Have a question for Ask The Geek? Send it to me.

Dear Ask the Geek,

I have a question for the photo geek. What book or resource do you recommend to learn tips on using a DSLR? Want to increase my knowledge before my trip to Lucca this April.

Thanks,
Kristen

Dear Kristen,

this time I’m trying something a little different and I hope you’ll find it useful – I’m answering you in a quick video! Check out my answer regarding improving photography with some helpful tips about using your manual, books and sites you can read for tips, and setting some goals for improving your photography. I’ve also included some helpful links below the video (direct link to the video in case you don’t see it)

Books & gear I mentioned:

• The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby [Kindle ebook version]
• The Digital Photography Book - Volume 2 by Scott Kelby [Kindle ebook version]
• The Digital Photography Book - Volume 3 by Scott Kelby [Kindle ebook version]
• All 3 volumes of Scott Kelby’s The Digital Photography Books - [Kindle pack]
• More camera/video gear and photography booksI use or recommend - and more books that talk about composition and the more artistic side of photography

I also wrote a post about tips to improve your photography with any camera (not just a DSLR).

Other sites & blogs you should check out: (have a favorite site? leave it in the comments)

• Digital Photography School (they have a very active forum, too)
• Photofocus
• Phototuts+
• Jasmine Star Photography (especially for portraits / wedding)
• Strobist
• Joe McNally
• Stuck in Customs
• Nicolesy
• Mitchell Kanashkevich (he has a lot of ebooks, too)

Hope that helps,

Sara Rosso, aka WIHT’s in-house geek

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are to Amazon – I’m an Amazon affiliate and I will receive a small percentage if the product is purchased. 

The presentation “Tools for Entrepreneurs: Create. Collaborate. Communicate.“ started out as a way to explain very technical things to non-technical people, but I quickly realized that most people when approaching technology get intimidated by the “What’s DNS? Do I need a dedicated server?” kind of questions and therefore feel they can’t understand technology.

I feel that this technology intimidation is really due to the fact that they don’t really own their idea, and better understanding it will guide any decisions they have to make with their idea moving forward.

For me, the biggest online tool for most entrepreneurs is definitely their website. Having a website is like putting your shingle out declaring you’re in business.

In this presentation, the first section focuses on further defining your idea so you can create the site, offline, before engaging someone to build it for you (or building it yourself). From who the users / customers will be and what kind of information they want, to what the actual purpose of the site will be (conversion), to defining a list of must-have and nice-to-have features for the site.

The second section focuses on how to collaborate with those who will help your idea become a reality, from working with collaborators remotely, to the kinds of tools and software you’ll need to collaborate, and setting some guidelines for those tools to be effective.

The third section focuses on methods and approaches for communicating your idea, whether through the use of social media or just being consistent in your entire presence online.

Be sure and page through the entire slideshow to see the resources I included at the end for those looking for open source software alternatives to proprietary software, and links for getting started with ebooks and Creative Commons.

Below is the slideshow, click through to see the slideshow in your browser:

It was a great experiment and I’m really pleased with the results. Soon I’ll share what I learned on the technology side, but for now I’m just enjoying seeing it for sale online.

If you want to check it out, you don’t need to have a Kindle to read it! Here are links to the (free) Amazon Kindle App software for Android phone, Blackberry, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, or Mac or a PC. After you download and install the Kindle App software, you can buy the book and read it on your device!

Buy How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy in your Amazon store! (note: the content is in English regardless of the Amazon store you buy it from):

• How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy on Amazon.com
• How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy on Amazon.co.uk
  
• How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy on Amazon.de
  
• How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy on Amazon.fr

This week has convinced me I'm doing a Vision Board & Workshop in November, in Italian here in Milan. If you're interested, let me know.—
Sara Rosso (@rosso) September 22, 2011

After speaking with several friends who are struggling to see the next evolution of themselves, I decided to hold a Vision Board and Planning Workshop in Milan, Italy. It will probably be in Italian unless a majority of the participants desire English.

I’m working on the agenda and logistics as you read this, and I’ve already gotten enough interest to start picking a date. If you’re interested, feel free to contact me or leave a message on this post and I’ll get back to you with more details.

