Will get organized!

Inspired of these articles below and my increasing restlessness as a stay-at-home-mum I will start filling my days more strategically.

I started of my maternity leave with a long list of things I wanted to get done but have not managed to do as much as I wanted, and it is not because I don't get enough sleep or the baby is difficult, it is just laziness I am afraid.. she sleeps easily a large part of the day, my husband does more than his share of the housework and takes care of her when he is home. I don't go to the gym (except those 2 times) I don't have an excessive social life so basically I have enough time on my hands to get a lot of things accomplished!

I did put up my larger goals earlier, and I think I will manage them, but I need to get into the mode of studying again if I am going to do an MBA in my year off. I wanted to do more general self-education so I got a book about Sociology, just looked briefly in it until now. However today - I put it into my calendar, at 10 o'clock I sat down and read and took notes for 1,5 hours! Felt good.  The funny thing is that of course it was not hard at all.

I tend to spend too much time online wasting my time basically, I need to manage my time better. I have been getting frustrated and have had too much time to worry about silly stuff that doesn't really matter. So I need to fill my days and my mind with interesting stuff! Looking back to when I was working full time I don't remember having time to worry so much, I just got on with things and did what needs to be done.

This one is in Norwegian: "The magic 15 minutes"

And this one is about a way of managing your time, an alternative/addition to the To-Do lists, basically if you want to get things done you have to committ to them and put them in your calendar with how long time you need to complete them.

So basically my message to myself "Dear Diary" is to stop procrastination and get busy!

Image by Gunnlaug Moen

New media and information flow

I have been getting more and more fed up with the tabloid newspapers in this country, they contain nothing interesting and I think it is not just me who have changed. I spend a lot of my time online but get my news from other sources, I almost don't have to watch tv or read the news when I am following the right people on Twitter I've noticed. If I want to be updated on design, interior, art, graphics and so on I use blogs or the new platforms for sharing photos like Tumblr or Pinterest etc. In addition I buy far too many glossy magazines.


I thought it was interesting what I read in Aftenposten this weekend: 

Optimist på medienes vegne

Og mens Google håver inn enorme summer på nettannonser, sliter mediehusene tungt med å tjene penger på nett. Brittin har selv tidligere jobbet i avis og sier han skjønner hvor skoen trykker.

- Alt dette er nytt, og det er nok tøft nå. Men på lengre sikt er jeg optimist. Jeg tror Internett vil være en stor mulighet for mediene. Kvalitetsjournalistikk vil overleve. Internett gjør at hvem som helst kan publisere, mediene må finne det som gjør dem unike, sier Brittin.

Han vil ikke gå med på at Googles suksess kan bli medienes bane.

- Google hjelper til med å spre nyhetene, det klikkes 4 milliarder ganger på mediesaker via Googles tjenester hver måned. Vi har også tjenester som kan hjelpe mediene å få etablert betalingstjenester, og annonseverktøy.

Basically that internet is giving everybody the opportunity to be their own publisher, we can create our own newspapers - check out Paper.li this can be connected to your twitter account and you get the news you want from the people or media you follow in a nice newspaper format! Of course google also has their igoogle page where you can put your favorite content up, and you have Flipboard, brilliant app for ipad for reading magazines etc. Internet has changed - the newspapers just need to understand this and find their niches and keep up the game. We still want good journalism and read good stories, but the way it is being done at the moment is not working, I still want to read paper newspapers for my lazy breakfasts and enjoying a latte in a cafe, but if they are going to compete with my ipad they can't get stuck in the old times and use their pages on complaining that people have changed their habits. 

I thought this quote from Terence Conran is good and applies in many areas:

New Year and New Stuff

Happy New Year!

I have discovered Tumblr and made myself a little corner there. Love it! So easy to find inspiration and lovely pictures.


Another thing that my sister just told me about was Stumbleupon, a great way of finding new things online.

Brainpickings is also a great source for inspiration, love these suggestions for books and the reasons behind it:

 "Every once in a while, we all get burned out. Sometimes, charred. And while a healthy dose of cynicism and skepticism may help us get by, it’s in those times that we need nothing more than to embrace life’s promise of positivity with open arms. Here are seven wonderful books that help do just that with an arsenal ranging from the light visceral stimulation of optimistic design to the serious neuroscience findings about our proclivity for the positive."