At the risk of being branded hopelessly New Age, I’ll confess to listening to nature sounds while working. If you want to work smarter, you should try it too.

It all started in early January, with “the winter that wouldn’t end.” Logically, I know that January is the middle of winter in Wisconsin, but the weather conditions for much of the month made it seem much more like late February. Teasing tastes of spring followed by hard polar blasts are hard to endure.