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5 Funny Flowcharts to Help You Make Very Important Life Decisions

Life’s tough—we get it. Knock Knock has your back with flowcharts to help answer your burdensome (and not-so-burdensome) questions. Spend the next few minutes consulting these charts from Consequential Dilemmas: 45 Flowcharts for Life’s Bigger Questions to gain perspective, or at the very least, some pseudoscientific insight.

1. Do I Hate My Job?

If your workday feels like it’s moving at a slug’s speed, use this flowchart to gauge if you’re actually happy with your profession. Tip: You should probably not have this flowchart pulled up on your screen at work.

2. Am I watching Game of Thrones or Gilmore Girls?

We wouldn’t dare mix these two fan-favorite shows up—but do you? Here’s a way to figure out if you’re in Westeros or Stars Hollow.

3. Can I Lie On My Online Dating Profile?

It’s easy to swipe right and swipe left, but should you bend your online dating morals just this once? White lies aren’t so bad.

4. Should I Leave the Country?

It’s easy to cut and run when we’re in a state of distress. But don’t Google “how to immigrate to Canada” just yet.

5. What Pet Should I Get?

Pets are basically kids who can’t talk back to you. Before you seek out your forever friend, consult this chart first.

Need more help with solving life’s most challenging (and not so challenging) quandaries? See more handy flowcharts for irreverent decisions and bigger decisions.

Boost Your Career Mid-Year Giveaway!

We’re already halfway through 2017, so now’s the time shake up your career-planning moves! Knock Knock partnered with Career Contessa to help you refocus, refresh, and really own your career goals. We’re giving away take-action tools so you can continue to kick ass the rest of the year (and beyond).

Career Contessa is the go-to source for rad women who want to cultivate successful careers. Through expert advice and resources, including one-on-one mentoring, webinars, skills-building courses, and a curated job board, the ladies at Career Contessa will help you step-up your professional game!

Want a chance at winning items to get your career back on track? ENTER HERE.

The winner of our Boost Your Career Mid-Year Giveaway will receive $500 worth of prizes:

$100 worth of Knock Knock stuff to organize your work life and boost your career
One (1) 50-minute Career Contessa Mentoring Session
One (1) Career Contessa Online Course – winner’s pick!
$150 Visa gift card to step-up your workwear wardrobe

Giveaway ends Tuesday, June 20. Good luck!

30 Things You Absolutely Should Not Say On Your Summer Vacation

Bring on the barbecues, Bluetooth speakers, and slow-motion beach volleyball montages—summer has arrived. That means more fun in the sun and more opportunities to accidentally irritate, annoy, and offend everyone around you. Oh boy!

How do you avoid doling out disses this season? Review our lists of verbal vacation gaffes from Knock Knock book What Not to Say: A Compendium of the Worst Possible Things You Can Utter Aloud.

1. WHAT NOT TO SAY ON VACATION

2. WHAT NOT TO SAY ON THE PLANE

3. WHAT NOT TO SAY AT THE BEACH

Avoid the verbal faux pas this beachgoer makes:

Don’t be a bummer this summer. Read more verbal blunders you should never, ever say in What Not to Say: A Compendium of the Worst Possible Things You Can Utter Aloud.

5 Sorta Useful Charts for the Depressed

How to Be Depressed: A Guide offers fundamentals to master your mood disorder with minimal effort. Author Dana Eagle wrote and constructed these guided charts with insightful intros to really dig in and take your despair to the next level. Get ready to pave your way toward a successful depression.

1. QUIZ: DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE DEPRESSED?

Welcome to depression. Let’s get started.

Click this chart to zoom in.

2. THINGS YOU SHOULDN’T SAY TO YOUR THERAPIST

It’s a good time to get the professional validation that you are, in fact, a total whack job. There are a number of reasons for doing this. First and foremost, you’ve got nothing better to do.

Click this chart to zoom in.

3. THINGS YOU HOPE YOUR THERAPIST WON’T SAY TO YOU

The way a therapist responds to your endless jabber is not taught in schools. Rather, it reflects the therapist’s inborn gifts. The way your therapist reacts to you indicates how well he has integrated your life and problems into his own.

