A close friend, Sue, is trying to hire a mid-career engineer. She had a lead on a great guy, who then dithered. He could not decide to leave. (I wrote a little thread on Twitter.) What kept him there? He felt as if he owed his team more work. (How to learn what he knew,
What Would It Take For You To Leave Work Every Day as If It’s Your Last Day? Read More »
I stopped with resolutions years and years ago. Instead, up until now, I examined my systems and see where I might want to practice one small change. (See What’s the Smallest Change You Can Make? for one example.) That has worked well for me. This year, I’m experimenting with a suggestion via Daniel Steinberg’s Driving
Stop Resolving: How Can You Challenge Yourself to Seize Each Day Next Year? Read More »
When my older daughter was in high school, we battled often about her clothing. Her school had a dress code that said girls couldn’t wear spaghetti strap tops and their shirts had to cover their backs and bellies. I thought it was my role as her mother to fight that battle on behalf of the
Which Battles Do You Choose to Fight and When? Read More »
When did you last exchange a business card with someone? I’m sure it was either in March 2020 or earlier. Over the past (almost) two years, we’ve proven we don’t need paper business cards. Yet, some people still print them. I wonder how many of these pre-pandemic rituals we will retain and how many we
How Can We Rethink Business Card Rituals and Still Connect with Each Other? Read More »
Mark and I got married 37 years ago today. I took a picture of the picture in our printed photo album. (That’s what we did then. People took pictures, printed them, and put them into photo albums. Also, my dress is totally 1984.) I was thinking of our expectations of ourselves back then. We had
How Can We Fulfill Reasonable Expectations of Ourselves and Each Other? Read More »
I love to make it easy for me to do my best work. To do so, I need to think about what I want to reinforce and what I want to dampen. When I create reinforcing—or virtuous—feedback loops, I use my data to do more of what I want. However, that’s not always easy to
Where Can You Create Reinforcing (Virtuous) Feedback Loops? Read More »
When do you choose to fill your gas tank? Do you wait until the tank is almost empty? How about at the quarter-full mark? Somewhere in between? We each make decisions about the gas we have in our cars—or our lives. When we don’t have enough of something, we need to refill the tank. We
When Do You Know It’s Time to Refill Your Tank? Read More »
Do you ever feel pulled in a gazillion directions? I’m having one of those months. All kinds of problems and events are pulling me away from my regular work. As a result, I don’t feel as if I’m creative or productive—or effective. At all. I looked at where I’m spending my time: With family members
Can You Use the Principle of Least Regret to Choose Where to Spend Your Time? Read More »
I love to get stuff done. I count various measures on my way to my productivity, but when I cross things off my lists? Yeah, I love that. I know what being productive feels like and looks like for me. It often feels like some amount of “stuff” per unit time. But creativity? I used
How Do You Know When You’re Being Creative vs. Productive? Read More »
Do you keep lists of work to do? If you’re like me, you have the work-list, the home/personal list, and the honey-do list. (The honey-do list is for my honey (husband) to please do.) I also have a potential list, which I don’t pay much attention to. I purposely do not call this a backlog.
What’s on Your “Done” List or How Do You Recognize Your Accomplishments? Read More »