Sarah Wilson

Bombarded with work e-mail? Try this top Gmail tip

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emailI’ve come to accept very recently that it is our personal responsibility to be our own information gatekeepers. Everyone around me is constantly complaining how they’re overloaded. They can’t keep up with email. Their iphone is driving them mental. Blah blah blah. It’s time, I think, we realised that the greatest challenge our generation faces is controlling how we receive information. This much we know: we WILL continue to be flooded. Unless we install our own boundaries. No one else will do it for us.

The new wisdom is knowing this. The new status is being in control of it.  The new power is having firm boundaries. Like, for instance, standing tall and proud and declaring you only check email twice a day. Or boldly deciding you work a four-day week. Or not taking your phone out with you when you have dinner with someone you wish to explore intimacy with. I’ve experimented with all this. And more.

To this end another nifty little tip for stemming the tide of group work emails onto one’s phone, from timesonline.

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sunday life: in which i get told what my future husband and book look like

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This week I see a psychic.

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Actually, in the past two weeks I’ve seen a sum total of five psychics: Mitchell Coombes, the guy from TV series The One and author of Sensing Spirit (which made it to the top of the self-help bestseller list a few weeks back), Colette Baron-Reid, a prolific American “psychic to the stars” who’s conducted more than 50,000 readings over 22 years, this sweet woman up the road with a sandwich board out front offering 15 minute readings for 20 bucks (perfectly, she works from a card table draped in purple crushed velvet), Kristine Fry, the psychic all my friends’ friends seem to have on speed dial, and “Hope”, the 1800 soothsayer who said my career will either, um, stay the same or – wait for it – change direction in July. And that if I get pregnant next year, the baby will most likely “appear “at the end of the year, not the beginning. Um, Hope, that would be called a gestation period.

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healing auto immune disease #8 (a guest post by Claire Hooper!!)

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Many of you who read this blog have auto-immune disease. Or know someone who has one of its gnarly manifestations (arthritis, Crohn’s, Lyme’s)…but as I’ve said since I posted my experience with hashimotos, the advice shared on this blog applies to everyone. Kids with AI are the canary down the mineshaft. We’re here to show you what happens if you don’t slow the fork down and look after yourself…

Anyway. Very excited. Comedian Claire Hooper has kindly written about her dalliance with her thyroid.

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I love Claire. She has grace and elan and holds her own in a very male domain. Without being all “I’m a rare female around here” about it. I watch Good News Week mostly to see her do her breezy thing. I ESPECIALLY like it when Josh Thomas is on with her and they do the Big Sister/Little Brother shtick. Magic. So, Claire’s story:

I never experienced anything except very mild symptoms with my thyroid disease.

What happened to me was that I woke up one morning and noticed a lump in my neck.  I thought it had come up overnight but the endocrinologist I was referred to said it would have been developing over many years.

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i like: Merry-go-round reusable greeting cards

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A great idea: Australian company Merry-go-round make reusable greeting cards. Regifting…from the card up! The cards have little slits inside that hold a message on a separate slip of paper. Recipients can then replace the slip of paper with their own new message. And play it forward. Featuring the artwork of children’s book illustrators, they’re … Read more

people who irritate me

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“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
— Carl Jung

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I’ve been living and breathing this quote lately. I get irritated very easily. Slow walkers drive me mental. Men who grunt loudly at yoga. Talk-back listeners who get righteous about stuff they know little about…. What’s worse (for me) is  that these days I’m 100% aware of it as it happens. I’m at That Brink where I’m aware of my faults, but, like an old reptile, can’t stop acting out the bad behaviour. It’s like watching a movie where we know what calamity is about to befall the protaganist. DON’T DO IT, we scream. But we – the protaganist in our lives  – do it anyway, robotically. Or reptilianally.

It’s all so goddamn painful and tedious.

But, I ask you, what are other people other than a mirror to ourselves? Without other people we would have no idea who we were. Nothing to reflect off, to ricochet off.

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do i dry my hands or use a paper towel?

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Here’s a dilemma solved for you…I’ve often wondered whether it’s more environmentally sound to dry my hands with a dryer or paper towels in public loos. Because, of course, we all wash our hands when visiting the toot, don’t we! Quelle quandary! Well, turns out, someone thought so. Climate Conservancy, a US emission counting nonprofit … Read more

Sunday life: a cup of tea with Edward do Bono (tell me your take on this one…!)

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This week I meet Edward de Bono, the world’s most well-known thinker.spaceball Sunday life: a cup of tea with Edward do Bono (tell me your take on this one...!)

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So, it’s arranged we meet at an outdoor swimming pool on Friday morning. Which is a little odd. Edward De Bono, the world’s greatest thinker, is 75 and arrives with his aide, wearing a full suit and a superbly garish tie. He’s not here to swim. Odder still, he kicks off by grabbing my hand, leaning in close and telling me a really, really terrible… penis joke. The kind your Uncle Kevin tells at Christmas. He then suggests I marry a 6’4” Ugandan basketball player. Which, according to his aide, is what he tells all the girls.

Admittedly the penis joke loosely segued to the theme of happiness. Which is why we’re sitting poolside on a Friday. De Bono’s in Australia to talk at the Happiness & It’s Causes conference this week about how thinking makes life better. Me, I’m enduring penis jokes to ask, how so?

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every week my dad writes this letter…

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Mike’s his name. This is what he does: he calls all of us (his six kids and various partners) to get an update on our lives. Then he writes a group email, dot-pointing the highlights of our lives, so we’re all in each other’s loops.

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Dad, me and my beautiful, long-suffering Mum

I’m sharing this because it’s Mother’s Day on Sunday and (loose-ish segue) I reckon if you’re a dad or a mum, or you’re thinking of being one one day, then you might like to try it with your kids. As a recipient, I love it. My brothers and sister live around the world and Dad’s emails unite us in a flurry of quick replies and smart-arse comments. When you have a big family, and one dominated by brothers, smart-arse comments are the currency. All affection comes by way of a dig in the ribs. Or a wrestle.

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