They specifically asked me to speak about using WordPress as a website, instead of a blog, as many journalists are now interested in maintaining personal websites as well as continuing to create all the content they do for external publications.

I really only needed one slide to explain how to do that – it’s very easy! I’ll let you discover how via the slides.

The presentation is geared at those very new to WordPress – so new, in fact, that I included a little bit about WordPress’ history and its community which I think are strong points in choosing to use it (awesome people are making an awesome product).

We spent a lot of time in questions after the presentation, many of which would have been answered by articles I’ve already written on this site, like:

• What is DNS? DNS in Plain English
• How to Choose Web Hosting for your Website or Blog
• Ask the Geek: How Do I Find and Install a WordPress theme?
• The Quick and Dirty Guide to Getting Started with WordPress

The slides aren’t actually meant to be self-explanatory – I went in-depth into most of the concepts and screenshots in person, and don’t like to put much content in my slides, so if you have questions, be sure to let me know!

In English:

In Italian:

SARA: What is the Baker framework?

DAVIDE: Baker Framework is a very simple idea: use HTML5 for books and magazines. In many ways, it’s like the missing piece between the book and the web: it allows the creation of enhanced, multimedia books with web technologies. Even if you can tweak a lot current standards like epub2 and mobi (and the upcoming epub3 is even more interesting) you can’t really create a rich, interactive and high quality book or magazine with these. That’s exactly what Baker is for.

The good part is that the Hpub format we are defining alongside Baker is just a set of HTML files zipped, so it’s also ready out of the box for the web.

SARA: Why were you inspired to create it?

DAVIDE: When I saw the iPad for the first time I almost immediately hoped for a new platform and format for digital books. I know I probably read too much science fiction, but I almost felt what could be possible in terms of the reading experience. Unfortunately since April 2010 nothing new has appeared: we’re still stuck to epubs, or we are forced to use Adobe tools and build complex – even if rich – magazine applications.

So by then the months were passing and I kept thinking: “It’s so obvious, HTML5 and ebooks on the iPad, why is nobody doing that?” Then with Marco and Alessandro we started building it alongside the first book, 5×15 in Tokyo, and every time we read a title about ebooks we were worried to see our idea built by someone else. Up until now, we are still the only one out there.

SARA: Who is the Baker framework intended for? (How) can a non-techie use it?

DAVIDE: The framework has a quite broad audience, from developers to authors to publishers. You can use it standalone or integrate it with your own application – like someone already did and successfully released on the App Store.

It’s possible for a non techie to use it: we’ve received good feedback from authors that are using iWeb to build the visuals and then they follow the step-by-step instruction we provide to build the app.

However this is one of the parts I’m not truly satisfied with, even if it’s already quite simple compared to similar solutions. I’d love to provide a really simple publishing experience to anybody, it’s something that we planned in some way, but as of today it isn’t there: it requires a lot of work, and that might come from the community itself, we’ll see.

SARA: Can you point us to some interesting projects already using the framework?

DAVIDE: Sure! There are two recent releases that I find very interesting, both for concept and the result. One of them is Forgotten Colours by Play Creatividad from Spain, a great conversion of a successful book that’s a collection of inspiring short stories about colors, with interactive elements. Another one is Timbuktu, an Italian interactive magazine specifically designed for kids. Both of them were very well received with great online coverage.

SARA: What’s next for Baker framework? What about you?

DAVIDE: We have already a few big features in place for the next version, that is probably going to be 2.0: orientation support (portrait, landscape or both) and iPhone support, two top-requested features. We are still working out a few things, so I can’t give you a precise date, but it should be somewhere in the next couple of months.

For me Baker is a really interesting experience because it’s probably the most successful open source project I’ve ever done and I’m learning a lot from it. The response we are receiving from both authors and developers is very energizing and we keep getting confirmations that it’s a good thing. I think we are also moving forward quite fast: if you think about it, the first release was in November, just 5 months ago and we already managed to push out the 1.1 version a couple of months ago. So there’s no next for me now… unless you count a few other side projects, but for these only time will tell.

