Solutions For All Of Our Problems!!!

Here are two books everyone should read. In fact, these two books are so significant that they should be used to design the education system in all its guises - play school through high school and post secondary, marriage preparation, parenting, military, and so on.

Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury

This book teaches you, the reader, how to apply principled negotiation in order to achieve win-win outcomes! In it’s easy to read 100 or so pages it gives you all the tools to prepare for a negotiation, and even tools for "negotiation jujitsu" to deal with those mean and hard-balling people you might come up against.

And just think, you use negotiation every day whether you know it or not. "Honey, can you take the garbage out?" "Mom, we have a professionally trained baby sitter already..." "boss, I have too much on my plate..." Everyone could benefit from this book.

But how is it part of the solution to all our problems Bookly?

Well, if everyone actually used Principled Negotiations we wouldn't have the typical "politicking" that goes on at home, at school, at work, between work units, between organizations, in government, between governments... the world, with all of it's conflicts and disputes, would be settled based on principles! Imagine that!

For a great 1 minute summary of "Getting to Yes", check out what Wikipedia has put together (the first link).
For an interactive preview of the book itself, check out the Amazon link (the second link).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_to_Yes

http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Yes-Negotiating-Agreement-Without/dp/0140157352


First Things First by Stephen Covey

This is the guy who wrote another best-seller called "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People". In "First Things First" he talks about how all the activities in our lives fall into one of four quadrants, based on their degree of importance and degree of urgency, and that we usually operate from the Important, Urgent (Quadrant 1, such as procrastinating on something important for so long that now it's urgent as well - a sort of addiction to being in crisis) and the Not Important, Not Urgent (Quadrant 4, such as watching TV to "relax"). This creates an exhausted and stressful life.

The goal of this book is to get you to operate mostly from Quadrant 2, where you do a lot of important things but your time management skills are developed to the point that you rarely feel like you're under urgency. For example, spending time with your family or planning a project in such a way that it's easily done in small bits and on time.

Oh come on Bookly, I agree that the negotiation book is quite significant, but a time management book? *YAWN*

Well, if everybody read this book, everybody would be less stressed out. Families would feel closer, work would move more efficiently, you'd find time to finally renovate the bathroom or go to the gym. Life would be less like a chaotic event and more like a ballroom dance, with the occasional unexpected event/crisis - but c'est la vie, such is life. It would even affect your every day negotiations in a positive way!

Conclusions

With the knowledge from these two books, you're on the path to being like Lucas from Empire Records, or Yoda (you don't really need a reference source for Yoda, do you?), or Morpheus from The Matrix. Things move around you like water past rocks, yet you are flexible enough to be like water yourself when you need to be.

For an alright 1 minute summary of "First Things First", check out what Wikipedia has put together (the first link).
For an interactive preview of the book itself, check out the Amazon link (the second link).

Enjoy, Grasshoppahs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Things_First

http://www.amazon.com/First-Things-Learn-Leave-Legacy/dp/0684802031

GeoCaching

GeoCaching (aka GPS Stash Hunt; Global Positioning Stash hunt) is an adventure sport particularly for GPS users, but a map and compass work just as well, provided you know how to use them.

Conducting a cache hunt is a good way to get outdoors and do something adventuresome, fun, and active with your family and friends.

There are caches all over the world! And they range in difficulty from easy (stuff in a Tupper wear container under a bench that you can find while out for a leisurely walk) to extreme (stuff in a bag tied down to a rock in a lake on a mountain in Peru - seriously).

The way it works is someone (individuals or organizations) sets up a cache and shares the location over the Internet. GPS/Compass users can then search the database, for example by postal code, and use the provided cache coordinates to start their hunt. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something else for the cache. Also, it's pretty cool to sign the log book to say you were there and compliment whoever hid the cache.

For the most in-depth information and cache database, check out the first link below. Once you get accustomed to the sport, check out the Alberta specific links under that.

http://www.geocaching.com/

http://www.geocachingalbertasouth.com/

http://geocachingedmonton.com/blog/

Things to Try & Our Picks

This category is dedicated to things we recommend you try.

It will cover anything from good music to good food to cool activities.

We hope you try some out. Let us know what you think in the comments section!