Diversions for You and Your Friends is a feature of the blog, which appears every Monday. To find out more about Diversions, read the Introduction and Number 1.

This week’s Diversions for You and Your Friends is “Five Things You Don’t Want to Think About.” You can use this Diversion several ways:

1. Online version. Read “Five Things You Don’t Want to Think About” or forward this PDF for a friend to read in his or her browser.

2. Print version. Print the PDF and send it to a friend. I print my cards on both sides of an 8.5” x 11” paper. Then I fold that in half and put it into a 6” x 9” envelope. (You could also just print it out and cut it into four pages, which are numbered, staple them together, and fit them into in a business-sized envelope.)

You will notice that in this print version (and print versions in the future) that there is a space at the top of the card where you can write your own greeting to your friend.

The idea for this comes from a woman to whom I send these cards periodically. She said that she appreciates it when I write a short note with each card. That way, she feels it is personalized. I don’t add much more than her name, and perhaps a short comment I make only to her, but that seems to made a significant difference to her.

So I am now leaving a space in the print version at the top of the first page. Then, when you print it out (on the front and back of a piece of paper), you may want to write something like this:

Sally,
I know that you spend a lot of time working and worrying about your situation, so I thought you would like something to take your mind off your troubles — at least for a little while. Enjoy.
Maria