodios, ≈11 horas de vídeo)
• Español Podcast (140 episodios, ≈65 horas de audio)

Cursos

• Michel Thomas Spanish audio cursos (4 cursos, ≈23 horas de audio)

Libros

• «El coronel no tiene quien le escriba» de Gabriel García Márquez (99 paginas en letras grandes)

Tecnologías

• ABBYY Lingvo 12 instalado en mi ordenador y en mi Nokia E51

En mis próximos planes tengo leer varios libros en español original (primeramente de Jorge Luis Borges y Gabriel García Márquez) y escuchar de algunos audio libros inadaptados.

Para concluir quiero decir otra ves que creo que es posible obtener un buen nivel de idioma extranjero sin asistir ningunas clases y sin gastar dinero. Come se dice en español, querer es poder.

To put the story short, everything was just perfect and I got reassured in my opinion that if all Ukraine could become like Lviv we would proudly call our land Europe, not only geographically but also mentally and spiritually.

Positive impressions began just when we located our rented apartment. Half-blindly picked and booked over the Internet for less than modest price, it ended up to be roomy, tidy and situated in the old town, right in front of Potocki Palace (major tourist attraction). What a pleasure it was to come back home every evening to a place like that.

Then there was food, lots and lots of food. Local cafes and restaurants with their delicious cuisine, excellent service and cozy thematic interiors can actually lead one to obesity given that the average check is less than $10. I definitely gained a couple of kilos there.

The primary purpose of our visit — rock-festival “Stare Misto” — also was above any expectations. The way everything was organized reminded me of Radiohead’s show  in Prague — enough room for the audience, no jams on entrance and exits, friendly security personnel and, of course, high quality sound, all for $10 ticket. A special surprise to me was the song with which Okean Elzy started their performance. It was the oldest song “Tam, de nas nema”, the one with which they became popular back in 1998. As I had never been to their concert before I found it very symbolic.

The only thing that came as a small disappointment was attending local salsa club. In that regard we are obviously pampered by the abundance of schools and parties in Kyiv, so what we’ve seen in “Havana” club there didn’t impress us at all and even seemed a bit vulgar.

Some other things that I will remember from this trip were the huge double rainbow we saw at the central square one day and amazing pauper poet, who for twenty minutes entertained us with his impromptu verses in the park.

The four days passed very quickly and it was kind of sad to board the train back home, but thought that overnight ride can bring us back any time we want raised our spirit. Anyway, now I at least have the tradition of visiting Lviv every year in May.

Before coming to Seattle I had an impression of it as a cool city with a massive artistic and alternative culture. That’s probably because I used to be a great fan of grunge music which basically originated here. Bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden were the foundation of my music taste formation. And I should say what I’ve actually seen wasn’t at all disappointing. Walking through Capitol Hill district at night and seeing so many “creative” individuals, art shops, galleries and clubs with live music couldn’t leave any doubts about city’s “coolness”. But apart from that Seattle, as well as the areas surrounding it, is very neat, clean and green. So it’s not for nothing that Washington has its nickname “The Evergreen State”.

One of my first must-see tourist destinations was, of course, the famous Space Needle. I first read about it in Chuck Palahniuk’s book “Invisible Monsters”. Characters from the book went on top of the tower’s observation deck and threw their notes for the future on pieces of paper down by the wind. Being a good tourist I, of course, didn’t imitate them and litter from the top but made a couple of wishes inside my head anyway. The panoramic view of downtown and Puget Sound were definitely worth its $17.

The other impressive place I happened to visit was Seattle Public Library. From outside it’s a big futuristic building made of glass. Inside it’s the most amazing reading temple I’ve ever seen. The floors are organized as a giant spiral, which runs to the upmost level, where a huge reading room with a transparent roof is located. I couldn’t stand the temptation of the place, picked up a book about Abraham Lincoln dated 1945, and spent a couple of pleasant hours reading.

The only thing that I wasn’t able to fully appreciate was probably Seattle’s famous coffee shops as I am not a great fan of coffee. But nonetheless I stopped by at the world’s oldest Starbucks and some others where tasted cocoa and hot chocolate. My vegetarian needs were fully satisfied by visiting Pike Place Market which apart from being a big tourist attraction with its fish and crabs actually offers a good selection of vegetables, fruits and berries.

