5 simple, last-minute Halloween costume ideas

Have a brain cramp when it comes to picking a costume? Just don’t care about Halloween enough to put a lot of effort into it? Here are five simple, last-minute costume ideas:

Sick and Tired
Put on some PJs, slippers and a robe. Mess up your hair. Have a box of cold medicine and tissues sticking out of your pockets. This can also be a couple’s costume: one can be sick, the other tired. (Thanks to the Hawks for the idea.)

Dirty Laundry
Cut out the bottom of a cheap plastic laundry basket. Step into it and pull it up around your waist. Partially fill it with clothes (preferably dirty) and safety pin some random items (socks, whitey-tighties) to your shirt. Good for trick-or-treating as you can carry your candy in the basket instead of a separate bag.

“Pi-rate”
A punny couples costume, but probably the simplest of all. Print out a pi symbol on one piece of paper and “4.61%” on another. Tape to your shirts, respectively. Now you’re “pi-rates.”

Envy
Green clothes. Green face paint (readily accessible at your local grocery store). Test the face paint before you apply it everywhere. I could tell you a really funny story about our IT guy at work…

Zombie
A Halloween classic. Buy a cheap make-up kit at your local grocery store, or use your wife’s/mom’s makeup. Give yourself dark rings around your eyes, dark lips and maybe some of that fake blood oozing out of the corners of your mouth. Spike/mess up your hair. Tear up an old dress shirt and get some dirt on it. If you feel so inclined, you can buy some rubber zombie hands too, but at the very least you should make your nails look dirty with some of the make-up.

BONUS: Baby Pirate
My wife pulled this one off an hour before a Halloween party using things she found lying around the house.

Cut a white onesie down the front in the shape of a “V” and shear/tatter the sleeves. Tear a red cloth for a bandanna (we used an old t-shirt) and fasten with a rubber band or hair tie. You can use the same fabric for the cummerbund as well.

This next part takes a little time, but sew the end of one of the pant legs inside a toilet paper tube to make a peg-leg.

We got a lot of compliments about this costume!

I hope this helps. Have a great Halloween! If you see any brilliantly simple Halloween costumes, grab a pic if you can, send it and I’ll post it later!

LivSimpl

Unschedule your life

The concept of unscheduling essentially means making sure you have time to do what you want to do: don’t schedule work, schedule free time.

I’ve used a concept similar to this at work. I’ve found that when I get particularly bogged down with projects I have to schedule time to, well, work. I’ll block off chunks of my day with, “Work on print ads for X client”. If I don’t do this I tend to get bombarded with meeting requests leaving only a half hour or so between meetings and that’s hardly enough time to dig into an assignment.

The same idea applies to free time. If you want to make sure you have some, you have to schedule it like you would anything else and stick to it. You wouldn’t cancel an appointment with you boss. Don’t cheat yourself out of your personal time.

It took me a while to realize that when someone asked me to do something during time I’d schedule for something personal, I wasn’t being dishonest by saying, “I’m not available during that time.” In fact, I was doing myself (and my family) a disservice by not sticking to my (un)schedule.

What do you think? Will you consider unscheduling your time? Why or why not? Let me know in the comments.

LivSimpl

Save a tree and some time: Three alternatives to traditional gift wrapping

I have a coworker who feels wrapping presents is a waste.

I can see her point.

We make trips to the store to buy paper products to wrap gifts, only to give the gift to someone who is going to rip the wrapping to shreds and throw it away. Logically, it’s not very practical. Not to mention it takes a fair amount of time (especially if you’re like yours truly and not very good at).

Today I’ll share three alternatives to traditional gift wrapping.

1. A bow and a card. Slap a bow on the gift. Hand ‘em a card. Done. If you’re going to hand the gift to the person anyway, this only reduces the amount of suspense they feel about your gift by maybe two seconds. Not a big deal, and the surprise they’ll probably have by seeing a gift presented that way will make it worth it.
   

1. The Funnies. If you’re determined to wrap the gift, do it in the Sunday Comics. It’s free, generally accessible and will stand out in the pile of gifts waiting for the birthday boy or girl.
   

1. Wrap it in a blanket. This fantastic tradition is courtesy of my in-laws. They wrap gifts in blankets. You know, the ones you’d grab if you were going to read a book on the couch. I love this method as it does an excellent job of concealing the gift, is completely reusable and after many holidays and birthdays still cracks me up when I see it.
   

