What would it take to change your life for the better? It may be less than you think—we’ve got mini-makeovers to help you upgrade everything from your workout to your weekend. #15: An easy DIY to keep your jewelry knot-free.

Photo: Gregor Halenda

The best way to solve jewelry box woes? Ditch the box. Organizing whiz Peter Walsh offers this how-to: Start with a picture frame, fill the opening with cut-to-fit wire mesh (available at hardware stores) or a fabric-covered cork board, and staple or nail it in place. Earrings hang from the mesh; necklaces dangle from hooks. To keep rings and bracelets equally visible at a glance, Walsh recommends clear drawers or jewelry trays.
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It’s Friday again, and despite East Coast earthquakes and hurricanes, boy, are we grateful. These are just a few things that  cheered our week.

1. "Perfect isn't my type." The trailer for Patricia Marx's Starting from Happy gets us excited for the written word.
 


2. Meet the 98-year-old female Judo Master (Not only is she 98, she’s the only woman in the world to receive a 10th-degree black belt.)

3. As part of the Guggenheim Museum exhibition “Stillspotting NYC,” Improv Everywhere gave people a platform, and instructed them to "say something nice." See what happened.

4. IBM is still at it: Now they're one step closer to making a computer that thinks like a human.

5. If only summer could just keep going on like this forever...
 

Men! What are they thinking? We can't always answer that, but we'll be posting our favorite glimpses into their world in this space every Thursday.

Photo: New York Times Magazine

* Catching up with the Reader-in-Chief: Newsweek presents every book the president has read while in office in handy illustrated form. (The Daily Beast)

* Comedian Andy Samberg channels McEnroe, Borg, Agassi and other tennis greats for The New York Times Magazine this weekend, and this behind-the-scenes video shows how he got into character. (NYTimes.com)

* "So frustrating because, if [you were outed], there was no ability to assume that your record stood for itself. All of a sudden there was this mystical discovery that made your record go into the trash." As Don't Ask Don't Tell comes to an end, GQ's Chris Heath interviews gay service members, and the results are fascinating and heartbreaking. (GQ)

* Are you ready to meet the perfect groom? This guy surprised his girlfriend with a proposal and her dream wedding on the same day.  (Glamour.com)

* "My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world."—Jack Layton, a Canadian politician who died of cancer this week at the age of 61, in a letter to his country. (CBC)

Prepare to be surprised by the health benefits of pills that contain no medicine.

Photo: Thinkstock

1. In a Harvard Medical School study, researchers gave people with irritable bowel syndrome a bottle of pills labeled "PLACEBO" and explained that placebos have been shown to be effective in clinical studies. Even though the meds were obvious fakes, they still worked. Patients experienced significant improvement in their symptoms.

2. A March report from the German Medical Association found that placebos injected intravenously are more effective than those taken orally, and that the more expensive the placebo, the higher the success rate.

3. Among patients with osteoarthritis of the knee, sham acupuncture (in which needles are inserted at nontraditional locations) worked just as well for pain relief as the real thing, according to a study in Arthritis Care & Research. And patients reported better results when the practitioner said things like "I've had a lot of success with treating knee pain" than when she said, "It may or may not work for you."

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What would it take to change your life for the better? It may be less than you think—we’ve got mini-makeovers to help you upgrade everything from your workout to your weekend. #12: Ditch the Internet slang.

Photo: Thinkstock

Yes, we live in a 140-character world, thumbs furiously tapping out terse missives. But consider an e-mail received recently by O magazine's editor in chief: "susan: hows it goin?? Annny chance you might know some peeps that could get a screenplay 2 production?"

The chances of this e-mail being taken seriously, of course, are south of zero. Literacy speaks volumes; all these disposable little messages themselves send messages—about you. So we humbly suggest: When faced with the choice of writing "because" or "becuz," "for" or "4," opt for elegance. Spell out words, end sentences with periods, consider the comma. Oh, and one exclamation point will do.

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Every Monday, we're rounding up things—small and big—that made us stop and think. Today, we were inspired by a photographer who spoke out against teen bullying, a trio of actresses vowing not to "give in" to plastic surgery, and more...

"I will never give in. [Plastic surgery] goes against my morals, the way that my parents brought me up and what I consider to be natural beauty."
Kate Winslet, who with Emma Thompson and Rachel Weisz founded the British Anti-Cosmetic Surgery League, an informal alliance against the pressure to get plastic surgery (via Jezebel)

"50 percent of happiness comes from your genes. Only 10 percent comes from life conditions like income, race and physical attractiveness; and 40 percent from your activities and relationships."
Graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister, who is making a movie about what makes people happy

"If you are ugly on the inside, I’m sorry but I won’t take your photos to make you look pretty on the outside!"
Pennsylvania photographer Jennifer McKendrick, who refused to take photos of teen bullies (via Huffington Post)

"I never admitted that the country [my husband] loved existed only in his imagination, or that I could not find a moment of peace in Qaddafi's shadow, or that his family's desperate generosity filled me with sadness. I never told Ismail that under Qaddafi his homeland had become a prison, and that as long as he was in power, I never wanted to return."
Krista Bremer writing in the July issue of O about visiting her Libyan in-laws in pre-revolutionary Tripoli

"Seven races in 11 weeks.....I wasn’t running for medals or gift certificates or free shoes. I ran because the courses were there, friends were there, the finish line was there."
Jen A. Miller, on learning to appreciate the run as much as the race

Photo: Thinkstock

The FDA has finally given its sunscreen rules a major update. Until now, the term "broad spectrum" has been unregulated. Going forward, a sunscreen calling itself "broad spectrum" must undergo testing to ensure that it provides protection against skin-aging (and cancer-causing) UVA rays as well as skin-burning (and cancer-causing) UVB rays (those included in the SPF rating).

And soon, you won't find sunscreens labeled "sunblock," "waterproof," or "sweatproof"—terms the FDA says overstate effectiveness—and a "water-resistant" claim will have to specify how long the sunscreen can stand up to swimming or sweating (either 40 or 80 minutes, based on testing).

Until these rules take effect next summer, look for sunscreens that contain some combination of avobenzone, oxybenzone, and zinc oxide, wear at least an SPF 30, and reapply every two hours.
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What would it take to change your life for the better? It may be less than you think—we’ve got mini-makeovers to help you upgrade everything from your workout to your weekend. #10: Shake yourself awake tomorrow.

Photo: Courtesy of LARK

Billed as the "un-arm clock," LARK is a sleep system in which you program wake-up times into your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, slip on the wireless wrist band, and then hit the sack. When it's time to rise, the band wakes you with gentle vibrations. The best part? If you and your partner are on different schedules, it rouses only the person who needs to get up, as there's no audible alarm.

Available at lark.com
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