So at this point my next attempt to fly back to Ukraine is scheduled on Thursday, but we’ll see how it goes with Eyjafjallajökull. Guessed what that meant? ;)

The fun on my trip started back in Kyiv with the taxi ride. In the middle of Easter night I ordered a cab to pick me up from home and take to the airport. When I was getting inside a car I heard a song playing which was very unusual for taxi drivers in Kyiv. It sang: “If you’re going to San Francisco be sure to wear some flowers in your hair…” I looked at the driver with amazement and told him about this incredible coincidence. You still don’t believe that universe knows everything? I do, for sure.

The long two-leg flight passed easy. Stopover in Amsterdam gave a chance to catch a glimpse of Netherlands and get evidence that I do want to visit Holland in future. I arrived in San Francisco on Sunday afternoon and was met by rain. Half an hour subway ride from the airport to downtown, walking a couple of blocks and I am in the modest hostel called Adelaide. The place is a bit old and worn-out but fresh free breakfasts and free Wi-Fi made my stay there pleasant.

The next four days I was on vacation so I couldn’t lose the opportunity to see major tourist attractions in the city. I went to Pier 33, saw Alcatraz, walked on Golden Gate Bridge, climbed on Telegraph Hill and wandered around China Town. The city is pretty small, so one can see a lot just by walking. But if necessary, convenient and easy to understand public transportation system can help to get to remote destinations. It’s interesting that there are several independent transport authorities operating in San Francisco and the Bay Area. And, of course, I checked out all of those — MUNI (busses, trolleys and trams), BART (subway) and CalTrain (trains going south of Bay Area).

As a keen salsa learner I couldn’t miss a chance to see how it is danced in California. Having done little research on the Internet I found out that one of the best places to dance salsa in the Bay Area is the club called Cafe Cocomo. So I went there on Monday evening, took a class for beginners and stayed for the disco. To tell the truth, I wasn’t impressed much by either the class or the disco. Maybe that’s because Monday is a kind of “losers’ day” there, I don’t know. But what we have in Ukraine is much better than what I’ve seen there, that’s for sure.

One of the other things from my traveler’s wish list that I accomplished was visiting Stanford University campus. It took one hour ride on CalTrain from San Francisco down to Palo Alto and 15 minutes walk from the train station to get to one of the coolest university campuses I’ve ever seen. The atmosphere there is very cozy and inspiring. If I lived in the Bay Area I would certainly come there once in while during summer to relax on the green grass with a good book.

My vacation was officially over on Thursday night with beginning of the annual meeting hosted by my company (which was by the way primary reason for my visit). But to tell that the fun was over then would be to lie. Not only the meetings themselves were very productive and useful but also the informal part included such exiting things as dinner cruise around Alcatraz and under Gold Gate Bridge, and attending baseball game with San Francisco Giants.

So I must say that I really enjoyed my stay in this wonderful city by the bay and will definitely come back here some day. Now sitting in the airport I’m saying good bye to San Francisco and the state of California moving to my next destination — Seattle — where I’m going to spend four days working with my American colleagues. And of course I’m looking forward to see what’s interesting is there in the land of Kurt Cobain.

First, I did a lot of reading on spiritual and personal development topics. In particular, following the chain of references by my favorite authors I discovered the works of Mahatma Gandhi and Dalai Lama which impressed me very deep and actually changed the way I see things in the world.

Then, little by little I started acquiring yet non-verbal feeling of what I definitely must reflect in my mission statement. The next step of choosing the right words was probably the most challenging one. To break it down I set up a couple of simple lists and over the course of several weeks had been accumulating items there. Among others, for example, I had the following lists:

• Qualities I want to possess throughout my life (e.g. calmness, integrity, kindness, etc.)
• Areas of life I want to focus on (e.g. family, friends, communities, work, etc.)
• What I want to do to myself (e.g. grow as a person, grow professionally, learn new skills, etc.)
• What I want to do to others (e.g. inspire, serve, make happy, etc.)

Once the lists were ready I began to squeeze the juice out of them, omitting synonyms and blurred expressions,  trying to leave only the essentials so that each word that was left had the most meaning in it.

The last step was to come up with core values based on the lists and wrap some binding words around them. As I wanted my mission statement to be one sentence long, easy to read, understand and follow this last step was quite a tricky one.

So without further ado here is what I’ve come up with:

“My mission is to bring happiness to people around me by adhering to my values of responsibility, proactiveness and open-mindedness, while constantly inspiring friends, family and community with my self-discipline and personal growth.”

In the process of working on the mission statement I have also developed what I call a personal tagline as a byproduct. In Twitter terms it would be called “one line bio”, I guess. Anyways now I am using this tagline in my profiles on different social networks. Here is how it goes:

“Open-minded and self-disciplined bloke enjoying life of simplicity and order.”