Click this chart to zoom in.

4. DEPRESSION ON A BUDGET

Like a city under siege, your relationships, car, physical health, and finances will begin to crumble in rapid succession. While this proves the texture and depth for a supreme depressive experience, you may find you lack the financial resources necessary to feed the cycle of decay. Fortunately, we live in a DIY age and even a scrappy person like yourself can assemble a kit of everything needed to live the best-depressed life possible.

Click this chart to zoom in.

5. WHAT’S YOUR DEPRESSION ALIAS?

Find your depression alias by selecting the most shameful quality of your home and combining it with your worst physical attribute. This is a scientifically proven method to yield your most fitting Depression alias. Please share your depression alias in a comment below.

Click this chart to zoom in.

Treat yourself to more melancholia by nabbing your copy of How to Be Depressed: A Guide.

QUIZ: Build a Buffet Plate and We’ll Tell You What Type of Memory Hoarder You Are!

We wish we could remember everything, but sadly, we can’t. (At least not yet…) You may not realize which type of memories you treasure, so Knock Knock teamed up with Memory Hoarder-master Jason Shapiro to help you find out. Bring your extra forks, cause this will be a wild ride!

Need help hoarding your memories? Get yourself The Memory Hoarder’s Journal .

8 Tips to Get Out Of Your Procrastination Funk

Procrastinators, you’re in good company. Even though we love lists, we also find it challenging to shift into action-mode—especially when we would rather be watching The Office re-runs while devouring a burrito bowl. So, we asked a handful of our favorite creative professionals how they get out of procrastination’s unforgiving black hole. Whether you’re studying for a final exam or finishing that project you’ve been putting off, these productivity tips will get you well on your way.

1. SET FALSE DEADLINES.

“Move up your deadlines two days before things are due. It gives you wiggle room to run over but it also will make you feel great when you complete your work on time—only to discover you were early!”

—Jess Weiner, CEO of Talk to Jess and Dove Global Self-Esteem Ambassador

2. TURN UP THE VOLUME.

“Choose the right soundtrack! Music that’s upbeat but not lyric heavy will keep your energy up and help you stay focused.”

—Katie Geyer, Communications Manager at WriteGirl

3. GO DIGITALLY DARK.

“I close out of ALL social media websites, even my calendar, to-do list, everything. And I put my phone on Do Not Disturb or airplane mode so I will absolutely not be distracted!”

—Andrea Owen, Author and Life Coach at Your Kick-Ass Life

4. USE THE “TOUCH IT ONCE” PHILOSOPHY.

“We all open emails, tell ourselves we are going to respond later, and we never do. Beyond being counterproductive, it also takes up valuable brain space to have a thousand floating, unanswered emails and it makes it harder to do the parts of our jobs that we LOVE. If you touch it, respond. This practice will roll over into the rest of your work.”

—Arianna Schioldager, Editorial Director at Create + Cultivate

5. CHANGE YOUR SCENERY.

“If I have a big writing project coming up, I take my laptop straight to the beach. Why? No Wi-Fi! I won’t get easily derailed by checking email, browsing social media or worse . . . using the iMessage app for desktop.”

—Kait Hanson, Writer and Creative Consultant at CommuniKait

6. REWARD YOURSELF.

“I make a deal with myself that when I finish XYZ project, then I can take a 15-minute walk around the office without stress. For really big projects, I’ll go work in a new space like a coffee shop or library, to remove distractions and prepare my mind and body to do the work. I usually reward myself after with something fun like froyo, a Netflix binge, or anything that allows me to zone out.”

—Lauren McGoodwin, CEO of Career Contessa

7. EAT THE FROG TO GET MORE DONE.

“I learned from my web designer and media strategist, Cass, to ‘eat the frog.’ The idea is to do the worst task of the day first and get it out of the way. Then you’ll be set up to get more done because you’ve given yourself a productivity boost.”

