I can’t remember when I’ve looked forward to a vacation more. A whole week off with time in the big city and on the beach. Last week’s whirlwind visit with friends and family in New York and New England was a long overdue reunion with people and places we love. It was also a welcome break from the frenetic, day-to-day pace of operating a business, a chance to step off the merry-go-round for a bit, to recharge and re-connect.

It was only on the long drive home that I began to realize just how much I missed the routines I’d been so eager to escape. There’s a kind of comfort and security that comes with repetition, and as much as I like to think of myself as a free spirit, I’m more a creature of habit than I care to admit. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Charles Duhigg, author of “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business,” that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

As the author of “The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload,” writer/musician/neuroscientist Daniel Levitin knows a thing or to about getting organized and gaining clarity in your day-to-day life.

I tend to get so focused on my work that I forget about everything else. For the most part, that’s a good thing. I do my best work when I’m totally tuned in and the rest of the world is tuned out.

I drink a couple of big cups of tea every morning (I take mine with milk, like the Brits, thank you). It gives me a good jolt and helps keep me focused. But it also presents a problem. With the kitchen down the hall and around the corner, I had a tendency to forget about having put the kettle on to boil. It led directly to the death of a couple a nice tea kettles and the possibility of actually burning the place down!

The solution was clear. I needed to secure a tea kettle with a loud, built-in whistle ASAP. Initially, I picked up one of those cool kettles that Michael Graves designed in the ’80s. You know, the one with the cute little red bird that whistled. Eventually however, that little bird got lost (or flew away). Time to brew a new solution.

Any conversation about the current state of communication in sure to be peppered with references to mobile, email, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the zillion other ways we “speak” to each other every day. And justifiably so. Texting, video conferencing, and especially social networking have become integral to doing business. You don’t hear a whole lot of talk, however, about the most powerful communication scenario of them all – the one-on-one encounter.

Any business development veteran can relate stories of how this or that deal was closed only after that lunch, dinner, drink or cup of coffee brought them together face to face. But even when people can’t be in the same physical space, collaborating directly with the decision maker can be the difference between a fully realized vision and a built-by-committee mishmash.

We’ve always been inspired by the amazing work and the design-first philosophy of Paul Rand. From the 1930s until his death in 1996, he was a pioneer in demonstrating to the business community the considerable power of great design in their marketing efforts. As his associate Louis Danziger put it, “He almost single-handedly convinced business that design was an effective tool…We went from being commercial artists to being graphic designers largely on his merits.”

Some of Rand’s iconic corporate identities include IBM. ABC, Cummins Engines and UPS. He was an inspiration to Apple head Steve Jobs, who referred to Rand as “the greatest living graphic designer.” Jobs turned to Rand to create the corporate identity for his NeXT Computer.