I should say that spending time to create a mission statement brought a good degree of satisfaction and inspiration to immediately start with some new big undertakings. However it also makes me curious about how durable this mission statement will be, as I know for sure that a person’s perception of life changes significantly over time. It’s quite possible that I will want to change it in the future, we’ll see. Then this post will be a sort of time capsule. But for now I will guide my actions and decisions according to my current personal mission statement.

And what about you my friends, do you have your mission statements written already? Or maybe you are planning to write one?

Described in one word, 2009 was the year of awareness for me. My sensation of life seems to have shaped itself to some definite and stable form. I was trying to spend every minute consciously, by doing good things that will have impact in a long run. During the year I gradually came the point where I feel ready to define my values and start developing my own personal mission statement (using Stephen Covey’s words). And even though I’m still thinking about exact wording, I know for sure that I want my life to be based on self-discipline, integrity, open-mindedness, non-complaining, and abundance mentality.

At this post I would like to report to my own self about the last year’s accomplishments along two different lines. First, I want to appraise how good I adhered to my plans and goals and then tell about the fascinating new things I experienced, learned and started during this year. Also I want to share some interesting personal statistics and of course, I’m going to set up some challenging and exciting goals for the year to come.

The Report 2009

So, I’ll start with my goals. In the beginning of the year, inspired by “4-Hour Workweek” I wrote down all the things I wanted to do, to have and to be in 2009. In terms of “to do” I basically wanted to get my first ever travelling experience. And I am happy to say that the year has brought me even more than I expected. Apart from planned trip to the U.S. in March, I got a chance to visit nothing less than “Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada” in July, celebrating my birthday in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and in the sky above North America. Then, there was unforgettable trip to beautiful Prague for the best purpose I could imagine — live Radiohead performance.

From “to be” perspective my goals were related to developing new and strengthening existing physical and mental skills. First, I wanted to learn to swim decently and technically correctly in all four known strokes (freestyle, butterfly, breaststroke and backstroke). This goal was achieved and now I feel quite comfortable in swimming pool. I am still about two times slower than world record holders, but usually there are not too many people in the swimming pool who are faster than me.

Another bodily skill I wanted to develop was roller skating. Here I haven’t shown as much diligence as with swimming but achieved some progress anyway. In particular I learned how to have control on the wheels, do inclined turns and skate backwards.

A couple more undertakings I gave to myself in the field of languages learning. On English front my goal was to become fluent and get rid of accent. Here I would say that I accomplished the goal at 90% level. By this moment I don’t have any problems with listening, reading and writing but still feel some constraint when speaking. However it’s definitely not something one more year of intense practice couldn’t wipe away.

Another endeavor of mine was to learn basics of Spanish language all by myself relying just on online sources available for free. My goal was to become able to build basic sentences and understand adopted speech. The result here, I must admit, could be better. I would estimate the completion level as 60%. But anyway I have learned main grammar rules such as verbs conjugation patterns in different times and persons, subjunctives and so on. Now all I need to do is to enrich the vocabulary and practice more.

In the goals related to material possession I showed modest results. I wanted to get myself a bicycle, a semi-pro photo camera and a wrist watch for active life style. And it was only the latter that I did get. But it is not something that makes me sad.

So that’s about it for my Goals 2009. I liked having those with me through the year. It was a pleasant experience to check items in the list with the sense of accomplishment. So I encourage everyone to set up  ambitious goals and move towards achieving them fully enjoying the process.

Statistics 2009

Through the whole 2009 I kept a log of all of my physical exercises such as swimming as well as mental activities like reading. This allows me to calculate some funny statistics now.

For example, the total distance that I swam during the year equals 167 kilometers (it’s about 450 meters per calendar day!)

And here is the calculation of  the average time I spent each day listening to educational materials, podcasts and audiobooks:

• Total Listening time: 363 hours (15 days!) = 60 min every day
  • Listening to English podcasts: 154 hours (6. 5 days) in total = 25 min every day
  • Listening to English audiobooks: 170 hours (7.1 days) in total = 28 min every day
  • Listening to Spanish podcasts: 16 hours (0.7 days) in total = 3 min every day
  • Listening to Spanish audiobooks: 23 hours (1 day) in total = 4 min every day

What do you think about spending 15 full days of the year listening? It’s actually 1/24 part of the year!

New Experience in 2009 — Salsa

The bravest thing I did in 2009 was my decision to learn dancing. Why is brave? Well, because in elementary school I had choreography lessons and the teacher used to tell me that I was hopeless and as graceful as a bear.