—Paula Rizzo, FOX News Health Producer and founder of The List Producer

8. TAKE NAPS SERIOUSLY.

“I have an odd schedule (I work on the morning show and that means I have to wake up at three o’clock in the morning), so napping is a necessity. Many days I don’t go to sleep early enough to get a good seven to eight hours of shut eye and when that happens I have to make my naps a priority. If I don’t, I run the risk of walking through the day in a zombie-like state, and my productivity suffers. We all know that when you’re tired it takes you twice as long to get something done—and no one wants that!”

—Liberté Chan, meteorologist and reporter at KTLA and blogger at Life of Liberté

Tell us: How do you get out of procrastination slumps?

Meet Jason Shapiro!

Los Feliz Daycare runs coconut water through its faucets, encourages kids to recycle their parents’ medical marijuana jars into lunch pails, and is lucky enough to have Thom Yorke as an acting guest professor. It’s a wondrous child-care gem for hipsters in the heart of Los Angeles—and it’s completely fake. Who is behind the digital curtain of Los Feliz Daycare’s spot-on parody and loveable, boho-mocking Twitter account? Meet Jason Shapiro—a comedy writer who is neither a parent nor a resident of Los Feliz.

He does live in Los Angeles, though. Jason, who is originally from Minneapolis, is a comedy writer/performer and screenwriter. He created @LosFelizDaycare in 2013 to poke fun at exceedingly-progressive parenting and got inspiration for the account’s popular modern-parenting voice by walking the streets of Los Angeles, frequenting local restaurants, and getting tips from his writer friends and pals who are parents or work in education. The result has been a very loyal following.

We’re chartering a flight out of Burbank airport to rescue our toddlers who are still at #FyreFestival!

— Los Feliz Daycare (@LosFelizDaycare) April 28, 2017

Daria (21,600 hours) said that he got face lotion in his 3rd eye. Don’t know how that works but we’re here for him physically + emotionally.

— Los Feliz Daycare (@LosFelizDaycare) March 29, 2017

Outside of running a faux, flower child, childcare establishment, Jason has written for a slew of shows and entertainment websites, like Betty White’s Off Their Rockers, Syfy’s Reactor, Spike’s Guy’s Choice Awards, Funny or Die, and HelloGiggles. He’s also the author of one of Knock Knock’s newest items, The Memory Hoarder’s Journal­–the ultimate repository for big memories, small memories, and everything in between.

The Memory Hoarder’s Journal by Jason Shapiro.

A peek inside The Memory Hoarder’s Journal.

1. How did you get your start in writing and comedy? Did you always know that was what you wanted to pursue? I always knew I wanted to be involved in comedy. I was that kid who was telling jokes from the time I could first talk. My mom’s friend Sue had a cable access show in Minneapolis and gave me my first break at 4 years old. I stood in front of a group of other kids and told jokes . . . poorly. There was a moment where I spoke directly into the small mic that was hooked up and said, “Mom! Line!”

My cousin Jake and I first started making short comedy videos when we got our hands on a video camera, and from there we were making videos with our other buddies throughout high school. We also did a lot of live comedy sketches and skits at Herzl Camp, where we spent every summer.

Young Jason takes the stage!

When I got into college at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, I studied Comm Arts: Radio/TV/Film and decided I wanted to move to Los Angeles after school to pursue comedy writing. When I moved here in 2009, I started taking classes through the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and went through their improv and sketch program. I started working in TV, and was a production assistant on shows like Lost, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Parks and Recreation, and Suburgatory, and then got a writers’ assistant job on Once Upon a Time. During that time, I was writing a lot on my own and submitting jokes and scripts all over. I even wrote a Full House Reunion Special way before Fuller House was even a glimmer, and would print out copies and leave them around coffee shops and studio lots in L.A. so that people would think it was real. Please call me, Jeff Franklin.

I got my first writing job in 2012 on Betty White’s Off Their Rockers and have been writing ever since.

2. You’ve worked on a lot of different shows and in writers’ rooms. What’s your favorite part of working behind-the-scenes in script writing and show production?

I love the writers’ room process. It’s a dream to be able to sit around with hilarious and talented people and shoot the shit all day. I love the collaboration and the lunches. I really love the lunches.

