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We Need Your Best Work
I’ve been working on a project (or three) for a loooong time, of which this page is only a part. I started off with the vague sense that it was about being “well-rounded” or “accomplished” (both of which are things that a lot of my peeps aspire to)… but it is increasingly obvious to me…
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The Ira Glass Problem
The problem with being a perpetual learner in a rapidly changing world is that you are always keenly aware of how much you don’t know. You don’t know exactly what you’re missing, but you know that there is a world of knowledge out there, and that you have only scratched its surface. Four years ago, on my…
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Everyday Chaos – A Book Review
Our existing processes and structures are not explicable, and… it is (perhaps?) unfair to demand that AI be more transparent than what we already have. But I still find myself wondering how complex we can allow systems to get and still expect people to be able to function in them.
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Going Nowhere, Slowly
Somebody asked me recently if I was a runner (because I was talking about running, or possibly shoes, or gaits) and I said, “Um. Not compared to actual runners.” I am slow, and my “runs” max out somewhere below 5K. Also, I take a lot of breaks to walk and catch my breath. Occasionally somebody…
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What I Learned from Singing A Cappella
I sing in a small a cappella group at our local university. And by “small” I mean, “If one of the other women doesn’t turn up for rehearsal, I probably have to change parts.” I’ve been singing with this group for nearly six years, and we’ve got a repertoire of about… oh… 30 songs or…
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Breadth or Depth-First?
In which I consider the problem of finding meaningful work, recognize its parallel in the startup world, and close some branches of exploration A couple of years ago I was looking for a central metaphor for a book I was working on about the problem of finding meaning in one’s life choices. My core question…
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Rhythms of the Day
Rather than considering the “Ideal Day,” we think about what a series of days might look like in a well-lived life. Playing with the idea of rhythms, we know that we want to do more of some things, and less of others. These will add up to make a life in which more of the…
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Motivation, Gold Stars, and Knowing Yourself
This week I’m talking about how to find the motivation to keep going with good habits… or maybe to get started in the first place. Confession Time I was surprised (and a bit embarrassed) to find that my meditation practice improved enormously after I started to use an app that gives me stars. There’s no…
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Habits that Support Your Growth
This week, I talked about habits in my FB Live video. In it, I suggested three ways to set up your habit trackers to improve the probability of success. These derive from my own experience of So Many Years of using other people’s planners with only middling success, but also from looking at how other people…
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There is No “They”
Let us leave aside, permanently, the possibility that you can do something that everybody will agree on. Who are you trying to impress? Who are you afraid of? When you say, “they” say, who is the formless, nameless “they” referring to? Doctors? Experts? Your parents or your teachers? The other parents at your kids’ school?…
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How to do More of What You Love
There is probably a gap between what you most love to do and how you spend your time. This post gives you baby steps to start closing it.
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What Do You Want?
How many of you have done visioning sessions? How many of you found yourself saying, “Well, I don’t really know what I want”? I’ve been writing about this a lot recently – in the book I’m working on, but also in today’s newsletter. Here, an introduction to the problem, a nod to the question of knowing…
