Parker - Rules of Thumb

Rules of
Thumb A Life Manual by Tom Parker WORKMAN PUBLISHING NEW YORK For Joy Contents Introduction Imagine this: You are driving on a busy freeway. A Lamborghini flies past you and then suddenly spins out of control. As your life flashes before your eyes, you remember: Aim your vehicle for the spot where the car first spun out. At high speed, nothing stays in the same place for long. The car will have moved by the time you get there. It works. You miss the Lamborghini by aiming for the spot where it lost control.

A simple rule of thumb just saved your life and you look like an IndyCar all-star. A rule of thumb is a homespun recipe for making a guess. Its an easy-to-remember guide that falls somewhere between a mathematical formula and a shot in the dark. A college student knows that, as a rule of thumb, 54 M&Ms will give him the same jolt as two cups of coffee. A green-minded person knows that keeping a washable mug on her desk will save as many as 500 disposable/nondegradable cups a year. And an editor knows that if she really wants to get something done, she asks a busy person to do it.

These rules of thumb are mental tools to help you quickly appraise a situation or solve a problem. And sometimes they just make you look smart: Suppose you need to know the temperature outdoors but you dont have a thermometer. All you have to do is count the number of times a cricket chirps in 15 seconds and add 37. Bingo! You get a rough estimate of the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. Ive been collecting rules of thumb for years, at first jotting them down in a notebook. After I published my initial collection, readers from all over the world sent me new rules.

Some were written on fancy letterhead. Others arrived on napkins or stolen office stationery. One came scribbled on an airline barf bag! The writer Tom Wolfe sent a beautifully penned card with a rule of thumb about rental properties. The artist Robert Crumb sent his favorite rule in cartoon form. David Letterman had me on his show to read a selection of rules, and NPR shared many of their favorites on the air. Things sort of snowballed from there.

Eventually I needed a database to keep track of the rules, so I launched Rulesofthumb.org . The goal of the site is to gather every rule of thumb, submitted by thousands of clever users, into one easily searchable online reference database that will grow forever. All new rules must pass through a kind of Darwinian survival contest in which members vote them in or out and rate them on a scale of one to ten, based on how well they work. As the site has grown, weve added new, topical categories on subjects such as technology and green living. We even have a Rulesofthumb.org Review Board, which continually seeks out and evaluates rules of thumb from around the globe. In Rules of Thumb, weve compiled the best tried-and-true rules, as well as the newest and most highly rated ones.

This is not so much a book of facts as it is a book of experience. Its a collection of observations by people who bother to look at how things work and at how they get things done. Each rule is credited to the person who submitted it, although its not necessarily that persons own inventionhe or she simply liked it and wanted to pass it on. This generous offering of rules covers just about every subject imaginablemoney, relationships, cooking, health, weather, cars, children, exercise, gardening, travel, restaurants, homeand is presented in random order for your reading pleasure. But if you want to look up a particular subject, weve included a handy index where everything is cross-referenced. A hundred years ago, people used rules of thumb to make up for a lack of information.

Today the problem is too much information (think having to wade through a gazillion hits on a Google search). Information overload makes the simple, memorable advice in Rules of Thumb more valuable than ever. The collected wisdom of the ages for those who like to guess with precision, this book is a shortcut to the fast lane for busy people like you. With it you can take the information you have and turn it into the information you need. Acknowledgments Thanks to all those who have helped me with the Rules of Thumb project over the years and, more recently, on this new book. In particular I would like to thank Stewart Brand, who got me started; Kevin Kelly, Senior Maverick for Wired and the mind behind kk.org; Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing.com and MAKE magazine; my old pal Gerard Van der Leun of AmericanDigest.org; as well as Michael Rider, Kat Dalton, Cheryl Russell, Rick Eckstrom, Franklin Crawford, and the best day-to-day support team ever: Jamie, Dick, Kagan, and Connor Gehring.

Rulesofthumb.org is the centerpiece of this project. For that I would like to thank my wife and technical adviser, Joy Veronneau; Steve Carver of stevecarverdesign.com; and Zeeshan Arshad, who did prodigious amounts of software design and coding for the site. I would also like to thank the many Rules of Thumb contributors and the members of the Rulesofthumb.org Review Board. We are building a master list of Rules of Thumb contributors at rulesofthumb.org, so please join us. A special thanks goes to Randall Lotowycz, Ruth Sullivan, Janet Parker, Kate Lin, Anne Kerman, and the other folks at Workman Publishing. Their vision for this book extended far beyond mine, and working with them has been a delight.

The Rules weather and temperature The Famous Red Sun Rule Red sun at night, sailors delight; red sun in the morning, sailor take warning. Isabel T. Coburn style and appearance Sporting a Hat Never wear a hat that has more character than you do. Michael Harris, hatmaker cooking and entertaining Hymn and Eggs The song Onward, Christian Soldiers sung in a not-too-brisk tempo makes a good egg timer. If you put the egg into boiling water and sing all five verses, with the chorus, the egg will be just right when you come to Amen. G. H. H.

Moore, quoted in The New Yorker green living Treading Lightly When trying to cut back on your carbon footprint, figure that 40 percent is caused by the energy you use directlydriving, heating water, etc.and the remaining 60 percent comes from the goods and services you buy. Lory Peck the arts Odds at the Oscars Never bet on a movie that didnt earn a Best Director nomination. And if a movie wins for Best Director, itll almost definitely win for Best Picture. Pam Rahn, office Oscar pool winner automobiles The Tao Of Being Stuck You cant always back out of what you drive forward into, but you can always drive forward out of what you backed into. W. P. P.

Douglas Combs safety and survival Four-Legged Search Parties One trained dog equals 60 search-and-rescue workers. Charles Stoehr children and child care Reading Rights Give your child a library card when he or she is able to write his or her full name. Norman Brenner health and body caught napping An hours nap in the middle of the day equals three hours of sleep at night. Rulesofthumb.org Review Board sports and recreation Sizing A Baseball Bat The length of a bat in inches shouldnt exceed its weight in ounces by more than two. Bill Carrier, coach writing and presentation Poetry Rhymes with Austerity When writing a poem, eliminate nine out of ten adjectives and adverbs in the first draft, and cut everything youve heard before. Jennifer Welch, poet and editor career and work life Branding Yourself Every time you do something wrong, your boss will remember it as three times that number.