I also loved the experience of working on a multi-cam. It was so much fun to watch the process of the story coming together, then working over a week to fine-tune the jokes, pitch new jokes, pitch 1,000 new jokes, and then put the show up in front of a live studio audience. That was a lot of fun to be a part of.

3. You started Los Feliz Daycare in 2013 but didn’t gain viral recognition until 2014. What influenced you to continue tweeting and sharing when you were unsure where it would take you? And any words of wisdom for creating “viral” content? I was having such a fun time tweeting from that account, in that specific “Los Feliz Daycare” voice, that I just had to keep going. I think it took some time to hone in and figure out the voice too. Twitter is a great way to test jokes because you pretty much get statistical feedback with favorites and retweets. You can clearly see what’s working and what’s not. I was also getting good feedback from some comedians, writers, directors and journalists who I really respect, so before it really took off, I was pretty content with that. I really didn’t expect it to take off in the way that it did, so that was a pleasant surprise.

My only wisdom on that is just put out something that you think is funny, or something that you enjoy, and then really think about how that connects to people. Hone in on what’s working and keep going.

Weeks ago, we flippantly referred to the Hamilton Original Cast Recording as the “Soundtrack,” and our community is just starting to recover

— Los Feliz Daycare (@LosFelizDaycare) April 11, 2017

4. If you weren’t in the comedy world, what other occupation could you see yourself holding? I would like to be a mailperson. Whenever I am staring down a big deadline and I don’t want to write, I fantasize about how great it would be to be a mail-person. I would know exactly what to do at all times and get to listen to a ton of podcasts!

5. What inspired you to create The Memory Hoarder’s Journal? Memory is fascinating to me. I remember some things from a road trip when I was six clear as day, and I often can’t remember what show I was watching the night before. I also come from an amazing family who likes to document things. Every family event is filled with pictures, more pictures, and stories from the past. So memory is a big part of my identity. I also hate forgetting things. Not a lot of people know this, but I don’t keep a digital calendar. I print out calendar pages every month and write down what I did each day. It’s insane. I got this from my amazing 90-year-old Nana. Nana Nessa Lee keeps a very detailed record of every day of her life, so she’s the real inspiration for this.

Jason and his Nana Nessa, who inspired him to create The Memory Hoarder’s Journal.

6. What’s your favorite Knock Knock product (besides your journal) and why? My favorite Knock Knock product is the Excuses & Lies for All Occasions book. I think it’s absolutely hilarious and it’s come in handy one or two times.

7. Do you have any winning advice for aspiring writers and comedians? Just keep going. Most of the people around you will quit.

8. Under what circumstances did you meet Bob Dole and how was it? It was on a family road trip out east when I was 4 years old. We were in D.C. and went to visit our congressman. We were walking down the hall of some important building and there was Bob Dole. This was in 1991 so he had already run for President. My parents stopped to say hi, and I blurted out, “You look like a President.” He calmly said, “I should have been, son. I should have been.” Kinda sad, now.

9. What are 3 things on your bucket list right now?

Go to Japan.
Be referred to as a “critical darling.”
Eat a shrimp the size of a Porterhouse steak.

10. Anything exciting on the horizon for you that you’d like to share? I’m working on a pilot script right now that I’m really excited about. Can’t say too much, but hoping that this company likes it and decides to make the show.

I’m also very excited for Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi. That’s going to be a lot of fun.

I’m also turning 30 in August. Wonder how that will go.

For more funny fodder, follow Jason on Twitter, @LosFelizDayCare and @JDShapiro.

DIY Desk Organizers that Speak For Themselves

We’re getting our shit together this Spring starting with our desks—our productivity home away from home. This easy DIY desk décor idea from Robert Mahar, the creative mind behind our Paint-by-Numbers Kits and Personal Award Ribbons, shares an easy way to upcycle tin cans into handmade organizers. Plus, you can pin notes, photos, or anything you’d like to them for double usefulness.