While I’m not quite ready to stop wrapping presents under the tree at Christmas, I think these are excellent alternatives to the hassle of wrapping presents the traditional way and is much, much better for the environment.

What do you think? Are they good ideas or is it taking it a bit too far? Sound off in the comments.

LivSimpl

The quest ends: opt-out of junk mail here!

OK. I’ve covered ways to reduce the amount of unwanted physical mail that shows up, from unwanted credit card offers to switching to paperless billing, but this post (should be) the end-all cumulation of opt-out methods.

“But why would I want to stop receiving those wonderful, targeted offers from some of my favorite companies?” you may be asking, but probably aren’t.

Well, aside from the devastating environmental impact (more than 100 million trees’ worth of bulk mail arrive in American mail boxes each year – the equivalent of deforesting the entire Rocky Mountain National Park every four months*) it clutters up your home, takes time to sort through, is a threat to your identity and requires that the postman spend less time with his family. (That last one is a joke. Kind of.)

There are two sites you need to be aware of.

The first is ProQuo, a site that’s sole purpose is to allow you to pick and choose which offers are mailed to you. I haven’t used it myself (just found out about it this morning), but TechCrunch gave it a rave review.

The next is the World Privacy Forum’s list of 10 agencies to contact to get off their mailing lists. From financial institution opt-outs to car insurance to the Do Not Call list, it walks you through how each one works and how to ask to be removed. It’s quite comprehensive.

Of course, theoretically ProQuo should take care of all that for you, so check that one out first.

Oh, yeah. It’s important to keep in mind that it takes a while for the request to go through, so if you want to avoid the onslaught of upcoming Christmas junk mail jump on this train soon.

LivSimpl

*New American Dream calculation from Conservatree and U.S. Forest Service statistics

How to avoid automated phone systems

One of the more frustrating things to deal with are corporate automated systems. Sometimes you just want to talk to a person. In fact, I can’t really think of a time when I’ve called a company and haven’t wanted to talk to a person.

Of course, there are tricks you can use such as holding down the # key, or repeatedly pressing 0, but those methods can disconnect you and you’ll have to start the whole process over again.

Enter the Get Human Database. It’s a website with dozens of major businesses and how to bypass their automated systems to speak to a real person and it works like a charm.

You can browse by category but I prefer to use Command + F (that’s Control + F for you PC users) to bring up Firefox’s in-line search box and jump straight to the company I’m looking for.

The result is less time on the phone and more time doing whatever it is you’d rather be doing. Like reading LivSimpl.

LivSimpl

Why LivSimpl

Today is just a brief, but overdue thought as to why I made this site (and why LivSimpl is spelled the way it is).

It’s pronounced Live (liv) Simple for what I hope are obvious reasons: the site is about simplifying life, being more efficient and enjoying the little things we often overlook or take for granted.

I’ve always found strange satisfaction in simplifying things. Sometimes that comes in the form of tidying up my workspace before I can hunker down and get to work. Other times it’s taking the train to work instead of driving. And sometimes it’s stepping back and looking at where I am in life and feeling overwhelmed with gratitude for the way I’ve been blessed. None of these things are particularly groundbreaking or revolutionary, but they’ve brought me happiness and satisfaction so I want to share that happiness and satisfaction with others.

Of course, not everything I write about here is as profound as all that. I write about things that are much more mundane. Things like e-mail filters and how to make your hot water last longer in the shower and a neat way to organize computer cables. But there’s a reason for that:

A lot of life is made up of those mundane things.

But if I can help someone spend a little less time doing something tedious and a little more time doing something they love, or help reduce stress so someone enjoys something they might not have taken the time for otherwise, then I’ve succeeded with this site.

I’m far from perfect at doing these things, and I’m certainly not a brilliant writer, but I invite you to join me in trying to live a simpler life because I truly believe it will make a difference in our lives and the lives of those around us.

Thanks for reading,

David

P.S. As for the spelling of the name, there’s actually a bit of a concept to it (however feeble it may be). I didn’t leave the E’s off because of the trend (RAZR, Flickr, etc.), but because they aren’t needed to communicate the name of the site. It’s an exercise in simplicity.

Series: simple ways to remember Day 4 – Gmail to-do’s

I tend to live in my e-mail program (Gmail) and, despite lacking formal to-do functionality, today I’ll review a way to use your Gmail account to track to-do’s and other things you want to remember.

1. 1.Create a label called “To-do’s”
   

2. 2.Create a filter that says if any e-mail’s subject line contains “To do”, apply the label “To-do’s” and skip the inbox.
   