SARA: Some resources to get started with the Baker framework:

DAVIDE: Even if the framework itself is quite simple and our official page is very clear, that’s something we are working on to improve. As of today the biggest resource is Google and our lively community on GitHub, but we are planning some more tutorial-like content published directly on the website in order to help less tech-savvy people.

Visit the Baker Framework site.

More information on the Baker framework:

• Baker ebook framework on Mashable

Writers*, the Internet and its images are not your ClipArt gallery.

Especially in the case of Cooks Source, an assumption was made by the writer that the material they found online was somehow “available” and could be taken, re-used, re-written and published, and including the original author’s name was enough to justify its usage.

Some people make a living publishing content and photos online. Some just enjoy it as a hobby. Some do it as a second job, hoping for something more. All of these people have the right to full control over their intellectual property’s copyright, no matter what you perceive their aim to be.

In this article, though, I want to focus on photography. While more and more people realize using words someone else has written is plagiarism, it’s not as clear to them how they can use / re-publish others’ photos in their content.

A Photo Illustrates Your Story, or A Photo is The Story?

I think the first distinction to be made is between a picture illustrating or visually decorating content, and a picture as the story. In the first case, the picture helps you, the writer, to illustrate your story to the reader through visual clues. People like pictures, it breaks up text, and it gives them different focal points. In the second case, the picture is the reason for the story. It’s news, a point, a counterpoint, or the basis for a discussion.

Example: this picture of gelato.

In the first case (a picture illustrates a story): the writer could decide to use the picture in a story talking about gelato, about summer in Italy, about ice cream even. They use the photo like clip art – to punctuate a textual story with visual elements.

In the second case, an article could be written with reference to the author’s original blog post where the picture appeared. Additional details like the original author’s name & link, point of view, perhaps even a small excerpt is incorporated into the story (not only a credit at the end) as the writer uses the author and her photo as a point of reference and source, and as a key component to the story the writer is currently telling that is related to the original author’s content.

Neither of these editorial approaches is more correct than the other. Most of the photos on When I Have Time are used in the first case, as they help illustrate my story, but they are not the story. Often copyright owners find more gratification from the second case – if my photo is your story, most likely I am getting publicity, interest, and hopefully credibility and traffic from its inclusion.

In both cases, the writer needs permission from the copyright holder to use their photo.

Case #1 actually happened to me and this particular photo, and it was included in a post as an visual without my permission. I feel no need to name the site as we rectified the situation cordially and they were very professional. But it became even clearer to me that the assumptions some writers are working on need to be set straight.

Respect Image Copyright

If there’s a watermark on the photo, you can bet the photographer cares about how that photo is republished and used. Even if there’s no watermark, there is copyright on the photo! {Read up on a Guide to Copyright and Creative Commons if intellectual property rights are fuzzy to you} If a photo is available for Creative Commons usage, the author will declare it somewhere in an easy-to-find place like their site sidebar, on their About page, or directly under the photo.

If you can’t find Creative Commons license information at first glance, don’t assume that photo is available for the taking. Assume the exact opposite. It’s not available, for any usage, and you should write the copyright holder for permission. When in doubt? Send the photographer an email!

Proper Usage and Crediting a Photo

If you find a photo available for usage that is Creative Commons, its license dictates how the photo can be used, modified and attributed. If you’re not sure your usage is ok, ask the photographer! Ask!

Some tips for proper usage and crediting a photo:

• Did I mention ask permission? When in doubt, ask. This step cannot be overlooked.
• You credit the name, but don’t give a link. A link is not required by law, but it is the Internet. Why not share the love back?
• Make sure you insert the link and credit before the post has been published (so all RSS readers see the link).
• Never put your own logo or watermark on the photo unless you have explicit permission to modify the photo (again, ask!).
• If the photo you’re using is Creative Commons, drop the author a line after the fact to see where their photo has been given new life – who knows, you may gain another reader or even an advocate.

Build a Relationship with your ClipArt generator, the Photographer

If you’re a site owner, or a community site writer, why not think of other ways to approach photographers so that they will be more interested in your request to republish their all-rights-reserved photos?

