​Knowing where you store important information is half your success in today’s personal and professional world. Data is everywhere. Finding the info you need quickly and effectively is critical. 
 
Fifteen years ago, I worked with a guy who had a computer in his head. By far, he had the most disorganized looking desk since the printing press was invented. He was a paper propagator. Piles grew. Memos fell onto the floor. Reports stacked up. Yet he knew where everything was. 
 
Somehow, his brain captured EXACTLY where the crucial legislative report lay hidden. I clearly remember going to see him one morning, needing a fairly important document under a tight timeframe. He seemed distracted. I thought to myself, “Oh oh, this is not going to turn out well. There’s no way he’s going to find this.” 
 
He listened to me, and might have even been talking on his cell phone at the same time for all I remember, because he was one of those guys who take in what you say while walking around rearranging his room, checking his mail, clicking on his computer keyboard and talking to a key constituent. For some reason, he was also able to catalogue where he put everything on his disaster of a desk. 
 
He shuffled a few papers around, reached under a mound of folders and UNBELIEVABLE, there it was. He shrugged his shoulders, gave a silly grin and I was on my way. 
 
Most of us have some system like this. Documents might be kept in our heads, placed in filing cabinets or stored on our computers. As the proliferation of information continues its aggressive virus-like attack on our humanity, it becomes more and more important that we arm ourselves with tools to curb the beast. 
 
Winning the war means knowing where everything is. Think of how often in your home you’re looking for some paper you filled out regarding your medical care or insurance and you can’t remember where you put it. Or you’re at work and your boss asks for some file from two months ago and you draw a blank because heck, the presidential election is ongoing and you’ve been distracted. “I’m sorry, I can’t remember that far back” becomes your refrain. 
 
To survive today, you must archive your way to organizational success. Create folders. Find memorable places to store files. Name things in ways that make sense to you and you’ll ALWAYS remember. This is hard. It’s still easy to forget where something is stored if you don’t go there often. 
 
I think that is one of the reasons we are often lost today when we try to find something important and can’t figure out where we put it. There’s an ongoing societal frustration that builds up. 
 
Release your anger/frustration by archiving. A good friend has over 40 folders on different business subjects. He names them in a silly way to poke fun at the corporate world, things like “Process Improvement,” “Standards,” “Policies,” “Parking Lot,” “Meetings,” “Teamwork,” “Heard It Before,” “Never Gonna Happen,” “Best Customer Complaints” and “Quality.” I would suggest not implementing his titles. 
 
Still, you can archive your way to organizational success by finding your own system that organizes the way you think. Work becomes a matter of dusting off the old stuff because you know where everything is, and it all gets recycled. Home life hums because you easily access every form from 1988-2016 electronically. 
 
If you find you create too many electronic folders, there’s always the old fashioned way of building paper piles on your desk. But you’ll have to call my buddy on his land line to get him to help you navigate it.

​When you are a young kid, you probably told people what you thought. Not too much went into it. Your best friend did something you didn’t like and you got into with him.
 
In high school, the jerk teammate caused you to get in his face. You let him know how he affected the team and pulled others down.

As a parent, we watch out kids tell the truth. They see the world and explain it the way they see it. It is pure. Sometimes what they say may hurt, but the cliché is true: Out of the mouths of babes come words of wisdom.
 
At some stage of life, we lose this purity. It is socialized out of us. If we want to not get the crap beaten out of us, we probably won’t tell the 300-pound gorilla getting out of his car with an angry scowl on his face that he was driving like an idiot and was totally at fault for smashing into your vehicle. Instead, you mince words, choke back the truth, knowing that you have to deal with a situation you’re hoping to survive without a punch to the face.
 
That car example is but one case of how we don’t tell the full story or hold back the truth for fear. It might be fear of hurting someone’s feelings, or as in the case above, fear for your own safety if you let the truth fly: “Hey, pig face, take some driving lessons next time before you decide to pretend you’re a bumper car driver.”  BAM, punch in your face and you’re down on the ground wondering why you said what you did.

We learn from these incidents. What we learn is that it’s not always best to state exactly what you say or how you feel. Think how different the world would be if we did.
 
In our immediate political climate of high tales, manipulation, deception, lies, half-truths, obfuscations, distortion and denial, what passes for the truth? What would happen if every politician explicitly stated the exact facts on every issue? I’m not sure any person can ever fully pull together all the facts, so as a perfect situation, that will never occur. But what if that was a goal?

Think, for example, if political ads on TV had to contain straight facts and nothing more. You weren’t allowed to use music or images (which manipulate you to feel certain ways). Instead, only verifiable facts (with written footnotes) could be verbalized on the screen. It would be quite boring, of course, but it would force candidates to clearly state their case on issues, and allow us citizens to better see what they plan to do.
 
I’d love to see Saturday Night Live (SNL) do a skit with the characters saying exactly what they think. If you happen to have seen Woody Allen’s movie “Annie Hall,” there’s a brilliant scene where the two main characters are saying one thing, while their “real thoughts” are projected in writing above their heads. It is funny because Allen captures the truth of what people are often thinking while they’re saying something else.
 
If SNL pulled it off, or egads, we actually started operating through a truth machine in our daily lives, something would have to give. We’d save the world or it would crumble. People would learn and grow or they’d fight and perish.
 
Regardless of the outcome, it sure would be interesting to see the results. Just remember to avoid those personal remarks, “My you look good today Sam, except for your dog excrement hair.”

