Pomodoro and Procrastination

Had lunch with my good friend E yesterday. I talked about my inability to get started on tasks and carry things through. E told me about the Pomodoro technique - a structured method to 'enhance focus' - working for 25 mins, then taking a break. And you use a timer for this.

I am definately going to try this out. Soon all my projects will be finished and my life will be clutter-free and perfect. Ha!

Here's a link to the Pomodoro technique and even and online timer if you need one.

Back in the day

The snow is finally melting, but this was a winter that is going to talked about for a long time. But today my thoughts turned to summer when I was playing around with a few photos that I'd taken a couple of years ago on a beautiful June summer's day. Alice and I had taken the ferry over to the island of Visingsö on lake Vättern and had rented bikes to cycle around.

My digital SLR was still a new toy, and very few minutes I'd had to stop and take a few shots. Unfortunately, as is the fate of many of my photos, they have ever since remained unseen on my hard drive. That is until today, when I decided to play around in Photoshop to try and give a few of my snaps the vintage feel that is so popular at the moment. I saved them as photoshop actions which I can then apply to other photos in the future, but there are many available for download on the net. The site moderskeppet explains them here, with some links.

These are the results of the morning's endeavours:

Customer Service Part 1

Several people I've talked to seem to think that it's really expensive to eat in London. I disagree. The secret is to leave Swedish eating habits behind (like eating a big meal at midday during the week) and adopt British ones. Buy sandwiches from Boots and eat them in St. James Park, and instead have a main meal between 5 - 7pm when many restaurants have specials on.

I'm going to give a shout out to 2 places I really like in London. The first is Bistro 1 in Covent Garden where the prices are great for such a central touristy location - 2 courses in the evening for just under £10. It's a small restaurant, with a homely atmosphere, serving simple, hearty food. They even have another couple of restaurants in other central London spots. Check them out here.


The second place I have to mention is the Brick Lane Brasserie House of Spice (Brick Lane is the mecca for Indian Food in London) who win my Customer Service Award 2009 ;). We'd just done the spooky Jack the Ripper walk and I was feeling peckish and fancied taking a curry back with me to the hotel, as no one else in the family wanted to eat. This particular restaurant was pretty full, while many of the others were practically empty. Not only did the owner do me a special half portion (to suit my student budget) but actually gave me some of his silverwear to take with me, as he didn't have any plastic forks. He gave the kids little chocolates to eat while we were waiting for the food and even put in some free poppadoms for them. When we then asked for directions to the nearest tube station he came out into the street with us to direct us, even though he was pretty busy.

That's what I call great customer service folks :)