• Approach the photographer and offer to do a profile on your site about the photographer in exchange for a certain number of photos (i.e., 5) for other blog posts.
• Offer to pay the photographer (innovative, I know).
• Offer something else in exchange (perhaps you can barter its usage).
• Ask if they have any photos with Creative Commons licenses or available on stock photography sites – perhaps you’ll find a substitute photo that can be purchased cheaply or can be used with Creative Commons.

Are you a writer looking for images? Start with Flickr’s search for Creative Commons images licensed for commercial use.

Do you have any tips for writers on correctly finding and using images on the Internet?

If you’re a photographer, what would you prefer writers offered you, other than money, for using your photos?

*I use the term “writers” in this case to mean both journalists and bloggers – I have seen cases where both have overlooked copyright.

Photo credit: me, Sara Rosso

Here’s a few of my tips for improving your photography, no matter what camera you have. Note that these are not suggestions about composition or improving your artistic license, but practical tips regarding light, focus, and using your camera’s basic functions.

Note: While I have been using DSLR cameras for several years (and you can check out my Flickr photostream for some of my more recent photography), I purposely chose photos that were taken with a 3.2 megapixel point-and-shoot camera to help illustrate some of these points.

1. Keep Steady, keep the picture sharp and in focus

Nothing ruins a picture like it being out of focus. Your little-camera-that-could is probably trying as hard as it can, but you’ve got to help it – stay as still as possible to reduce that shake.

Here’s a few quick tips:

• Use two hands. It may seem obvious, but I’ve seen many a photo being taken with just one hand on your camera. Your camera might be light and easy to use so you don’t need two hands to focus and push the button, but it will help stabilize it with two hands. Use both!
• Bring those elbows in. The display screen on most cameras means you can see what the camera is focusing on without putting your eye to the viewfinder, but chances are you are holding it away from your body and increasing the chances of camera shake. Bring your close elbows into your body.
• Brace yourself. Put your back up to a wall, lean on a corner, sit in a chair. Do as much as you can to make yourself into a stable tripod for your camera, and take crisper pictures.
• Brace your camera. If you can’t brace yourself, at least brace your camera. Rest it on a rock, on a counter top, on a low wall to stabilize your shot as best as possible.

2. Emphasize natural light first and foremost – avoid flash when possible

If there’s one thing that’s the bane of most photography, it’s that nasty flash reflecting on the food, in a window behind your subject, or otherwise whitening out your focus unnecessarily. Try to use natural light when possible – open nearby curtains to let in more light, move the subject closer to the light and turn off additional light sources so that you can focus on photographing just that natural light. You can override your flash setting and turn it off so you can experiment with light.

3. Pay attention to where the sun is, where reflections are, and where the glare is

Sometimes a photo is just not meant to be, and the sun has a lot to do with that. Note which direction the light is coming into your photo. If you have a subject you can move, like a person, make sure the light isn’t coming directly from behind their head as you won’t see their face at all (this can be fun for silhouette photography, though). Turn them so that the light source is in front of them or slightly to the side to avoid dark shadows on one side of their face. Make sure your subjects are either completely in the sun or shadow so you don’t have blotchy pictures.

4. Get creative with your light sources

If you don’t have enough natural light to make the shot, before you give up entirely, try increasing the light coming in by reflecting off a mirror, white poster board or other reflective surface onto your subject. Or sometimes, the light can make the entire picture.

5. Use the viewfinder & change your perspective

Most beginning photographers take pictures with their cameras straight out in front of them, and digital cameras with their LCD display screens have encouraged this. Try putting your eye to the viewfinder, and change your physical perspective as well – point the camera above your head, get down on one knee or on eye-level with your subject, or even look behind you to see if you’re missing an equally gorgeous shot.

6. Isolate your subject or change the background

If you’re trying to take a picture of a person, a plate of pasta, or your dog, if that subject’s in the middle of a chaotic tableau, they’ll disappear. To make sure your subject stands out, isolate it as much as possible – ask the person to stand near a wall instead of in the middle of the room; move extra cups, napkins and menus away from your plate of pasta; get closer to your dog so you fill more of the photo’s frame with him.

