List for Cleaning Up Your DVR Recordings

For a person who works in television — I watch relatively little of it.  There are some shows that I won’t miss like “Modern Family” or “The Office” but for the most part — my DVR is filled with fluff that I may or may not ever actually watch.  Do you have the same problem?

I’ve decided it’s almost like junk mail.  I hang on to some shows that take up precious real estate in the DVR “just in case.”  So I just went through and deleted a bunch of shows I’ll never watch and cleaned up the scheduled recordings also.  Here’s a list so you can do the same:

1.  Go through your current saved recordings and one by one decide if you care if you didn’t watch that show.  Be honest.

2.  Delete the ones you won’t watch.

3.  Now go to your schedule series recordings and scroll through all the shows you’ve set to record whenever they are on.  (Mine include The Newsroom, Giada at Home and Oprah’s Next Chapter.)  Decide if these are worth keeping or if you constantly delete these recordings when they pop up.

4.  Repeat.  (You probably weren’t honest the first time.)

5.  Feel better about having less clutter in your DVR inbox!

What I Will Never Forget

I was a senior at Hofstra University and that morning — I was getting ready in my dorm room for my magazine-writing class.  It wasn’t my favorite class because I was a TV writer even back then…and I thought I could say more with fewer words. My professor didn’t agree.

Anyway — every morning I would eat breakfast while watching Regis and Kelly — their show was broken into by a news alert on this morning.  The anchor said a plane had gone into the World Trade Center.  I called my parents, who are also news junkies, because I knew they would be watching.

We thought it was an accident.  While finishing up college I was also working full-time as a news writer at WLNY-TV55 on Long Island for their 11pm newscast.  In the last few weeks I had done a few stories about “stunts gone wrong” — like this guy who parachuted and accidentally landed on the Statue of Liberty.  I thought this might be a similar antic…until the second plane hit. Read more

10 Lessons from Oprah & Deepak Chopra

“You become what you believe” has been my mantra for some time — thanks to Oprah Winfrey.  It’s one of her most famous sayings — she actually borrowed it from Maya Angelou.  It’s by far my favorite life lesson.  It’s true: if you believe it — you can become it!

I was fortunate enough to be in the audience for Oprah’s show “Lifeclass” at Radio City Music Hall in New York City to learn some more life lessons.  The show airs on April 23rd on OWN.  My best friend Danielle and I were there — tweeting and texting away! They actually encouraged and allowed the use of cell phones in the theater.  It was a very cool day for social media. Read more

Backtiming: Producer Tip for a More Productive Day

In television news – timing is everything. Producers, anchors, reporters, videographers and editors work on very strict deadlines. Sometimes stories have to come together quickly – this makes time management one of the keys to success in this business. Working in TV news for over a decade has conditioned me to use this skill to be more efficient in everyday life.

Time Management

One of those time management skills is called backtiming. It’s a technique used to make sure all the stories fit into the show and you can get off the air on time. A line producer assigns a time estimate to each story depending how important it is. All those time estimates add up to fill the newscast. You have to make all the news of the day, sports, weather and entertainment fit in that timespan. Read more

How Not To Be Bored

I’m almost never bored. I can always find something to do.  Not because I’m a super busy person (some days I am) but because I like doing a lot of things.  I have a lot of hobbies and I hardly ever tire of doing the laundry list of things that I enjoy doing:

  1. Drink Tea
  2. Watch the Golden Girls
  3. Eat Guacamole
  4. Write Blogs
  5. Connect with Friends
  6. Call My Mom
  7. Watch Oprah
  8. Paint My Nails
  9. Drink Pinot Grigio
  10. Read Magazines
  11. Read Anything on my Kindle
  12. Make Lists
  13. Watch Chick Flicks Read more