1. INBOX ZERO EVERY DAY

At least at work, get things organized out of the inbox and into a task list of some sort.  It is pleasing to look down to a clean inbox, helps to feel that things are in order.

2. PLAY LESS WOW

As fun as it is, it’s really just a time sink — time I could be using for something more useful.

3. CREATE SOMETHING REGULARLY

Spend some time doing something creative, doesn’t matter what.

4. DON’T WAIT, ACT NOW

Shannon knows I’m a procrastinator.  So I’ll try to work on that a bit.

5. HAVE NO RESOLUTIONS NEXT YEAR

Would be nice to not be able to come up with a list like this.

The picture doesn’t capture really what’s happening here.  The satellite is rotating while being captured.  The video shows this better. Shannon couldn’t believe what she was seeing.  ”Is he crazy!” seems like what Not surprisingly, NASA stopped the practice of untether spacewalks after the Challenger accident.

This reminded me of an interesting anecdote from Mike Mullane’s Riding Rockets on risks in spaceflight.  The shuttle engineers had found a very rare but potential flaw with the shuttle that might prevent the solid rocket boosters from separating (which would be fatal to the crew).  They had asked the astronauts if they would still launch knowing the risk.  That astronaut’s response:

They might as well have asked a three-year-old if he wanted to eat his candy now or wait until tomorrow.  If the engineers said, “We forgot to install the center engine.  Do you still want to launch?” Hank (astronaut Hank Hartsfield) probably would have said, “No problem.  We’ll just burn the two we have.”  Nothing was going to get in our way.

The business of being an astronaut is extremely risky.  I wonder if I could fly in the face of those risks.