7. Use the “little flower” macro option

Almost all cameras have that “little flower” or macro as a setting for close-ups. Make sure you’re using the correct setting (little flower = closeups, mountain range = longer-range) at all times, and why not try both settings if you have time? It’s a digital camera after all and you can experiment.

8. Read the manual

Probably the best and most basic advice anyone in the tech world will give you is read your camera’s manual. Why not carry it around with you for a few weeks so you can read a few pages a day, or look up the answer to a question you have about using the camera? You’ll thank yourself later. And that’s why you spent all that money on the camera, right? So you could get good at using it.

Have any questions to ask regarding improving your photography? Any tips to add?

Read these articles for more information about improving your photography:

• BBC’s How to take good photographs
• Kodak’s Top 10 tips for Great Pictures
• Lifehacker’s How to Take Great Digital Portraits

Images from my food & travel site, MsAdventuresinItaly.com, and are copyright Sara Rosso.

Now that you’re ready to start creating that website you’ve been dreaming about, you’ll need to get web hosting: a place where you can store and modify your website’s content and make it accessible online.

The choice of a web hosting provider is a very personal one. I say this because, for every person who has had a good experience with a provider, you will find one or five or ten who have utter loathing for that exact provider.

I would evaluate a potential web hosting provider based on the following considerations:

• Installing or Utilizing Blog or CMS (Content Management System) Software
  
• 3rd-party Software Installation
  
• Technical Support
  
• Disk Space and Data Transfer
• Video Streaming
• Backup and Shared Hosting vs. Dedicated Server
• Transferring Away & Refunds
  

Here’s some more detail about what to consider for each one:

• Installing or Utilizing Blog or CMS (Content Management System) Software

The ease-of-use of incorporating the blogging platform with your provider is what makes the difference when going to purchase web hosting. Even if you don’t intend to open a blog, many blog/CMS software can be used for static websites as well (like WordPress, which I love). Each blog or CMS software has operating system and/or software components required to run, so check with your intended provider before buying hosting and/or the software.

Some providers will give you a “push-button” or “1-click” installation which will automate the installation of blogging platforms. Other providers will provide a hosting solution that gives you access to the more technical side of your hosting environment like executing scripts, setting up databases and modifying your file system permissions. Check to see if the hosting provider lists which blogging software can run on their servers. If you cannot find this information, I strongly suggest writing an email to their tech support with a list of your blog software’s technical requirements to get confirmation before purchasing a hosting agreement (or blogging software). Here’s WordPress’ list of requirements.

• Ease-of-installation of 3rd party software

As mentioned above, if you are not particularly tech-savvy, it’s important that you understand how much the provider can integrate blog or other 3rd-party software into your web hosting. Even if you’re not interested in hosting a blog, you may need a forum, a photo gallery, a wiki or e-commerce software for your site, and many hosting providers can offer these software integrations or at least support their installation.

Many providers will specify how much control you have over your hosting environment and how much you can put your hands on it (if you can run PHP scripts, install a database, modify the .htaccess file, etc.) but the final compatibility, installation and upkeep of the 3rd-party software will be your responsibility. Some providers will even provide a list of which popular 3rd party software is compatible or is available for push-button installation.

• Technical support: Direct Contact available? Guaranteed Response Times?
  

When I first started hosting with a certain hosting provider, they made it very difficult to contact them directly with problems, and I often had to do a down-the-rabbit-hole chase to find the support email address on their web site. Now, they provide an 800 number to talk with a real person.

Other hosting providers will not give you a direct contact, but they may give you a guaranteed response time or an option to escalate and therefore you know how long it might take to get resolution to your problem.

Before it’s really a necessity, you should identify the support methods in case of an emergency: contact email address / website / telephone, and other information needed to contact them like your username or account information. Other important limits to keep in mind are if the provider limits your technical support to a certain number of questions or if they provide a guaranteed response time or service level agreement on resolution of problems.

If you require a certain level of support, investigate first, and also be prepared to pay extra to ensure you can get it.

