1. Tackle tomatoes quickly
One or two tomatoes aren’t hard to handle, but working with a bunch can quickly turn frustrating. If you need to remove seeds and have a salad spinner handy, chop your tomatoes up whole and give them a few spins—most of the seeds are now separated. If you need to peel a lot of them, a drop in boiling water for 15-30 seconds makes it easy to yank skins with your hands, but if you only have a few, simply hold them over a gas or electric stove burner with tongs or a fork until the skin just blisters.
2. Get ahead with prep containers
Many recipes call for adding a number of liquids, solids or both at once, or in a few phases. If you’ve planned out a few dinners for the week, or if you have a little time before the cooking starts, pre-assembling these mixes—having what the French call mise en place can be a huge time saver. You don’t have to buy small dishes that end up getting washed—one Cook’s Illustrated reader uses leftover cough-syrup cups (after washing, of course), while others suggest a muffin tin tray, used yogurt cups, coffee filters and other containers. (more…)

Method #1: Quit While You’re Ahead

So you’ve had great flow working on a project. You sit back for a moment and think, “Hey, this is going great! I wish I always felt this engaged and sharp!”

Time to quit.

One maxim often repeated by writing teachers is to leave your last sentence unfinished at the end of the day so you have a logical place to continue next time. The same holds true for any creative work. (…) (more…)

1. It helps you learn from your mistakes.
If we don’t reflect on our mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them. And that’s not very smart. However, if we reflect on those mistakes, figure out what went wrong, see how we can prevent them in the future, we can use our mistakes to get better. Mistakes, then, are a valuable learning tool, instead of something to feel embarrassed or upset about. Reflection is an important way to do that.
2. It gives you great ideas.
Like I said, every single post idea that I have for Zen Habits (or other blogs I write for) comes from reflection. Basically, I reflect on things that I’m doing or that are going on in my life. If things aren’t going well, I learn stuff I can share with others. If I reflect on something that’s a success for me, I think about how I got that success, and share that too. I’ve had hundreds of great ideas this year from reflection. (more…)

1. Don’t set a lot of resolutions.
In fact, I don’t recommend setting more than one. If you set a lot of them, you lose focus on individual resolutions, making them hard to achieve. I would focus on tackling the one thing in your life that bothers you the most and focus on a resolution that helps to fix that problem.
2. A resolution is almost always part of a longer-term pattern you want to establish - figure out what that pattern is.
If you’ve decided to invest this year as part of your resolution, it’s part of a bigger pattern. Maybe you want to reach a greater state of financial stability right now. Maybe you want to bump up your savings for retirement. Maybe you’re just going to save for a new house. Whatever it is, your immediate resolution is just a strong first step towards that bigger goal. The same goes for a health-related resolution, a personality-related resolution, or so on - you’re hoping to cause a bigger change in your life. Understand what that change really is and keep that big picture in mind even as you make little steps. (more…)

10 questions will bring resonance to your choices and heart to your actions:

1. What is it to be completely fulfilled in life?
2. What values, qualities of being must be present for you to have a fulfilled life?
3. How would honoring those values impact your experience of work-life balance?
4. What are you committed to? (Not goals… goals are the doings that happen inside the field of commitments.)

This list has been severely abridged. To read the full list, view the original post at it’s source:
Two Methods to Maximize Creativity (Lifehack.org)

Additionally, the original post has 10 Signs Your Life Is Out Of Balance.

Weblog Lifehacker has an excellent rundown of the 20 best iPod utilities. These programs will make your iPod run better, faster, harder, stronger as well as achieve feats no normal iPod was designed to achieve.

Here are seven, in no particular order:

• How to jailbreak your iPhone
• Wirelessly Stream Music from Your iPod touch or iPhone to Any iTunes Library
• Install Linux on Your iPod with iPod Linux
• Put Wikipedia on Your iPod with Encyclopodia
• Upgrade Your iPod Video to an iPod classic
• Backup Your Home Folder to Your iPod with iPodBackup
• Convert YouTube Videos for Your iPod with Zamzar

Obviously, there are plenty more items, and plenty of description in the original article, here:
The 20 Best iPod Utilities