I do, however, quickly forget from where I know that face. Which makes me, among other things, terrible at recognizing celebrities. Is that guy a minor star, or my old dry cleaner?

Jess, conversely, is nearly savant-like in her celeb-spotting. (And here, by 'celeb', I mean any actor, socialite, author, filmmaker, designer, journalist, editor, or musician, doing pretty much anything of note.) She's not much impressed by her own ability, claiming she's simply built up her encyclopedic knowledge by necessity - to excel at her job (consulting on the marketing and strategy side of fashion), she needs to recognize and know about all these people.

But, frankly, to excel at my job, I should really recognize and know about them, too. I just don't.

I'd try to study up, but I'm pretty sure repeated exposure wouldn't help. Last week, at a Vanity Fair / USA Network party, I even walked straight past my celebrity crush, Gabrielle Anwar, at least five times without realizing it. Admittedly, I'm really only smitten by the early 90's, For Love or Money Gabrielle Anwar, rather than her current Burn Notice self. But, still.

The upside of my cluelessness, though, is that I'm wiling to talk with anyone. Even, unwittingly, celebs. Each time she takes me to a fashion party, Jess worries I'll return from a loop of schmoozing saying, "I just met the nicest woman - I think her name was something like Ann Winters. Funny haircut." At the Vanity Fair event, much to Jess' amusement, I struck up a conversation with a lady I helped to flag down the bartender. Apparently, she's a supermodel. I mainly noticed that she was about twice my height.

Still, even I can occasionally spot someone. Though usually only when I'm, literally, right next to them. That's what happened at the same party, when I found myself standing next to actor Dule Hill. After seven seasons of West Wing obsession, even I could put the name to the face. And, it turns out, he's a super nice guy - we've traded emails since, and he's invited Jess and me to the well-reviewed off-Broadway play he's producing, Extinction.

So, in short, I'm pretty sure I'm missing out on all kinds of other fun upsides the rest of the time by not having a clue who anyone is. Stupidity, it seems, has its price.

In particular, though, I've been thinking a lot about his Law of Action Planning: that no rigid rules or systems for figuring out "what to do when" can work effectively for more than a few weeks before becoming obsolete.

As Cal observes, (and as I have in the past) productivity largely boils down to two problems: capturing and organizing the stuff you have to do, than actually doing that stuff.

But, Cal goes on, while a simple system can solve that first 'capture/organize' problem for years and years with little change, it's the second 'do' problem that constantly needs new solutions to keep up with the realities and demands of our lives.

Previously, I'd taken that as either a flaw inherent in a given system (like, say, David Allen's Getting Things Done), or in myself. Now, I'm starting to see it's perhaps just the way human brains are wired to work.

Admittedly, that doesn't really change anything in terms of my actual productivity output. But it does, at very least, allow me to skip from one form of time management to another without all the mental angst. Don't worry, I can tell myself; it's a feature, not a bug.

By my estimation, though, that isn't quite true. Instead, I'd say there seems to have been a shortage of great indie films in general.

The difference is, if you make a dramatic film, and it doesn't quite work, the audience leaves thinking, "maybe I didn't get that."

And if you make a comedy, and it doesn't quite work, the audience leaves thinking, "I got that, and it sucked."

According to Men's Health, being the head trainer at CrossFit NYC's Brooklyn location is one of "The Coolest Jobs in America".

Of course, they're leaving out the part where you have to work for me.

One step forward, two steps back.

And my first reaction was, these guys look like assholes.

But, over time, more and more members showed up wearing them.

At the same time, I kept coming across articles on the advantages of barefoot running technique. I bought and wore my way through a pair of Nike Frees. I started reading journal articles on the underlying science of shoe-less life. I even perused the website for those crazy shoes I kept seeing, the Vibram Five Fingers.

So, this past week, when City Sports put Vibrams on sale, I swooped in and picked up a pair. Or, rather, two pairs - the KSO I'd intended to buy, and a lighter weight, indoor-only pair of Mocs, because I knew I loved these crazy Five Finger things the moment I put them on.

So, yes, now I look like an asshole. But I promise you, if they ever come out with a line of pants, I'll at least pass on those.

"You've tried everything?" asks Robbins.

"Everything," the guy replies.

"What were the last hundred things you tried?" asks Robbins.

"Well," the guy admits, "I haven't actually tried a hundred things."