• Disk Space and Data Transfer

If you’ve read the Long Tail by Chris Anderson (great book!) you know that disk space is quickly becoming a commodity and most providers will now offer huge amounts of disk space for a low cost. You probably won’t come near to using all of it.

Data transfer is related to the transfer and viewing of the information on your website. When a visitor opens a page on your website, your hosting provider must deliver the text and images on that page to their computer. Multiply that for each visitor, and data transfer may become important to your site if you’re having people download a lot of content (like high resolution images, music files or large PDFs) or if you have enormous amounts of traffic.

Most providers will provide you with such a large amount of data transfer that you can monitor in case you experience a jump in traffic, or upgrade if necessary. Investigate how much is provided with each plan, and in case your website gets linked from Digg or CNN, how you can temporarily meet that demand or upgrade

• Video Streaming

Most videos embedded in blogs can be hosted externally to the blog (on YouTube or Vimeo, for example), but if you are planning on having a lot of video content and would like complete control over the delivery and look & feel of that content, check with your hosting provider if video streaming from their servers is included in the hosting plan you’re considering. This may also figure into calculating the data transfer they provide – the more videos you are streaming, the more data transfer you’ll need.

• Backup

Backup is one of the most important things to your online presence. How often does your host back up your data? Daily, hourly? How far back can you get get copies of your data and files, and with which methods can you access your files? Do you need to submit a request to the provider’s Support, or can you be autonomous and access it directly from your administration panel?

If you’re generating a lot of content and/or you have a very active community generating content and comments, you will need to be more sensitive about how often that content is backed up.

Note that with many blog/CMS software, the backup of the database may not be done by the hosting provider but must be done directly by the user and the hosting provider may provide backups of the content that is not in the database (i.e., image and downloadable files).

• Shared Hosting vs. Dedicated Server

By default, most basic web hosting plans will be considered shared hosting, which means that other websites and domains will be hosted on the same server as your site. You’ll be sharing resources like the server’s disk space, processor, and RAM. For most site or blog needs, shared hosting will be sufficient, but if your site is very popular, you may need a step up from shared hosting like a virtual server or a dedicated server.

Of course, you probably won’t know you need a more robust solution when you first start your website, but it’s a good idea to see if the host has other options available and what you’d need to do to upgrade when the time comes.

• Transferring Away & Refunds

Pay close attention to the refund policy of the providers. Some offer money-back guarantees if you are interested in doing a trial of their services for a few days or weeks so you can get a feel for the service and the administration panel.

Choosing Web Hosting Providers

I don’t want to make this article about endorsement, though I use both Dreamhost and Yahoo for my hosting needs, as I mentioned above – for every person who has a good experience, there will be 10 more with a negative one. I suggest you Google “web hosting providers,”, read some ratings’ sites, ask your friends with successful sites who they use, and evaluate your own site’s needs before buying hosting.

From Lifehacker’s readers: Most Popular Reliable and Affordable Web Hosts

• DreamHost
• Blue Host
• NearlyFreeSpeech.NET
• 1&1
• GoDaddy
• HostGator
• A Small Orange

Image by Donovan Henneberg-Verity

The List.

Also known as The “Stuff I Want to Do Before I Die” List. A Life List. Some may call it a Bucket List, but my List has been around since before the movie.  I never thought it was such a strange thing to have a Life List until I realized most of my acquaintances don’t have one. I started writing my list in 1999.

We are never too young or too old to be constantly thinking about our goals and what we could be pushing ourselves to do. There are times when you should power down, relax, and enjoy the moment. But between those times, you should be moving yourself forward. Feel free to change directions, turn around, or even sit down and rest, but your actions should be focused on movement.

I’ve never understood people that are ok with “seeing what happens tomorrow.” It is true that eventually life will change you and your circumstances whether you want it to or not, but often if you’re ready with your own plans, you can influence or direct the change yourself.

So back to The List.

What’s in the list?

The short answer is: whatever you want.

Want to…be trilingual? Published in a magazine? Jump from an airplane? Shake the President’s hand? Visit every continent on the planet? Visit the moon? Eat local for 6 months? Own your own business? Sing jazz in a club? Graduate from law school? Adopt a child? Be debt-free?

