The issue is having control over technology. I have the TV on waaaaay too much. I accept that, it’s a hard habit to break, the Bee absolutely hates it and sometimes we get roped into watching a silly TV show rather than having a conversation. At the same time we both have iPod’s, blackberries and laptops – our house has two of everything and 4 laptops right now – so we spend a lot of time on devices. And this is likely to grow rather than stop.

We need to take back control. Just because we have Blackberry messenger, or skype, or email, or facebook, or twitter, or whatever doesn’t mean we need to be on it all the time. I’m a bit torn because I love watching TV with facebook or twitter on in the background, and I don’t think I want to give up the occasional sporting event or series that I’m really interested in. But it’s about balance; it’s about spending time wisely rather than wasting time.

Returning a piece of kit, or killing an account on a social network is not the answer, the answer is being conscious of how much time we’re spending with technology and what the opportunity costs are of that time.

I ummmed and ahhhhed quite a bit. I wasn’t sure. Finally, I came up with chopsticks. At first people were sceptical. They can be difficult to use, isn’t a fork better?

Here was my rational. Their simple, and yet extensible, when you become good at using them you can find them easy, it’s almost a badge of honour to be able to use them well. Their design hasn’t changed much in decades. They can tell you a lot about personality and traits (Cathy mentioned that in China there’s a belief that you must hold them at a certain position, too high means you’re too ambitious, too low means you’re not ambitions enough). For me they’re cool in their simplicity and watching someone eat with them can almost be artistic – or a train wreck.

Chopsticks also are a good analogy for decisions in design. Simple beats complex. Less complex lowers costs (in most cases), can make messaging and use much easier. From Twitter, to Google to the Mac, to the kindle, books, amazon.com, Spotify, to iTunes. From Uniqlo to the Gap, Hulu to the iPlayer, simple products with a focus on quality and execution can lead to success.

With the new first puppy;

There’s a ton of others, Obama with a basketball tossing a football in the oval office etc. Lots of great pictures. I love this for two reasons:

One – the access that we have to this White House is unreal, unmatched and really unbelievable.

Two – it reminds me of a great TED video on play by Stuart Brown (below) discussing the impact of play on cognitive development.

I love the thought that play contributes to development and progress. People need to be imaginative and playful to be able to think laterally and develop new ways of doing things. Which is why I’m really looking forward to being a dad, think it will give me an excuse to play more. Not that I need one, but at least when I play with my child the Bee won’t look at me strangely for being stupidly playful.

How it all began; I met up with some great friends last night and another great friend today and talked about the year, our plans and hopes for it and how to achieve what we want to achieve.

A&S mentioned that every year they have themes. I loved their ideas for themes for the year, much easier to stick to a theme for the year then having lots of resolutions and not being sure which ones were met and which ones were sort of met.

I shared this idea with N, who declared, “Oh yeah I have themes too”. That settled it, I needed to come up with themes. After discussing the potential themes with N I settled on “Learning to do”, in short I’m tired of talking about doing certain stuff. This is the year I do stuff. And that’s the first of three word maxims I’ve come up with in my three days in London.

Then later on today I decided to head to the London Business School library. The library’s great for inspiring and coming across books that I hadn’t heard of. Today I came across what seems to be a great book called, “Out of Poverty” by Paul Polak. Polak is a Psychiatrist, turned entrepreneur, turned poverty solver. He has a great story in the book where he talks about how his father is a survivor, his father left what’s now the Czech republic during Hitler’s campaigns and how when his father tried to convince others to leave the Czech republic as well and how these people said “What about the furniture”, he left those people behind, those people were not as lucky as Polak Sr. So the second of the three three word maxim’s is “F— the furniture”. You lose site of the big picture by focusing on the (relatively) little stuff, so “F— the furniture”.

As if two three word maxims weren’t enough, I came across N again at the library where we were discussing a project she’s working on. She was getting stuck because the idea was starting to spiral out of control and she felt like she was forcing it. My advice to her was to get her idea in front of people and do quick iterations, kind of like Apple was doing with Mac’s and iPhones (N happens to be a big Apple fan so this was a good line of thinking I though), “Be the Mac” I said, get your products out there and out iterate the competition.

And so three days in London and three pretty big thoughts, “Learn to do”, “F— the furniture” and “Be the Mac”. It’s no wonder I miss this city.