​If you’ve moved any time recently, you understand the pain of shutting down your old place, with all the logistical issues, and getting your new home up and successfully running. Electricity, water, closing bank (and other) accounts, opening new ones, getting a new driver’s license, voter registration card and license plates are just a few of the projects to take on. It sometimes seems endless.
 
It’s a good feeling when things get done quickly, with no errors. That makes the move easier, your worries less. You can feel overwhelmed with so much to do, so you overlook when things go right, which is mostly what happens. The movers show up on time. Nothing breaks during the journey. Lights get turned on. The water flows through the faucet at the new place. Mail gets forwarded.
 
Mail is always a concern. If you have ANYTHING important coming to the old house, you stress about whether it will get forwarded. In your head, you know the answer is “yes.” Yet for some reason, emotionally you continue to worry about it, thinking that bills won’t get to you in time, or checks will get stolen or lost in the ether, never to be seen. You assume you’ll have to call someone to jettison a check and cut you a new one.
 
Subscriptions are another issue. During our most recent move, a nice surprise emerged – another positive in the world that I didn’t know about.
 
Some people presume the worst about the post office. Over and over they deliver mail on time, through horrible weather, making very few mistakes when it comes to getting your address correct. We should respect that. The price of a stamp is next to nothing consider that piece of mail could go cross country for less than 50 cents.
 
Now the price of mail is even lower. Have you noticed that the price of first class stamps has gone down? Neither had I until we bought our most recent packet of 100. A nice surprise.

The nicer surprise was that somehow the post office has figured out how to forward your magazine subscriptions. We still receive 4-5 through the mail. It’s one of those logistical pains to go online or call the magazine 800 number and get put on hold for 22 minutes that you avoid if possible.
 
The post office removes that headache. I found out my Sports Illustrated subscription had already been forwarded when I went online to do it myself. Remarkable.
 
The monthlies we subscribe to hadn’t been changed yet, so I guess the weeklies, because they come more frequently, received primo treatment. It doesn’t matter the reason. It’s an example of the post office doing the right thing, getting out in front of the ball.

This happens more than we think or consider. Good stuff happens all around us that we ignore.
 
When I worked at the U.S. Department of Energy almost 20 years ago, we were cleaning up land around the plants and facilities related to nuclear weapons production. That was a good thing. We put land back into productive use, land that now houses many people and helps positive economic activity.

We don’t often hear these stories. When we do, many like to conveniently ignore what has been accomplished.

Perhaps we should start respecting more what has been accomplished and salute those who get the job done. The individuals toiling in positions that improve our lot deserve recognition for that.
 
Let’s support them and stop pointing fingers so often. We might just make the world a better place.

​The other day driving to work, as I rounded a bend to head east onto Interstate-94 heading towards Milwaukee, two lanes feeding into one came to a stop. It was the first time I’d encountered this backup and didn’t think anything of it. We fed in slowly, and were on our way with our respective commutes.
 
It was a delay and slightly frustrating, but nothing new to anyone who commutes by car and lives in a metro area. Traffic, too many cars and construction all limit your mobility. When you think you’ve got smooth sailing, think again. There’s a roadblock somewhere lurking to raise your blood pressure.
 
I never did find the issue that day. The cars funneled in, we flowed onto the interstate and off we went. No police cars on the side with their lights flashing. No smashed up vehicles. No new construction cones.
 
I didn’t think much of it. Sometimes traffic backs up for no logical reason. Humans aren’t logical, so there are a lot of times driving makes no sense.
 
But, as I traversed that same stretch of road in the coming days, there was a pattern. I hadn’t thought of it before, but slowly the pieces fit together and it became clear there is another culprit in the American car commute struggle to keep moving at a steady pace and not stop and go.
 
The day the backup occurred was brilliantly sunny and we were turning directly into the sun when the massive backup occurred. As I thought back to that day, the cars started to loosen up and move after we got through that stage of the road. We no longer had the sun flashing our eyes, forcing drivers to squint, put on their sunglasses, slow down and use their sun visors.
 
When you think about traffic patterns and sudden slowdowns, you don’t often consider the sun. Rain or snow are a different story because we have their effects all around us as the water hits the car and accumulates on the pavement. It’s visual and tangible.
 
That’s not true of the sun. We don’t think about it. Hence, we don’t realize or plan for the fact of it affecting our ability to safely navigate our daily commutes. We think, “Dang, the sun’s in my eyes again.” And though we slow down and know that we’re responding to the light in our eyes, we don’t really consider it also affecting all the cars around us.
 
When the weather was cloudy, the traffic flowed with no problem. That’s how I finally figured out the difference. “Hmm, cloudy today and no problems. Hmm, sunny today and we’re all backed up. What the heck is the difference between the two days?”
 
Someone needs to invent sunglasses or some type of car visor technology that mitigates this problem. Think of the commuting time it would save. Think of how much more relaxed we’d be when we got to work, talking nicely to our colleagues. Productivity would soar. Profits increase. The economy would surge.
 
Maybe someone could invent a special sensor-activated windshield that responded to certain direct rays from the sun. The car manufacturers need to get on this one. Whoever hits the market first has the sales advantage. “Our new non-squinting windshield helps you drive into the rising sun without forcing you to turn your eyes into slits.” Picture those television ads.
 
Most days we take our commutes at face value. Sometimes though you to step back and analyze why something happened the way it did. Watch out for sun-based traffic.