"Then what were the last twenty-five things you did?" asks Robbins.

"I haven't tried twenty-five things, really, either," the guy responds.

"So how many things have you actually tried?" asks Robbins.

"Well," says the guy, sheepishly, "maybe five or six."

Perhaps it's an artifact of America's Protestant work-ethic roots: when we fail, our first response is to try the same thing again, just harder, and with more resolve.

Problem is, that rarely works. If the strategy didn't work the past five times, the sixth isn't likely to work either, no matter how much energy, commitment, and enthusiasm you throw behind it.

Just observe the number of people making the same New Year's resolutions year after year. If you've been vowing to lose weight each of the past five January's, odds are good, by the next one you'll still be a fat fuck.

As the old saying goes, if you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got. Or, in Einstein's more eloquent words, "the thinking which created today's problems is insufficient to solve them."

So as you embark on this new year's old resolutions, do some new thinking. Brainstorm about what you're going to do differently, smarter. How you're going to change your strategy. Because trying the same thing again - this time, with feeling! - just isn't going to work at all.

I am terrified.

And for those readers who, like me, will be spending tomorrow watching movies and eating Chinese food, a timeless classic:

Twas the night before Chanukah,
boychicks and maidels
Not a sound could be heard,
not even the draidels.

The Menorah was set on the chimney, alight
In the kitchen the Bubba hut gechapt a bite.
Salami, pastrami, a glessala tay
And zayerah pickles with bagels, oy vay!

Gezunt and geschmack, the kinderlech felt
While dreaming of tagelach and Chanukah gelt.
The clock on the mantlepiece away was tickin'
And Bubba was serving a schtickala chicken.

A tumult arose like a thousand brauches,
Santa had fallen and broken his tuches.
I put on my slippers, eins, tsvay, drei,
While Bubba was now on the herring and rye.

I grabbed for my bathrobe and buttoned my gotkes
While Bubba was busy devouring the latkes.
To the window I ran and to my surprise
A little red yarmulka greeted my eyes.

Then he got to the door and saw the Menorah,
"Yiddishe kinder," he said, "Kenehora.
I thought I was in a goyisha hoise,
But as long as I'm here, I'll leave a few toys."

With much gesshray, I asked, "Du bist a Yid?"
"Avada, mein numen is Schloimey Claus, kid."
"Come into the kitchen, I'll get you a dish,
A guppell, a schtickala fish."

With smacks of delight, he started his fressen,
Chopped liver, knaidlach and kreplah gegessen.
Along with his meal, he had a few schnapps,
When it came to eating, this boy was the tops.

He asked for some knishes with pepper and salt,
But they were so hot, he yelled "Oy Gevalt."
Unbuttoning his haizen, he rose from the tisch,
And said, "Your Kosher essen is simply delish."

As he went to the door, he said "I'll see you later,
I'll be back next Pesach, in time for the Seder."
More rapid than eagles his prancers they came,
As he whistled and shourted and called them by name:

"Now Izzy, now Morris, now Yitzak, now Sammy,
Now Irving and Maxie, and Moishe and Mannie."
He gave a gesshray as he drove out of sight:
"Gooten Yontiv to all, and to all a good night."

As usual, the cause of the injury is a bit short of spectacular: near as I can tell, I did it by planting my foot weirdly while carrying a box of bottled water. Though, this time, I was at least carrying that water to refill the refrigerator at CrossFit NYC, so I can say I injured myself in the gym. [That's a fair step up from my prior left-ankle disaster, which owed simply to stepping off the curb. While sober.]

At this point, there's a reasonable chance that I can resolve the tear by rehab rather than surgery. And, if nothing else, it's a relief to know that - unlike, say, with a partially torn LCL - any pain simply means that my knee hurts, rather than that I'm further damaging it, en route to total immobility.

It also reinforces something I've long considered: that a bunch of movement dysfunctions - like, in my case, walking duck-footed - aren't simple human variations, but symptoms of muscular imbalances that predispose people to experiencing a predictable group of related injuries, again and again and again.

I'm still trying to figure this last point out, reading dorky kinesiology texts and articles on muscle fascia. But I'm convinced it's time well spent. Otherwise, by the the upward progression, I think the next joint to go would be my hip, and from the eighty year-olds I've spoken with, I hear that one's a bitch.