It’s completely up to you.

How to Start:

I used to keep my Life List in a document on my computer, but now I keep it in a Google Doc online, so I can access wherever creativity strikes me.

So get out that clean sheet of paper, crease open that brand new Moleskine, load up that pearly white Google Doc.

Go on, I’ll wait.

Ready?

Some tips for The List:

• Think big, think tall, write it all. Brainstorm. Who’s to judge what is a good goal and a bad goal? Here’s a hint: not even you. Before you hesitate to write something down because “it’s unattainable” “it will never happen” “it’s a stupid idea” – write it down. There are two sides of you: the rational you, which we’ll engage later to accomplish some of these goals, and there’s the dreamer you. Let your dreamer enjoy themselves a little with your List. After all, it’s your life. Write it all down. Don’t judge your ideas right now.
• If you can do it any afternoon, it doesn’t belong here. Unless it’s a small effort that constitutes a lifestyle change, like taking the stairs everywhere for a year, or drinking a glass of water every day for a month, or writing 2 pages longhand every morning for 6 months, etc., it probably doesn’t belong on your list. This is not a grocery list or the day’s to-do list. It’s goals, it’s dreams, it’s accomplishments, it’s pride.
• It needs to be measurable. You should be able to recognize when you’ve actually accomplished the item on your list. “Read more” or “be kinder” or “lose weight” are not specific enough, and are definitely not measurable. Give yourself a specific goal so that you can make it easy to identify the goal when you get there.
• Number them, order them…who cares? Don’t feel the need to order, group or prioritize your List – that’s not what the List is about. That comes later, when you face your fears and start to really attack an item on your list. For now, just let your imagination run wild. I put the date that I added them to my List – I like to look back and see when my bursts of creativity hit me, and also know how long something stays on my List before I accomplish it.
• Make growing your list a priority. Perhaps not as obvious as accomplishing your goals is making sure you have some! The List needs to constantly grow. When you’re first starting, I suggest adding “Add 2 things per month to The List” as a goal, and that will force you to think about it and make it grow.
• Talk to your friends and family about The List. While I am definitely not recommending you make your List public, talk to your friends and family about the fact you have The List. Perhaps share 1-2 goals with them that are not too personal. Engage in talking about your dreams and about having goals with everyone! You’ll see that new inspiration as well as encouragement will come out of it. Dreaming is contagious.
• When you accomplish something, don’t remove it. Date it. The List is not only about your future goals, but it should also be a reminder of what you’ve done and to motivate you to keep accomplishing. Once you achieve a goal, don’t just regale it to your memory – put a date on it, so later you can review some of your accomplishments when you need to.

Want to see some examples of some Lists?

I think peeking into someone’s Life List is a little like giving someone a sponge bath before you even shake their hand – you get a very intimate look into what some of their goals, desires and fantasies are in an instant. Luckily, a few have shared their life lists with you, so you can get that intimate look, and some inspiration for your own Life List.

• John Goddard’s Life List

Calling himself the “World’s Greatest Goal Achiever,” he definitely has some interesting things on his List he created when he was only 15…and he’s crossed a lot of them off!

• Mighty Girl’s Life List

Living in public? Why not share your entire List, blog about what you accomplish…and even get sponsored to fulfill your Life List? That’s Mighty Girl’s job.

• Nicole is Better’s Life List

Nicole wants you to know how she’s progressing with her Life List and hopes you’ll give a small donation to help her on her adventures. She’s got some really fun items on her List.

Need some inspiration for populating your Llistist?

• The New York Times’ explores Life Lists
• MSNBC talks about Life Lists
• Life Lists of Cool People I know (no, I don’t know them)
• Smithsonian’s 28 Places to See Before You Die—the Taj Mahal, Grand Canyon and More
• Travel & Leisure Travel Life List
• A very comprehensive guide to creating a Life List
• 1000 Places to See Before you Die – the book
• 50 Things to do before you die – Matador Network
• Forbes 10 Things to Do before you Die

Do you have a Life List? Tell me how you fill it up and check it off!

Image by koalazymonkey / CC BY 2.0