 

CLEVER DESK ORGANIZERS

We used Robert’s directions from the video, but put our own Knock Knock spin on his monogrammed version. Inspired by our Keep It Simple Stickies, we used the adhesive letters to create Blah, Crap, and WTF masterpieces. Putting your own phrase on these babies makes for a cool and original DIY gift for a fellow officemate.

Additional tips:

For cork roll, we used Mini Cork Rolls by The Board Dudes. We also tried an adhesive cork, but we found it was too thin to stick pins through.
For glue, we used Tacky Glue, which was strong enough to hold.
For paint, we used an acrylic paint set with paintbrushes by Creative Joy.
For adhesive letters, we used Duro Decal 1” letters. You can even use 5” letters for longer words with 5-6 letters.
We waited 1 hour for the Tacky Glue to dry.
We waited 30 minutes for the acrylic paint to dry.
NOTE: Because it’s cork, we did find that the paint bled slightly to the cork’s texture. We like this DIY look, but if you want a smoother surface, we recommend wrapping and gluing thick paper on it before painting.

For more DIY inspiration and ideas, check out Robert’s Kin Community channel .

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Meet Robert Mahar!

Have you seen this “Baniwi” video floating around your Facebook feed? The video, featuring a soft-spoken man in a crisp button-up, shares how to combine a kiwi with a banana, and consequently blew the minds of people around the world—mostly gullible ones. Although this video may be completely impossible and untrue, it embodies all our fondness for Robert Mahar’s creative mind. Robert, who we like to refer to as a “crafty jack-of-all trades,” teaches fun and clever DIY projects through online video tutorials and in-person workshops. Plus, he makes everything look like it’s a breeze (even for DIY beginners).

Knock Knock recently collaborated with Robert to create our new Paint-by-Number Postcard Kits and Personal Awards Ribbons—craft lovers rejoice! These six vintage-inspired gifts, including the paint by number for adults kits, perfectly illustrate Robert’s talent for reinventing old-school crafts with a decidedly modern twist. His niche style has gained him a very loyal following.

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Robert Mahar for Knock Knock items include Sweet Treats Paint-by-Number Postcards, Office Supplies Paint-by-Number Postcards, and Cheers!, Brave, Loved, and Winner Personal Award Ribbons.

Growing up, Robert was always the kid who would rather stay inside and bake Shrinky Dinks than run around in the backyard. Robert said that while no one in his immediate family was particularly crafty, they humored his obsession with Childcraft encyclopedia’s Make and Do volume. In college, Robert switched his major from Studio Arts to Art History, and the rest is, well, history.

Now, he spends his time working in his downtown Los Angeles studio creating inspiring and inventive vintage crafts while simultaneously scheming ways to make it big as a doughnut connoisseur (more on that below).

A peek inside Robert’s downtown Los Angeles studio.

1. Who were your creative role models growing up? A man who valued kindness, creativity, and a smart button-up cardigan: Fred Rogers. We had a standing weekday television date for several years during the 1970s. His factory tour forever solidified my love affair with crayons and my fascination with how things are made.

2. You’ve worked in a variety of creative fields since you first started out. What advice would you give to other creative entrepreneurs interested in exploring different paths or career options? I’ve become a big believer in embracing the opportunity and (sometimes the necessity of) pursuing more than one career in a lifetime. A career change can be both exhilarating and filled with uncertainty—what Gilda Radner once referred to as life’s “delicious ambiguity.” If you’re considering a new path, my best advice is to identify good people doing great work in the field you want to pursue and get to know them. Hard work and happy alliances lead to good things.

Robert wasn’t kidding! This is “delightfully absurd.” We’re positive that Martha enjoyed it, too.

3. Is there a defining moment in your career when you felt like you were really fulfilling your passion? What is your proudest moment so far? In October of 2009, I was invited to be a guest on the Martha Stewart Show, where I had the great pleasure of teaching the “Queen of Halloween” how to create a delightfully absurd plush-skeleton from a pair of athletic socks. Martha has long been a crafty hero of mine and this tiny little moment in my creative life was pure joy. If you watch it, might I suggest making a game of it? Take a shot or eat an M&M every time my beardless baby-face says the word “exactly”—you’re guaranteed to end up drunk or diabetic.

