Cures to boredom, or its polar: too much distraction.

Brown paper packages : originally posted by Evie Marie

For as long as I could remember I have been fond of pretty packages, yes including brown paper ones tied up in string ;) Yes these are indeed among my favourite things! Working in the architectural and design industry for over six years has likely only fueled my love for design-y packaging.

Thus my excitement upon discovering the wonderful blog world of Francesco Mugnai last month, courtesy once again of my design expert friend of Sali Tabacci and art director extraordinaire of Azure Magazine, Melissa !

All she had to say was: "Mmmmm... beautiful chocolate: http://tinyurl.com/chocolate-packaging" and I was hooked!

So how pleased was I to stumble-upon "The Dieline (Packaging Design) Awards" and Best of Show Winner : Help Remedies by Chapps Malina?

Not only did I adore the simple, clean, colourful packaging of these handy little first aid companions (which also happens to be green (made from biodegradable paper pulp and corn resin by the way!) but I discovered I was fond of their entire branding scheme even more: Website address: www.helpineedhelp.com

Enter the Boredom Cure: Simply click on the bored? button and you will be transported to a magical cheeky online glossary of cures from "Help - I want to quit smoking" to "Help - I'm not sure which fork to use." A personal fave "Help -I'm curious."

Warning: This magical cheeky online glossary can suck up a couple minutes to a couple hours of your day, easily! The solution?

Enter the Distraction Cure: Restrict temporarily yourself access to it. Highly recommended by high school senior sweet pea sis who claims this is ideal for those in finals with no self-control, introducing SELFCONTROL by Steve Lambert.

Warning: This is not for the faint at heart. A Mac OS X application. SELFCONTROL blocks access to incoming and/or outgoing mail servers and websites for a predetermined period of time and can't, I repeat can't be undone.

As Steve explains, "For example, you could block access to your email, facebook, and twitter for 90 minutes, but still have access to the rest of the web. Once started, it can not be undone by the application, by deleting the application, or by restarting the computer – you must wait for the timer to run out."

I shall test it out tomorrow, when I should be finishing a project and not procrastinating on my favourite guilty pleasure sites: YouTube. Only google and my internet provider will ever know how many hours I've wasted, ummm, I mean have done research there ;)

Happy Helping Yourself !

xo,

tee.