A site called Mindapples has started a meme asking people to identify 5 things I do to keep my mind in check.

So here are 5 things I do – or hope to do – to keep my mind going:

1. The gym, I’m a big believer in the philosophy that a healthy body leads to a healthy mind.
2. Meditation, in university I took a class called Body, Mind and Spirit and although I don’t get to do this enough, and plan on doing more in 2009, meditation is a good way of keeping the mind nimble.
3. Read books, fiction and non fiction – I like to read, my target was to read 50 books this year, came pretty close. Reading keeps me going and fiction keeps my imagination active, non fiction keeps me grounded with the ideas of those living in the same world rather then parallel universe of non fiction pieces.
4. Sleep – although I don’t sleep as much as I would like, getting my 6 hours in helps me make sure that I’m able to focus when focus is called for.
5. Conversations with the bee – it could be about religion, or about our favourite people, or about business, social development or the web, whatever the subject might be discussions with my better whole (cause that’s what she is a whole person, as am I, never really bought the whole two halves idea) helps keep my mind in check.

And so in true meme fashion, I’m tagging the Bee, the divine one, Karim, Miss Ma and Senor Vasta to write what helps them stay mentally well.

I try not to re-write my posts too much, and sure sometimes this means that I have the occasional spelling or grammar issue, but it also means that I’m speaking from the top of my head and not over analysing stuff. Sometimes its crap and sometimes its interesting and engaging, but I’m not sure if editing really has any positive effects, other then preventing the occasional email, fbook message or comment from the Bee or others on my errors.

Its funny how after thinking about things, you can almost think about them too much. It kind of reminds me of Gladwell’s Blink – and how our first instincts can be best for decision making. Sometimes we edit too much, we think too much and don’t trust our instincts enough. The secret, I believe, is knowing when to edit, and when to go with the gut. I’m still working on figuring that one out.

At Yahoo! we have pool, foosball and ping pong tables and though I rarely get the chance to play these days it’s good to know they’re there. I’ve had some good conversations about life, work, philosophy and politics around these tables. One of the best times I’ve had at Yahoo! has been when we went out to play golf in the middle of Soho, not only was the golf fun but in winning the closest to the pin competition I’ve been inspired to play more golf. There was also some great work-related conversation that evening in a relaxed non-traditional environment.

And then I read about the Google Games (hat tip: Brad Feld) where students from MIT and Harvard came in and played various physical, mental and just plain fun games. Great recruitment technique if you ask me.

Last week I came across an article in the London Business School Business Strategy Review regarding the role of play at work. It’s weird but I’ve always felt that having a playful outlet was important to being able to work effectively. And this article makes that case.

If/When I start my own company I think play will play an important part in recruitment, engagement and strategy. If for no other reason then the fact that its fun and we spend way too much time at work not to have fun there.

I love the comparison of finance people to Eeyore and Chief Exec’s to Tigger’s. For those who aren’t familiar with the characters, Wikipedia puts it perfectly, Eeyore is a pessimistic, gloomy, old, depressed stuffed donkey and Tigger is a cheerful, outgoing, competitive in a friendly way, and completely confident in himself Tiger.

In my (admittedly limited) experience with finance people and Chief Exec’s that’s really been the case. Sure there are exceptions, but it’s an interesting analogy. Most of the finance people I’ve come across have been Eeyore-ish and a lot of Chief exec’s have been Tigger’s. Actually let me rephrase that, a lot of the successful chief exec’s I’ve read about have been Tigger’s.

Personally, I’m a lot more Tigger then Eeyore, with a little bit of Pooh – a gentle bear who never attacked anyone, and is much loved for being playful – thrown in.

An interesting game would be “Tigger’s or Eeyore’s” looking at business personalities and politicians as characters from Winnie the Pooh. From what I’ve read I would guess that:

• Steve Jobs is a Tigger
• Jerry Yang is a Tigger
• Bill Gates is a Tigger with a bit of Eeyore hiding deep down
• Not sure what to make of any of the Google guys
• Warren Buffet is an Eeyore with the heart of a Tigger
• Mark Cuban is a Tigger
• George Bush is a Piglet (who masquerades as a Tigger and an Eeyore)
• Tony Blair is a Tigger
• Gordon Brown is an Eeyore trying to make believe he can be a Tigger

Can you convert from one personality to another, I’m not so sure. But it will definitely be interesting to see Gordon Brown try.