I’m learning where all of my tulips are.

It’s our first spring in our new home. There weren’t too many daffodils, sorry to say, but the tulips are plentiful. Interestingly, many are hiding in places that I wouldn’t have considered to be garden beds. There’s a few yellow ones in a cluster of weeds along the fence line. There’s a single purplish one in the very corner of the yard in the shade of a giant spruce tree. And there are a few lurking under a sprawling forsythia; most of these didn’t have enough resources to flower.

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I had to become an email expert — otherwise, I would have been buried alive by it.

Back when I was running a music school all by myself — something I don’t recommend — I received tons and tons of requests, complaints, ideas, and questions via email. Using David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology, I was able to keep things manageable.

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One of the first rules of living in a cold climate is that you must dress for it — not just outdoors, but indoors.

The idea of turning up the heat seems like an appealing solution…until you receive your first bill. Then, you realize that thick socks, slippers, a thick sweater, and even a hat and fingerless mitts are necessary for comfort indoors.

If you are still cold after putting on all this clothing (it happens), paradoxically, you’ve got to get outside and get some exercise. When you get your blood moving, you will be warm even in freezing weather. It’s the key to making it through the winter. And when all else fails, a hot bath.

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I learned how to file papers from David Allen’s Getting Things Done.

It might have been better if I had simply become more effective at throwing things away. Then, I wouldn’t have found myself combing through a box filled with ten-year-old notes and supporting information, all meticulously organized.

On the one hand, it was interesting to see a time capsule of where I was in my work a decade ago — how I saw things and what I was hoping for. But whatever had once seemed precious and memorable and worth saving was gone.

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Starting the workday used to mean opening my email app.

My tasks and activities would be dictated by whatever was waiting in my inbox. Whatever my clients or employees needed, I was there to help.

The volume was such that I was rarely able to get through all of the email I had. That meant that a day was filled with six or seven or ten hours of email and phone calls, with no end in sight. It was a conveyor belt that I was never able to step away from.

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