One of my rollator wheels broke this past week. After a few days of frantic searching, the vendor who sold me the rollator found replacement wheels. (I also have generic wheels coming, that might or might not fit.) I’m on another freaking change journey. While this change journey is relatively small, it’s significant. I have […]
How Can We Embrace the Change Journey Instead of Wanting the Direct Route? Read More »
In the agile community, we have the idea of “Yesterday’s Weather.” That means that what happened yesterday is roughly what will happen today and maybe tomorrow. (We expect small or no Foreign Elements. See Where Are You In Your Changes? for more details about the Satir Change Model.) As assumptions go, that’s reasonable for progress. However,
What Would It Take for Us to Embrace Continual Change? Read More »
We moved into this house ten years ago, so Things Are Breaking. Our garage door sounded sick a couple of months ago, but I’ve learned to wait until the spring breaks before fixing it. The Last Responsible Moment for fixing occurs after the spring breaks. (Very few garage door people will replace the spring before
When Do We Realize the Last Responsible Moment Whooshed By? Read More »
Johanna Rothman’s Create an Adaptable Life Newsletter for June 2024. We use boundaries to choose who’s in or out of our families, our work, and our lives. Those choices help us decide our responsibilities to the people inside and outside our boundaries. However, those boundaries are not particularly static. The boundaries evolve as we move
What Responsibilities Do We Owe People In or Out of Our Boundaries? Read More »
I practice my writing by writing a lot. (I also read a lot about writing, but no one becomes a better writer by reading. Writers become better by writing.) In addition, I take classes to stretch my skills. That means I’m not going to “succeed” or write something “perfect” all the time. But I do
When Do You Choose Between Getting Something “Perfect” vs. Finishing It? Read More »
Last week on Mastodon, my friend and colleague GeePaw Hill wrote: “Music — art — is not a promise of perfection. It is a promise of effort, of risk, of commitment, to an unreachable ideal. Pablo Casals, in his 80s, asked why he practices every day. “Because I think I’m getting better.” If you create
How Often Do You Embrace the Joy of Practice, Not the Outcome? Read More »
I could tell when my parents had overdosed on their favorite news channel. They said things like, “Kids these days…” Because I’m a bad, bad daughter, I used to ask, “Which kids? Can you name two or three? Do you mean our children?” (Their grandchildren.) “No, not our children,” they said. Their next favorite saying
How Can We Postpone Old (Age) Thinking and Create New Ideas? Read More »
In the past few weeks, I’ve read several nonfiction books that promote how women can improve their standing in the world, to create more parity. That’s great, but the writers surprised me. That content was not part of the title or the blurb—and that’s not why I chose to read the book. I’ve also listened
How Should We Confront a Lack of Fairness to Make the World a Better Place? Read More »
I was working on visualizations of cycle time for my other blog (how long each item of work takes over time). That’s when I realized I needed to create a conditional formula in my spreadsheet. Conditional formulas are if statements. With my software background, I think in if statements. (If then, else other.) So, I
What Makes You Feel Smart and What Makes You Feel Less Smart? Read More »
In general, I’m willing to extend a fair amount of trust to other people. For example, when driving, I trust other drivers to stay in their lane. However, when drivers swerve all over the road, I stop extending that trust in an instant—those drivers broke trust with me. That’s because they broke the social contract
How Can We Clarify the Social Contract, Trust, and Betrayal? Read More »