White elephant gifts people will actually LIKE (updated for 2019!)
In the next two weeks, thousands of White Elephant gift exchanges will unfold. There will be variants. Many people will completely forget to get a gift until the morning of the exchange, and many more will go home with weird combinations of stuff they don’t really want — one year I got a scented candle and a pack of cinnamon out of the draw, and knew my boss must’ve swung by Walgreens over lunch.
If you’re going to do something, why not do it right? Here are 10 ideas for random gift exchanges — five items under $20, five items under $10, and five items you can make or find in your home.
I am a genius and I invented a new filing system
The problem with inboxes is that they don’t DO anything except collect everything I need to look at and deal with. They are a stall. I still have to look at every Thing in them at least one more time, touch it, and decide what to do with it. (See figure 1.)
But a few weeks ago I had a stroke of genius. My inbox fills up as it gathers all my “to dos” from throughout the house — event insurance bills to pay, checks to deposit into three different accounts, doodles I don’t want to lose, invitations I need to respond to…I think there’s a Chuck Klostermannarf book I’ve assigned myself to read for “work” sitting near the top right now.
Your cube is your castle: TONS of non-standard desk decor without a cliche in sight
Wanted: ideas for cheap and easy cubicle decor. Already considered: potted plants, pretty pictures, subversive cross-stitchnarf.
Do not want: Anything that smells or makes noise or blinks.
Looking for work-from-home freelance gigs? IGNORE JOB BOARDS
Here’s the thing that no one seems to understand about freelancing: it’s not about finding job listings — it’s about marketing your skills and whoring yourself non-stop so that work comes to you. Trawling job boards or Craigslist is not marketing yourself, and it’s not networking.
3 ways to survive as an offbeat employee in an onbeat job
In honor of Labor Day, I figured I’d veer a little bit from our usual in-home content to talk about some outside-the-home career realities. I spent five years working in corporate staffing, so this sort of thing is oddly near ‘n’ dear to my heart.
How to edit your office for work-from-home productivity
Lots of sites offer tips on improving your productivity like, “Limit meetings!” and, “Delegate!” Let’s tackle the physical features that can make your home office more productive.
My neighborhood kids love playing outside — but it’s disrupting my work. Help!
A gang of kids plays in my backyard all. day. So much screaming! It’s great that they’re rocking out, but I work from home and need a little quiet.
Going into the closet: to, you know, work there
“Cloffice” kind of sounds like… I dunno, maybe an equine venereal disease. But sound it out with me and you’ll see we’re actually talking about offices built in closets. It’s genius, right?