- Signs that life is short are all around us. Last Tuesday morning at 3:37 AM (Central), while standing on a step ladder, I pulled out the smoke alarm battery and squinted out my own handwriting: “6-24-11”. I could pass a lie detector test swearing I change these every 6 months – always between the hours of midnight and dawn.
- The Apple handcuffs have finally been broken. Since moving to Spotify eight months ago, I haven’t purchased a single iTunes song. (…and yes, you can access your playlists without being online.)
- No more passwords! Our “secret” password notebook has been rendered useless since moving to LastPass (for a whopping $12/year!). Between the time savings and security, this is beyond a no-brainer.
- Shopping online is mainstream (duh!). I bought EVERY single holiday gift online this year. Again, Amazon Prime rocks, even though I had to use a couple other sites to ensure there were a few surprises (for the snoopy co-member of the account).
- Google Drive (Docs) is truly the best and getting better every week. For the everyday low price of nothing, 99% of all Word/Excel tasks can be done with Google, and by the way, you also get real-time collaboration, instantaneous backup, and secure sharing as an additional free bonus.
- Social media can be fun again. After some introspection into why I had all but stopped interacting on the public Interwebs, I decided to introduce some discipline and am enjoying the benefits with several blog posts, tweets, and pics in store for 2014.
- Paperless is now a reality. Thanks to the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 (2014 edition), notebooks (both kinds) are becoming a thing of the past. Admittedly, the paperless option is going to lie in the early adopter phase for most at this point in time, but the writing apps are becoming quite good.
- Bye bye little boxes. In the words of Malvina Reynolds (via Jenji Kohan): “Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same…” To avoid sounding rantish and/or brash, we’ll simply summarize by saying those rules, ruts and rituals can all be broken. Bold changes and crazy adventures have served the Lunt’s well in 2013, and we’re planning on even more healthy disruption in 2014!
Continual Improvement 