Patrick Rhone's Blog, page 2

Things I Love: Instant Pot

I was dubious at first. It was Prime Day on Amazon and my wife spotted a deal there on something all her friends were raving about. It was something called an Instant Pot . The name and list of features she was rattling off sounded like one of those “As Seen On TV” things that only seem to work in the Infomercial. A combination pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, steamer with programable one-touch operation? Do sautéing beforehand right in the pot? It sounded way too good to be true. Especially because I’m the primary cook in the family…

“Perfectly cooked rice in 8-12 minutes? Just throw the rice and water in the pot, put the lid on, push a button, and walk away? Yeah, right!“

” Potatoes and Eggs for potato salad in minutes? Cooked in the same pot at the same time? Get outta’ here!“

“Perfectly cooked Refried Beans without soaking? Just set it and forget it? I’ll believe it when I see it!“

I mean, if this thing did even half the stuff people were claiming it did it would be worth it at double the price. Anything that saves me that much time in the kitchen and/or allows for quick and easy one pot meals is worth it’s weight in gold to me. So, we pulled the trigger and bought it.

I’ve cooked something at least three times a week in it since I got it and each time I’m just blown away. Just this afternoon I made Potato Salad for the first time with it using this recipe and was astonished yet again. Perfectly cooked potatoes and eggs in four minutes. FOUR! I love potato salad and with this I could make it for myself all the time. I’ve also made risotto in eight minutes and a red lentil stew in about 15 minutes.

Steal cut oatmeal. Homemade yogurt (yes, you can make yogurt with this thing). Chili’s and stews. I even made some tasty southern style cabbage that came out just like the stuff that takes hours on the stove in minutes. Seriously, this thing is legit!

What’s also nice is that portions don’t matter. You can cook a meal for one just as quickly and easily as a meal for six. That makes it perfect for anyone — single or not. I could easily see this being the perfect primary kitchen tool for a college dorm or small apartment. One could make fresh, easy, cheap, quick meals every day with this thing. The stainless steel liner makes for easy cleanup too.

It is rare that I jump on the latest gadget craze and walk away this impressed. It’s made me shamelessly brake out in happy dance around the kitchen several times since I got it. If you love to cook or hate to but would like to more often, give the Instant Pot your serious consideration.

How can I help you?

I’m asking, because it’s what I do. To some it may sound hokey or, to the skeptical, disingenuous, but it is really what I love to do — especially through my written work. Some may say it’s my personal brand. I like to say that writing is how I make this world better, friendlier, stronger place. The way that happens is this; if my words or advice can help just one person, even just a little bit, it makes them feel better. They, in turn, are more likely to help those around them, and so on and so on. Thus, the whole world gets a little bit better.

Perhaps, my books can help you. Get this one if you are looking to achieve a simpler or more intentional life. If you are looking for a more mindful approach to technology, this one is the one for you — even if you don’t use Apple products most of the ideas still apply. If you are looking for practical, actionable, advice on living, this one will help you for sure.

I’ve also published a book about writing (especially for an online audience) and one on meditation that anyone can do. These are meant to help too.

Recently, I set up some time to help people directly, one-on-one, through Officehours on Friday mornings. I’m doing so at no cost but free will, pay what you wish, donations are unexpected but always welcome. I’ll add more availability as my calendar shakes out a bit.

I also have a free newsletter that has been warmly received. The schedule, format, and topics are irregular but I’m confident that those that subscribe find something helpful show up in their email inboxes every once in a while. Take a look at the archive if you’d like to get a sense of what I write about there.

Sometimes, I speak to organizations and groups and try to help them. If you are a part of an organization or team that you think would benefit please let me know.

The bottom line is that I’m always looking for ways I can help others. It’s who I am. It’s what I do. Let me know is there is some way I can help you.

Twitter Zen and The Art of Retweet Maintenance

I was feeling overwhelmed every time I opened Twitter but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why. Nothing had changed, recently. I hadn’t added more followers — I try to keep that number around 350. The most frequent and active Tweeters I had already relegated to a list called "High Volume". All the companies, sites, and news, etc. were in a list called "Interesting". I have several mute filters in place for the things I don’t care about. I very carefully choose who I follow and regularly evaluate and curate that list. In other words, I thought had done all of the "right" things but, still, my main timeline felt — well — like it was not mine.