Some devices - iPhones or tablets - try and work their way around the problem by faking one element for another: the screen doubles as the keyboard and the mouse. Others - like the new Droid, with its slide-out keyboard - approach the problem like origami, looking to tuck elements behind each other when not in use.

And, invariably, those approaches suck. Another approach - voice recognition - sucks, too. But it sucks in different and complementary enough ways that, when paired with the indigenous suckiness of a device's design, it often hugely improves the overall experience.

That's certainly the case with Dragon Dictation, a new app for the iPhone. The idea is simple: you speak into the iPhone, and, within a second or two, the phone uploads the data, transcribes it to text, then displays it on your phone. You can use the iPhone's software keyboard to tweak any mistakes, though, to my surprise, the accuracy of the translation, even in noisy settings, is surprisingly good. Then, with the touch of a button, you can transfer the transcribed text to an email, text message, or to the clipboard for pasting somewhere else.

For the first time, I can now enter an entire email's worth of content in less than ten minutes of laborious thumbing.

Which isn't to say that voice transcription will be replacing my laptop keyboard any time soon. While the human ear scrubs out the 'ers', 'uhms', and non-grammatical structures that populate at least my own speech, Dragon isn't nearly so kind. And, similarly, while conversational speech tends to move only forward, typing is usually full of long pauses, and even regressions, moving backwards to edit prior fragments.

The writing I can do with text-to-speech, then, is well less than perfect. But, as compared to what I can accomplish with the iPhone's keyboard, it's an improvement nearly impossible to overstate. And, at the moment at least, the price is right: download it for the introductory $0 price, and give it a whirl yourself.

[Nota bene: You may see a lot of negative reviews on the iTunes site, mainly from people unhappy that the app uploads the names of your contacts to the Dragon servers. I suspect this is a tempest in a teapot, as Dragon uploads only the names, not any further info like emails or telephone numbers. If you have a Facebook account, you've already given up way more information to a company that's repeatedly proved itself to be way less competent in respecting privacy concerns. In the end, it turns out most people are willing to give up a little privacy for a lot of functionality - Dragon can spell the names of your friends and colleagues right if it has a list to help educate guesses - and for most people that's a reasonable trade.]

Unfounded as that fear might be, it was only magnified today when I headed in to the Three Aces Barber Shop, an old-school place with giant jars of Barbisol and framed pictures of boxing matches. And, more importantly, a place where they trim neck hair not with electric trimmers, but with hot shaving cream and straight-razor.

Turns out, there's really nothing to exacerbate that sort of phobia like an eighty-year-old with failing eyesight, essential tremor, apparent balance issues, and a freshly honed open blade.

But, at least, it appears I'm not alone. In one of his earlier books, productivity guru Mark Forster relates this exercise:

All you have to do is pick one task which you are going to do the next day without fail, and then do it. If you succeed at that task, then you pick another different task for the following day and make it just a little bit more difficult.

And so you continue one day at a time, picking one task which you will do each day - each day a little bit more difficult. Once you are confident that you can carry out any task no matter how difficult without fail, you then repeat the process with two tasks.

It doesn't matter whether the tasks are meaningful or completely nonsensical. The idea is to do them for no other reason than because you have decided to do them."

As easy as it gets. Yet, as Forster points out in his later Do It Tomorrow, that simple game "has in fact proved too difficult for just about everyone who has tried it."

Clearly, I wouldn't fare particularly well on Forster's exercise either. But I do increasingly believe that mastering it, achieving that sort of conscious self-control, is at the heart of productivity, and most other life successes.

So, perhaps, that simple exercise is worth working on. Perhaps it's less about will, and more about skill. Perhaps practice makes perfect, and self-control can actually be learned.

Or maybe not. Either way, I think it might be worth the effort to find out.

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."
- Marcel Proust

"I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose."
- Woody Allen

Perhaps, and perhaps. But, more importantly, this site keeps me atop the Google results for 'joshua newman', 'josh newman', and a slew of other similar searches. Yes, in point of fact, this entire site is an elaborate form of SEO.

So, to that end (and, possibly, some others), back to it. In the words of the inimitable Will Rogers, even if you're on the right track, you get run over if you just sit there.

This past Friday, however, I took the morning off to drive my sister-in-law Nina to a med school interview just outside of New York City. By way of thanks, she crafted this paper cutout portrait of me and Jess:

I'm impressed.