The choice of dance was made in favor of salsa due to its social nature and relatedness to Spanish-speaking culture. I made the first attempt to attend classes in March but very soon abandoned them, because there was no good order and system in place which I conceive to be the necessary part for any learning process.

I got back to the idea in the summer, and resolved to start attend serious classes starting in September. After doing some research on Kyiv-based salsa schools and different salsa styles I decided in favor of Bailamos Salsa School and Los Angeles style. So on September 9th I pulled two friends of mine and we attended the first lesson. In October eager to learn even more we started attending another school called S-Tres where we learn salsa New York style. Now, after four months, having been to several salsa discotheques I am happy with my choices seeing real progress and enjoying the learning process. ¡Viva la Salsa!

New Initiative in 2009 — Gotosuccess Club

One summer evening I was watching Ignite sessions at Google when an idea struck me. It was the idea to create a closed club for friends, where we could do the same as those famous inspiring people do — meet regularly and speak on interesting topics, share observations and ideas. I wanted this club to be a place where no one ever complains but everyone thinks creatively, where people find synergies between each other’s professions, jobs, skills, hobbies, interests, where they generate ideas for future business and social projects, develop presentation, speaking, listening and discussion skills. So I quickly shared my idea with friends and shortly we had our first kick-off meeting scheduled. We named our club “Gotosuccess Club“. As of this moment the club has ten people and we have met eight times keeping fortnightly schedule. Everyone seems to enjoy and benefit from these meetings and I see a great future for this organization.

Goals 2010

So, now it’s time to set up interesting and challenging goals for the year 2010. In the same spirit as the last year I have created a page on this blog which will be my reference throughout the year.

I wish you all a very Happy New Year and Merry Christmas!

To give some background I shall tell how I end up becoming a vegetarian in the first place.

In July 2008, just after graduating from university I met the first real embodiment of vegetarianism in my life — Kate. She told me that it had been six years without meat for her and that she felt great about it. As we shared many common interests we soon made friends, and I became intrigued by this vegetarianism thing.

At that time my university hostel accommodation was expiring and I had to find a place to rent. I was not very successful in my searches, so Kate kindly suggested that I could take her apartment during the summer, while she would stay in her native town with parents. So I agreed.

When moving in I remember thinking “All right, while staying here I am not to bring into this home anything that is against its owner’s views. If I want meat I shall do it elsewhere”. It so happened that during next couple of weeks I didn’t go out, nor did I visit any friends. Having suddenly realized that I had spent half a month without meat and felt quite good I resolved to extend the period, now as a conscious experiment.

My friends and relatives immediately found out about my decision and started asking what the reason was. The only answer I had was “just curiosity”. It was indeed interesting to try something new and to remain for some time on the side of minority.

Later, I somehow began to find many things that supported the idea of vegetarianism in me. I was discovering new kinds of fruits and vegetables, the ones that I completely ignored before. I started to be more disciplined generally in terms of nutrition, completely excluding junk food and cooking for myself more often and with greater variety. And also, I started to read writings of wise eastern men such as Dalai Lama, Shunryu Suzuki and Mahatma Gandhi whose philosophies based on compassion and non-violence encourage vegetarianism as a natural way of life for a man. So I continued my experiment, and currently don’t see myself ending it in near future.

During these fifteen months I have participated in numerous discussions about pros and cons of vegetarianism and faced many stereotypes deeply embedded in our society. In general I think most the arguing that goes around can be roughly divided across three different aspects:

• Health aspect
• Practical aspect
• Moral aspect

So, let’s start with health. The arguing here usually goes like this: “It is unhealthy to be vegetarian. Your body will not be getting enough protein. Human was designed by nature to be fed by flesh. Don’t harm yourself, eat meat!” Well, there are many reasons not to believe this.

Another aspect is purely practical. People argue about whether being a vegetarian is cheaper or more expensive, whether you will create more problems for your friends who may invite you over for a meal, whether it is possible to still enjoy picnics and grill parties. Well, I think here everything really depends on the attitude. It takes just a little creativity to have fun in any circumstances. As I once said to my friends when they asked me what venue I preferred as a vegetarian for us to meet in: “I don’t care even if you invite me over to a steak house because I enjoy your good company rather than your choice of food.” As far as the cost of vegetarian lifestyle is concerned I think that nowadays it is not cheaper and may be even more expensive to be a vegetarian. This is especially true during the winter when fresh vegetables and fruits become very expensive. But again, being creative and maintaining good balance between vegetables, cereals, nuts and dairy products can make it easier.