It felt like I threw a party, invited specific people to it, but then all these other people I didn’t know showed up with them. They came and hogged the conversation, ate too much food, and kept me from being able to really hear and talk to the people I invited. Bad uninvited guests.

I was describing the problem to my friend Jason and he reminded me that he wrote up a post a little while back about how he keeps his Twitter sanity. He suggested a few things from it that he thought would help me. His is a very reasoned and well thought out strategy and you should do yourself a favor and take the time to read what he has to say. That said, I wanted to highlight one item in particular that made a HUGE difference for me:

Turn off retweets for everyone you follow the moment you begin following them.

Now, since I had not been doing so before and planned to not add any more followers, I had to turn off retweets from everyone I already followed. This seemed daunting and tedious at first until I realized the better strategy was this; every time someone retweeted something and I saw it in my timeline my next action would be to turn off retweets for the person retweeting. This made the process far more doable and immediately caught the most frequent retweeters. I should mention the interesting part of this choice is that turning off retweets does not turn off "quote" tweets — where the person sharing has something to add. It only eliminates straight no-value-added retweets.

Now, after working on doing this for the past couple of weeks, my main timeline feels like mine again. It’s a party of my invited guests and I’m truly interested in what they have to say.

Don’t get me wrong, I get the general point of a retweet. Sometimes, people just want to share something with no additional comment. The problem is that, if I wanted to hear from those people, what they think, or what they had to say I would follow them. I don’t. I follow who I want to follow and I want to hear what the people I follow have to say and, if the want to share something and have something to add when they share, that’s cool. Because then I’m hearing what they think about what they are sharing.

So, I’m now back to feeling a little less overwhelmed by Twitter largely thanks to this. Hopefully, it will help for a while.

As an aside, I feel like Twitter — much like Facebook — is increasingly a service that requires a bit too much fiddling with to make it useable. It now suffers from the same "go into settings and tweak this and do that and turn these off and download this app and it’ll be OK not great but OK" that Facebook long has. If I didn’t care what my friends were up to and thinking so much it’s hardly be worth the trouble. And, though I have not reached it yet, it is on the verge of becoming such a needy puppy that it won’t be worth it. I have such a complicated and conflicted relationship with it these days.

On Worry

Worry is wasted energy if not converted to action. It serves no purpose other than to drive action. Worry is alleviated in two ways:

Taking action on that which worries you.
Letting it go and redirecting that energy elsewhere.

Worry is born of desire — desire for change. If worry does not drive the action for change, or if there is no action you can take that will strive for or effect change, then what good is your desire?

But, in my opinion, one of the biggest problems with worry is that it makes one believe they are doing something. Especially when there is no action one could take that will affect change. That worry is all you have to do. That if you worry about something enough it will somehow effect change.

Worry is the catalyst between desire and “done” — nothing more. It should not exist outside of that structural tension.

So, if you’re going to worry, at least worry about important things. Things that matter. Things that you can take some action on. Make your worry worth it. Use it to get things done.

Just Ask

A few days ago, I walked into the bookstore that is just downstairs from one of my clients and asked the shop owner, "What have you read recently that you just loved?" I walked away with a book I know will make a great Mothers Day present for my wife, the first book of a series that sounds fantastic, and a half dozen other recommendations for future purchases.

Unsurprisingly, walking into a bookstore and asking the shopkeeper, "What do you just love?" Will put good books into your hands. "I love [name of book/genre/subject], what do you recommend?" does the same. This works in libraries too. Also, record stores. I’ve even seen it work in restaurants.

The other day, when out to lunch, I asked the server what the "Yum Yum" sauce on one of their specials tasted like. He attempted to describe it and I got the general idea but, without my asking, he went a step further and brought out a small sample of it. He knew that the best answer he could give was to let the sauce speak for itself. I didn’t end up getting the dish but I likely will next time (the sauce was good).

The point being that, in general, at many independent establishments the people who are there are experts at what they have, what’s good, and what you’ll likely enjoy. They love being asked for their opinion and a surprisingly few amount of people do so. So, take a chance next time you’re in one and ask questions. My bet is that you’ll be happy you did.

Our Prince

I was about ten years old when I first got turned on to the music of Prince. It was my next door neighbor, Michael Johnson, who got me into Prince. We were hanging out one day and he told me about this guy I just had to hear. He put on For You. It was funky and challenged many of my notions I had had up to that point about so many things.