4. Where do you find the most inspiration for your imaginative crafts and DIY projects? Some of my best ideas have started from the pages of a vintage how-to, hobby, or rainy-day activity book. My favorite volumes are from the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s.

5. How do you get through or overcome creative blocks? I’m a huge fan of the artist and educator Corita Kent and her list of “rules” developed while she was teaching at the Immaculate Heart College Art Department in Los Angeles during the late 1960s. When faced with creative blocks, I love to revisit rule seven:

“The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.”

I love this so hard because it’s true! Sometimes you just have to work through bad ideas and crappy first, second, and sometimes third drafts before you get to the good stuff.

6. Do you have any hobbies outside of crafting and other creative projects? I consider myself a donut enthusiast. Tenaciously searching for the perfect Long John iced in chocolate and filled with homemade cream is a legit hobby, right? I also collect vintage, miniature-souvenir buildings. My first was an Empire State Building (complete with the thermometer) purchased during an early visit to New York. Twenty-five years later, 300+ structures create imaginary cityscapes on my bookshelves.

One of Robert’s imaginary cityscapes. Photo by David Daigle.

7. What are 3 things on your bucket list right now?

I’m a little obsessed with the documentary series Chef’s Table . How amazing would it be to travel the globe visiting every restaurant featured? It’s less bucket list and more of a lottery-winner fantasy.
I am not a tiny man, but I love the idea of a tiny house. It would be fun to try living in a well-designed sardine can (with the option to return to normal size when the novelty wears off).
I would like to pet llamas in the Peruvian Highlands and then see if some ridiculously talented artisans can teach me how to knit. I’ve taken multiple lessons and it just won’t stick! Seriously, the knitting tradition/culture in Peru makes me so happy. 

Stay up-to-date on Robert’s newest crafts on his website and YouTube channel , and follow him on Instagram ( @robert_mahar ) , Pinterest , and Twitter .

Main photo by Kate Edwards.

15 Pieces of Wisdom from Badass Women

Happy Women’s History Month! Knock Knock is a woman-owned business and we pride ourselves in having a badass lady, Jen Bilik, leading our pack. During this month and beyond, steep in the wise words of fierce females who emanate wit like it’s carbon dioxide (i.e. the strong women below), and carry on with your bad self.

1. “You may not control all the events that happen to you. but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” —Maya Angelou (graphic above featured in I Gotta Be Me Inner-Truth Journal)

2. “Follow your passion. Stay true to yourself. Never follow someone else’s path unless you’re in the woods and you’re lost and see a path. By all means, you should follow that.” —Ellen DeGeneres

3. “You also have to know what sparks the light in you so that you, in your own way, can illuminate the world.” —Oprah Winfrey

4. “Beauty is all about loving who you are. And if you have a problem with that, may I suggest you try loving who I am?” ­—Miss Piggy

5. “You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute.” —Tina Fey

6. “Clinging to the past is the problem. Embracing change is the solution.” —Gloria Steinem (graphic above featured in I’m Doing My Best Inner-Truth Journal)

7. “Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” —Judy Garland

8. “Opportunities are rarely offered; they’re seized.” —Sheryl Sandberg

9. “I was amazed that what I needed to survive could be carried on my back. And, most surprising of all, that I could carry it.” —Cheryl Strayed

10. “Sometimes you just have to put on lip gloss and pretend to be psyched.” —Mindy Kaling

11. “Very early in life, I realized that the most important relationship is the one you have with yourself. And if you figure that out, every other relationship is a plus, not a must.” —Diane Von Furstenberg

12. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” —Helen Keller

13. “A career is built one paragraph at a time.” —Barbara Kingsolver

14. “Fearlessness is not the absence of fear. Rather, it’s the mastery of fear.” —Arianna Huffington

15. “It’s a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what us sand.” —Madeleine L’Engle (graphic above featured in I Totally Got This Inner-Truth Journal)

Who are your real-life heroines? Give her a shout-out in a comment!

All quotes are taken from our Inner-Truth™ Journal series .