There is one friend who, every year, without fail, remembers to send you a thoughtful birthday card. Not an email or a voice mail but a bona fide handwritten note, stamped and sealed, that arrives on the very day you blow out the candles. Your gratitude is quickly eclipsed by your guilt: Did I send her a card on her birthday? Do I even know when her birthday is?

Instead of trekking to the card store every time a birthday rolls around, make one trip now and buy enough cards to last you for the year. Keep them all in one place, along with an address book, stamps, and a list of birthdays organized by month. You'll never feel guilty on your own birthday again.