HOWTO: Organize a birthday party

Here's a guide. Change things to suit yourself.

1. Map out a route for your day. You'll be celebrating the whole day, not just at one party. Figure out how you're going to get there, and make sure you have whatever transportation logistics worked out. Charge up your phone and computer ahead of time.

2. Every meal should be accounted for. I was fortunate to enjoy a birthday lunch at Eastern Accents with the Ann Arbor bi bim bop lunch crowd, which started out as lunch for four in August and now has about 30 people on the invite list.

3. Follow the four principles of Open Space: Whoever comes is the right people, whatever happens is the only thing that could have, when it starts is the right time, when it's over it's over. These aren't prescriptive, they are the results of thousands of little experiements.

4. Find a good venue to spend some time with friends. I was extremely happy this year to spend an afternoon at the Ann Arbor District Library with about ten people - we had wifi, plenty of books for inspiration when we needed it, and a meeting room that was quiet and out of the way.

5. Spend some time with your family. You love them more than you will ever know.

6. Spend some time by yourself and reflect on the nicest things that have happened to you this year.

7. Allow enough time at the end of all this to clean up and tidy up so that the next day can be another day. (This is a lesson learned the hard way - I was too wiped out at day's end, and next time I do this I need to leave some more buffer time at the end to clean up.)

Technorati Tags: ed41, birthday, annarbor, library, a2b3

Comments

[Denise]

Happy birthday!

[Alan Gutierrez]

Edward, I enjoyed your birthday party, and I've enjoyed participating in the A2B3 luncheons these past past weeks.

It's funny that David referred to your gatherings a salon. That's exactly what they are. A gathering of contemporaries. A place where insights and directions are discussed.