This is what my sister has been saying about the new year, and although I have high hopes for 2009 (in my own pessimistic way; mainly I'm hoping it's no worse than 2008), I figure she's probably right.
Evidence for that can be found in my long list of overdue books from the library. It's time to own up and admit I'm never going to get everything that's currently overdue read and just take them back. The most ironic title on the stack? The Experts' Guide to Doing Things Faster: 100 Ways to Make Life More Efficient, by Samantha Ettus.
On the bright side, I don't think I'll be missing much. I did page through this one, and although parts of it look intriguing ("Clean Your Home," "Cook a Meal," "Make Your Computer Run Faster,") most of it looks like things I don't want to be doing at all, much less faster: "Tackle Your To-Do List," "Choose a Healthy Snack," "Style Your Hair." It's a very odd little book, each short chapter being written by a different expert, and even the chapters that seemed like they might be helpful weren't all that fresh ("Recover from Surgery: Push yourself through the mental pain that accompanies every part of rehabilitation." Not all that clever, although the fact that this chapter was written by an NFL player who's been through 29 surgeries was mildly interesting. Here's what I actually learned from that chapter: Encourage nephews to never, ever take up football.).
What I'm really looking for, I guess, is the Guide to Getting Out of Things I Don't Want to Do (Chapter 1: Cleaning, Chapter 2: Working, Chapter 3: Anything that isn't reading, really), not a guide for simply doing things faster.