There is also moral (or philosophical, or spiritual) side of the issue. This, I think, is a private matter and choice of each individual. To me, for example, it seems quite natural not to eat something that you are not capable of getting for yourself from the very beginning. I mean that if I had to kill an animal to get meat I’d rather not do that. The idea of killing doesn’t resonate with my nature and I can proudly say that I don’t feel like a predator at all. People tend to forget that the species designed by nature to be a predator don’t require roasting or boiling the meat, and they don’t get nauseous by looking at blood.

Summing this all up, I must say that everyone lives to their own choice. But it’s important to have an open mind and respect the choices of others.

As you maybe know there is a wonderful resource for learners of Spanish out there called SpanishDict. They have a section on the site where you can type in infinitive and get complete conjugation tables for any verb. This is not rarity on the web of course, but the format they have is particularly convenient and clear, at least for me.

To make things simple I use Firefox where I create a bookmark:

Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks > New Bookmark

Then I enter following into the fields:

• Name: Conjugate Spanish Verb
• Location: http://www.spanishdict.com/conjugate/%s
• Keyword: con

Now all I have to do whenever I need to conjugate a Spanish verb in Firefox is following:

• Press Ctrl+T to open a new tab
• Type “con escribir” and voilà!

I love when things are in order. For me this is the necessary condition for any productivity. I sometimes think that my passion for order in everything is too strong and may even be considered by someone as a sort of paranoia. But it is not so. At least while it helps me be more efficient and agile.

There are people who think that order is the sign of boredom and it takes too much time to practice it, which otherwise might be spent on some fun activities. However, for me it is not true. I believe that keeping things in order isn’t time consuming. It may seem so in the beginning, until the habit is fully developed. But in a long run it actually helps to save a great deal of time. Also order doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be creativity. I for one cannot do anything creative when surrounded by clutter.

Here are some of the manifestations of order in my daily life:

• In my wallet I always have all the bills laying strictly face-up and sorted from the highest denomination to the lowest. It only takes a couple of seconds to arrange but it makes me much quicker when it comes to pay for something.
• On my bookshelf I have separate piles for English, Spanish and Russian books. Of course, this is more aesthetic than practical, but it encourages me to read when I have a free minute.
• In my wardrobe I have long-sleeve shirts on one side, short-sleeves on the other. I also have a separate corner in there for those shirts that I already wore once after last washing (usually I wear one shirt twice before washing it).

• On desktops of my computers I have absolutely nothing — really, not a single icon. This area is strictly for the documents I’m working on right now. This helps me concentrate on a task at hand. As soon as I’m done with it I put resulting files to a respective folder for future references. These folders are organized very plainly and simply. I no longer bother with multi-level filing and practice plain one level structure. For it is easier now to be searcher than filer (I use Windows Search, which indexes all folders such as “Personal”, “Jobs”, “Guitar”, etc.)
• On my iPod I have all the metadata in perfect order. All album covers are in place, all genres are specified and so on. This makes experience of listening and surfing through music so much fun. For this I love Apple’s products — their functionality and user experience seem to be all about order, very simple and thought-trough.

And this list can go on and on. Having order in the kitchen, for example, inspires me to cook more often.

I’ve found for myself that to achieve order it is first necessary to simplify everything that can be simplified and get rid of all unnecessary things. In fact I always associate order with simplicity and minimalism.

To illustrate this I have a good example. Probably everyone at any given point of life has their favorite garments that they wear more often than others. I am always like that. Usually these are clothes I bought last, so that they better reflect my current moods and fashion visions. At the same time there are attires from the old days that got lost somewhere deep in the bottom which I haven’t touched for years. So what I did recently was I dug out those old pants and t-shirts, said good bye to them and donated to people who needed them more than I. And, voilà, now I have full visibility and perfect order in my wardrobe. And this strategy is applicable for anything.

In virtual world it is also easy to keep order even despite tremendous information overflows of modern age. Terms such as “metadata” and “indexing” are just a few of many concepts that help in organizing virtual assets. People who create software tend to be very intelligent, you know. Usually they provide all the necessary instruments for keeping things in order. Take a look for example at Google’s docs or email — the pinnacle of simplicity and usability in software. The entire infrastructure for perfect order is there, so why not use it? Even Microsoft’s Office is very good. The same holds true for WordPress, Firefox and many other brilliant software examples.

I am happy to constantly discover more and more ways to bring a little bit more order in my life and the lives of people around me. What pleases me most is that it is like never-ending process of continuous improvement. Once you learned how to enjoy it your life becomes so much better.