But, it wasn’t just the music that hooked me. Michael told me that Prince was a local guy. Not just local to Minneapolis but local to South Minneapolis — our ‘hood. He graduated from Central High — just like my Dad had a few years before him. He grew up only about a mile away. I soon found out that just about everyone in the neighborhood had some direct connection to this kid — they knew him. They went to school with him or played basketball down at the park with him, or their sister dated him, or played in some basement band with him, or they just saw him around. This skinny kid with the giant afro who was either always in the music room or on the basketball court. This kid who in just a couple of more years would become known worldwide.

I became a big fan. A fan of the music and the little guy I heard so much about around where I lived. Later on, we moved away — to Iowa City, IA and then to New Haven, CT. Prince’s fame began to grow. First with Controversy then with 1999. No matter where I went, when I mentioned that I was from Minneapolis, people immediately brought up Prince. “Oh, where that Prince guy is from! ” or “Isn’t that where Prince is from?”. It worked the other way too. If someone gave me a somewhat quizzical look when I mentioned Minneapolis, all I would have to say was, “Where Prince is from…” and the recognition was immediate.

By the time I moved back to Minneapolis, Prince was a huge star. The whole world knew about him now. Purple Rain had just come out and his music was everywhere. His videos running every hour on MTV. And, in too many ways to count, he literally put the Minneapolis music scene on the map. And, there was so much happening here. The punk scene was exploding with great bands like Hüsker Dü and The Replacements. Prince himself was bringing up his friends with him like Morris Day and The Time. It was one of those magical times in the city when, every night, you could go out to a local club and hear a band or artist that now is a household name. Of course, Prince was bigger than all of them — a bonafide superstar now.

But Prince never left. He could have had houses all over the world or lived anywhere he wanted but he always called Minneapolis home. Almost everyone in Minneapolis and Saint Paul had a Prince story. He lived here. He worked here. He played here. He showed up and sat in with some local band, or was at some restaurant, or was buying fruit at the supermarket. No matter how famous he got, what levels of superstardom he achieved, he was always just Prince here in the city the world now knew. He was always around and everyone could tell you a personal story about him.

I say all of this not only to tell you the story of what Prince meant to me in a formative era in my life but so that you can understand the depth of the loss we are feeling here in this city — in his city. Imagine if New York City lost the Empire State Building, or Paris lost The Eiffel Tower… Well, we lost Prince. We lost the icon that the rest of the world knew us by. We lost the symbol that was our city to so much of the rest of the world. The thing that, no matter where you went beyond this place, all you had to do was say his name and people knew and respected where you came from.

He’s gone now, but just like the Empire State Building or The Eiffel Tower, people will not forget. There’s a great line in the in the musical Hamilton about the idea that we have no control over who lives or dies or tells our story. We don’t have control over any of that. But, what we can control is to make sure we become a part of a place, or a part of the people there, so that there are stories to tell should people wish to tell them. The better the stories we leave, the more likely people will be to tell them. Prince left a lot of stories to tell and we will be telling them here amongst each other and to the rest of the world for a long time to come. He left us some great stories.

(The photo above is the last known photo taken of him, riding his bike back to the office, just like normal.)

Never Too Busy to Cure Clutter by Erin Rooney Doland — A Brief Review

Never Too Busy to Cure Clutter: Simplify Your Life One Minute at a Time by Erin Rooney Doland

This is a practical, actionable, and approachable book that is designed for people who have “lives”. So many other books in the space are written by 20 somethings with no kids and nothing but free time on their hands (I’m looking at you Ms. Kondo). But, for those of us with jobs and kids and schedules packed end-to-end, spending 15 minutes folding a t-shirt to sit on end is just not going to happen.

This book is different. The author understands a normal life because she herself has one that she juggles too. This book is written from that perspective and understanding. It’s the sort of thing that you can pick up, turn to just about any page, and find at least one easy organizing task to make your space a bit better using the time and energy you have at the moment. No matter if that is two hours or thirty seconds, there are dozens of tips and ideas to fit either. The idea that making just a little bit of progress is far more valuable and rewarding than making none at all. Also, it is a start — thirty seconds here and 15 minutes there can clean up and organize a whole room.

Seriously, get this book. If you even manage to do five small tasks it suggests it will be money well spent.

