Spread good vibes with karma reminders - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

Spread good vibes with karma reminders Matt 20 Sep 2006

33 comments Latest by Carolyn Manning

I use Backpack reminders all the time. My phone buzzes and I’m reminded that it’s time to pay rent or discharge my laptop battery or pick up laundry or whatever.

Lately I’ve been using it for a more elevated cause too. Every Wednesday at 11am I receive a reminder that says, “There are things in life that you shouldn’t take for granted.” It’s a karma reminder. Once I get that, I take action to show someone or something that I appreciate it/them/him/her.

I recommend you try it out. Each week, you can tell someone you love them in an email or phone call. Or take the time to actually write a letter (now that everyone emails all the time I’ve noticed people are especially touched when they receive a note via snail mail). Praise someone you work with who’s done a really good job. Buy a treat for your pet who gives you affection unconditionally. Donate money to a good cause to show the universe you appreciate your good fortune. You get the gist.

For example, last week I wrote a brief email to my Dad saying some nice stuff and this is the response I got: “Hi Matt. Thanks for the beautiful message. It made my day, my week, my month, and possibly my year!” Such a small bit of effort but what a great reward. Put out good vibes and they come back your way.

And for this week, I’d like to say, on behalf of all of 37signals, thanks to everyone who reads this blog and especially those of you who take the time to leave constructive and interesting comments. Whenever I read comment threads at other blogs, I’m reminded again of how impressive the level of dialogue/discussion is here. That’s a testament to the intelligence and thoughtfulness of the people who frequent SvN. So thanks everyone, we really appreciate it.

33 comments so far (Jump to latest)

Dhrumil 20 Sep 06

For all my health blog readers I’m going to suggest, “Nothing taste as good as being truly healthy feels” - TR

except maybe chicago pizza..

Luis 20 Sep 06

Anyone have a link to a site with cool Karmic sayings?

Andrew 20 Sep 06

“Every Wednesday at 11am I receive a reminder…”

Hey! You can’t do repeating reminders in Backpack! Unless that’s a feature coming soon, maybe? Or do you have a reminder at Wednesday at 11:01 to set next week’s karma reminder? :-)

Oh, wait, you can set recurring reminders. Hmm.

Balaji 20 Sep 06

37 Signals & DHH, thanks for the ruby on rails, nice one.

JF 20 Sep 06

Andrew, you can do repeating reminders. We don’t have repeating calendar events yet, but stay tuned. Those are on deck.

Dr. Ernie 20 Sep 06

Great words! And nice to hear somebody actually affirming their Dad, not just their Mom. :-)

BizSnype 20 Sep 06

OMG! Go hug a tree or something…

Gayle 20 Sep 06

Most excellent. Spread the joy! :)

indi 20 Sep 06

Huggeed my tree … got ants
Hugged the ants … got bit

Killed the ants
Killed the tree

Now my karma’s screwed

Auria,

Thanks for the link!

Auria thanks also. I found the following quotes amusing given the context of this blog…

“A taste for simplicity cannot last for long.”
� Eugene Delacroix, French painter (1798-1863)

“Less is more.”
� Mies van der Rohe, Dutch-American “Modernist” architect (1886-1969)

“Less is a bore.”
� Robert Venturi, American post-Modernist architect (b. 1925)

Joe Ruby 20 Sep 06

Discharge your laptop battery? Isn’t needing to do that ancient history? My Powerbook instructions had me do the battery workout thing when I first got it, and only then.

ML 20 Sep 06

Calibrating your computer’s battery for best performance

The battery needs to be recalibrated from time to time to keep the onscreen battery time and percent display accurate. With all iBooks and PowerBook G4 computers except the aluminum PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD), you should perform this procedure when you first use your computer and then every few months thereafter.

Michael 20 Sep 06

Jason, David, Matt and the rest.

First, thanks for one more insight into your attitudes. This is just a great thought.

Second, thanks for being the people you are and sharing so much with all of us. You brought more than just one good day to me and I’m sure to many other readers.

Keep the good work going.
Michael

Apple’s instructions seem to indicate that needing to do battery calisthenics is only necessary for their older laptops. And it’s only “to keep onscreen battery time and percent display accurate” (which, for me, is probably much more trouble than it’s worth ;P ), as opposed to older batteries which had “memory.”

Linsey Dawn McKenzie 20 Sep 06

Laptop batteries do seem to be a very non exact science, especially with powerbooks. I’ve had 3, a G3 and 2 G4s, the G3 battery lasted for 3 years and then just gave up, the first G4 is still working after 6 years, and the second G4 battery gave up after 10 months. I never practiced battery calisthenics on any of them.

Booga 20 Sep 06

Nice idea which lead me to this request: Good karma reminders should come in a special random mode. Like from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. If there is a specific time, say wednesday on 4 p.m. - I would get used to it after probably two weeks. Karma is a fluid thing. A static reminder is not. Hit me in shuffle mode and I’m surprised and will be patient even more.

Mark 20 Sep 06

Nice thought.

Here’s to hope for the future, when we won’t need to depend on a technological reminder to spread good karma, but rather can let it flow from our souls naturally, regardless of how busy we are — as it should.

Darren Stuart 21 Sep 06

I like the idea, however I have never managed to get the sms side of the reminders to work with my mobile phone (orange in the uk).

Paul 21 Sep 06

Nice one, thanks for the tip. Seems obvious but the best things usually are.

dandan 21 Sep 06

Darren: same here - I’m with Orange. How much does it acutally cost when it does work? standard text rate?

Jake 21 Sep 06

Matt is awesome. What a nice post.

Mike McDerment 21 Sep 06

You guys deserve the comments you receive - especially the nice ones. Keep up the great work.

matt 21 Sep 06

Thanks for a great idea. I skimmed this initially and moved on, but “there are things you shouldn’t take for granted” just kept bouncing around my brain. I ended up making a surprise visit that made someone’s day. I’ll be getting that reminder more frequently now via Backpack ;). Keep up the good work.

Niranjan 21 Sep 06

Excellent post. It’s true that the good vibes do come back your way. Only thing that stops most of us from making small effort is the “EGO”, the little “ME” inside and getting drowned in daily business of getting on with life. The Karma reminder is an excellent way to remind ourselves of this.

Vic 22 Sep 06

Just to clarify, karma (kamma) means conditioned action. Things that you do by instinct either by forthinking about it or reacting to something in your environment.

Carolyn Manning 02 Oct 06

Wonderful post.

Yes, Karma is fluid, but sometimes we need the reminders to turn on the spigot.