Travelling Lighter

Ask for an aisle seat at the front of the plane so that you can to stand up with greater ease, stroll in the aisles, or simply stretch. It's easier to get the attention of flight attendants for extra blankets, pillows, or other in-flight amenities from the front. Aisle seats are best for shorter flights, where you don't anticipate going to sleep.

Arrive light and rested; don't travel with heavy packages. Mail them to your destination via UPS 2nd-day air or, if you have a week, UPS ground tracking. This is an economical and reliable way to know your packages await you. Mark your packages profusely with your name and the words, "Hold for arrival of guest YOUR NAME arriving on DATE." Wrap your packages as if an orangutan will be handling them.

Travel with carry on bags only. Buy the roll-on carts to avoid toting your bags from the airport parking lot to the plane. Most tote systems are made to fit the airline aisles, the overhead seat com-partments, or under the seats.

Streamlining Work and Life

Mike Zimmerman, writing in Men's Health magazine, offers some advice on streamlining your work and your life:

* Switch to online bill paying instead of writing checks.

* Use one email address for friends and family, another for shopping and spam.

* Use DVR recorders to make your own TV schedule.

* Check the news at CNN.com or some other general source. Skip watching TV news.

* Stop overworking.

* Stop over-packing, stop over-promising, stop overdoing everything.

* Discard junk mail immediately.

* Stop micromanaging.

Key Chain Blues

Every day I see the people of my neighborhood drive up to the mail box stand, then turn off their car so that they can get their keys out of the ignition. Then they open their mailbox with the mailbox key which is part of their overall key chain, close their mailbox door, insert the car
ignition key, and drive on.

After hundreds and hundreds of times of doing this, you would think that one of them might stumble upon the notion that since they always get the mail when they're in their car, there's no reason to have the mail key as part of the same key chain that holds the car key. Their mail key could be housed independently someplace in the car. where no one else would know what it is. and be used at the appropriate moment to open the box, while keeping the car on, and then driving off.

You wonder, if they can't figure out this component of getting things done, what else can they
not figure out?