Let Her Teach You

My daughter, Beatrix, takes violin lessons. She uses a quarter sized violin that has been passed around various members of my wife’s family for years until they grew to a larger size. We knew, because of its age and use, that it would need a little bit of maintenance after it was passed to her. New strings were needed and handled by her teacher. But, the bow needed to be re-haired and that is best done by a professional. So, I took it to a local Luthier who came recommended highly by her teacher.

Walking into his shop was immediately stirring. Violins, violas, and the random cello were everywhere. The smell of old wood and off-gassing lacquer filled my nose. all of this coupled with a gentle greeting by the Luthier gave one the immediate sense that this was a kind of chapel. A sacred temple for the practice, care, and continuation of an ancient art.

I gave him the violin, showed him the bow, and explained what I needed. I commented on some of the other items I noticed may be needed, beyond just the bow, to get his expert opinion. Perhaps it was the way I asked my questions or understood his answers but something caused him to ask, “Do you play?”

I explained to him that I grew up in a very musical family. My Grandmother was a concert classical pianist. My mother also plays at that level. And, my siblings all play at a concert performance level as well. Growing up, learning an instrument was considered as much of a part of my education as school itself. It was required.

I further explained there is a wild “writer” gene in my family that, like a random quark, strikes certain members with that ability and seems to knock out whatever talent or desire to excel at an instrument may exist in them. I told him that I did take both violin and cello lessons as a kid but, have not played in years. I told him that, lately, I have felt a pull to pick up instruments I abandoned as a child and play them again. My daughter takes piano, voice, and music theory as well and seems to pick things up quickly. I told him getting her to practice violin was sometimes a struggle though, despite the fact she’s pretty good and a fast learner.

He said, gently, “You should play. Not just for yourself, but for her. But, more than that, you should let her teach you. If you let her teach you what she is learning, because of your age and past experience, you’ll catch on quickly and it’ll make her feel like a good teacher. It will empower her and make her feel in control. This will make her a more confident player. Then, practice will no longer be drudgery but something fun you do together.”

I was struck dead in my tracks by this idea. It seemed at once mysterious and obvious. Like he was telling me a secret I already knew but hadn’t yet believed.

At Beatrix’s next lesson, I told her teacher about this conversation and she thought it was a fantastic idea. “I have a whole closet full of full size violins. You’re welcome to borrow one.” Done.

So, I have now taken several “lessons” from Beatrix, and the results of both her interest, learning, and time spent practicing teaching are like the difference between night and day. No fighting, struggle, or argument over practicing. None of her getting frustrated or bored after five minutes. None of my feeling like getting her to practice is like getting her to swallow cod liver oil. We simply have fun playing her lessons together and, on average, do so for a half hour or more. It’s great and some of the best time I’ve spent in the last few weeks.

I suspect as well that this would work just as well with sports, or dance, or anything that requires similar practice. So, if you have a similar struggle around practice time at your house, perhaps try letting your kids teach you.

Toms Men’s Avalon Sneaker — A Brief Review

Toms Men’s Avalon Sneaker

I needed a nice slip on shoe to replace some slip-on Keen shoes I liked so much I literally wore them until they fell apart. I need slip ons for quick jaunts out of and around the house and, especially, for travel. I wanted something lightweight, comfortable, and easy to get on and off. They also needed to be good looking in a variety of situations — t-shirt and jeans but also maybe with a collared shirt and sport jacket. Ultimately, I was looking for a shoe that would satisfy my constant desire to pack light and go fast.

I seem to have found what I was looking for in Toms Men’s Avalon Sneaker. I’m really digging these. They fit the bill quite well. The fit is good and they look good without being too stuffy. I have a trip to New York City coming up and I can wait to take these on 20 block walks and see how the hold up. If first impressions are an indication I believe they’ll do great. I highly recommended them if you are in the market for something similar.

Re-releasing enough

My most popular book, enough is being re-released today after a few weeks of being unavailable for sale. Enough is a series of essays that explore the idea of living a life with just enough of what you need and proposing some strategies to get there.

I wont bore you with the details of why it was out of stock, I’ll suffice to say it was some behind the scenes business changes. I’m excited this is back out there as the ideas that I put into the book will be featured in the upcoming documentary, Minimalism which I was interviewed for and will be touring the country soon.

As part of the change the title is now available to Kindle Unlimited subscribers for free. If you are a member of that, then I’d be honored if you added it and took the time to read.

If you have yet to get a copy, consider getting it for yourself or someone you love in Paperback or Amazon Kindle