3. 3.Next time you have something to do, e-mail yourself with the subject line “To do…” and then whatever it is you need to do or remember. Put any details in the body of the message.
   

4. 4.The things you need to remember to do will be archived (so they won’t clutter your inbox) but will show up in your labels as having “unread” to-do’s.
   

You can also send yourself reminders when you’re away from the computer by sending a text to your Gmail account. During Step 2, add your cell phone’s e-mail address (18885551212@tmobile.net, or something like that) in the “From” line. From then on everything you text yourself will be labeled with “To do” as well.

Tip: put your Gmail address in your cell phone’s contact list so you don’t have to type it out each time.

I’ve also liked having a To-Do label for regular incoming e-mail. If someone needs something and I can’t get to right away, I label it as a To-Do, mark it unread and archive it. My inbox stays tidy and I’m still reminded that I have something to do.

What do you think? Is this something you’d find useful? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

LivSimpl

Series: simple ways to remember Day 3 – Remember the Milk

This is Day 3 of a series of simple ways to remember stuff. Today’s review is about a powerful online to-do site called Remember the Milk. (While it’s designed for to-do’s, it can also be used for recording other thoughts and ideas you want to remember.)

RTM has simple, functional navigation and lets you customize your to-do’s with tags, categories, location, duration, URL (if needed), due date and whether or not it’s a repeating task. It can also remind you of to-do’s via e-mail, text message or IM.

It also offers online collaboration/sharing as well as publishing. For example, if your spouse has something he or she wants you to remember he/she can login, put the reminder on your to-do list, and you’ll see it the next time you check.

Perhaps the coolest feature about RTM is the inclusion of Google Gears which lets you go off-line with your list, modify it, and sync it back up once you get back to an Internet connection.

Even after all that, I only reviewed a portion of the features Remember the Milk offers. It’s an excellent tool for organizing those to-do’s and other thoughts you don’t want forgotten. Best of all, the service is free.

If anybody uses Remember the Milk, or wants to check it out and share their thoughts, please leave word in the comments.

LivSimpl

Series: simple ways to remember Day 2 – Jott

Continuing the series of simple ways to remember your flashes of brilliance, to-do’s and other meaningful thoughts, today I’m reviewing a free service called Jott.

Here’s how it works: set up a Jott account (you’ll need to give them your cell phone number) and put the Jott phone number into your speed dial. Whenever you have an idea or something else you don’t want to forget, call Jott.

You’ll be greeted by an automated service that asks, “Who do you want to Jott?”

Say, “Self.” You’ll hear a beep and you leave yourself a message, not unlike a voicemail.

At this point, Jott seems like an overly complicated voice recorder that comes standard on so many phones nowadays. But here comes the good part: Jott will transcribe your message for you using an automated voice recognition system and e-mail it to you the following day. It’s the perfect way to give yourself a reminder on the run.

Granted, the system is still in Beta and certainly not fool-proof. But Jott has a couple of solutions for you.

1. You can allow people to transcribe your messages if the computers can’t figure it out.

2. You can login to your account and play back your original recording.

The thing I like most about Jott is that it actively reminds me of the messages I’ve left, as opposed to writing something down in my notebook.

If you decide to give Jott a try, let me know what you think in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

LivSimpl

Series: simple ways to remember Day 1 – Moleskine notebook

Remembering your flashes of brilliance is important if you don’t want to rack your brains later. No matter how often you tell yourself, “I’ll remember it later,” you won’t. There are few things as frustrating as knowing you had a good idea, or something you needed to remember to get done, and not being able to recall it when needed.

I’m going to cover four efficient, and simple, ways to make sure you never forget anything important again.

First up is a fairly obvious choice, but one I use just about everyday: carry a notebook.

I carry around a pocket Moleskine notebook (which I have converted into my wallet – but more on that later). It’s great because I always have something with me to jot down not just to-do lists, but there’s plenty of room for extended ramblings (like when I think of a LivSimpl idea or sit across from a creepy person on the train).

It fits perfectly in my back pocket (I hate having to carry things) and I love writing in it. While more expensive than a small, spiral-bound notebook it lasts much longer and has a lot more style and personality. You can pick them up at Barnes & Noble for about $10. (I got a new one for my birthday and can’t wait to break it in.

Be sure and check back tomorrow for a more high-tech way to remember your insightful flashes of genius.

Thanks for reading!

LivSimpl