Welcome to the Saturday Summary.

What I’ve Posted – Blog Summary 

This week the bookends cover the importance of deadlines and not letting our ego lead decisions. The middle of the week uses insights from game design that could help us in our personal development journey.

Forcing Mechanisms. The first post of the week explores how having deadlines and constraints can help push us to move a project forward. Consider where you might need a forcing mechanism.

Life Quests: Exploring Game Design. This post uses game design concepts to consider how they might be used to consider adding quests to our lives.

The Sandbox: Applying Game Design to Life. Another aspect of game design is the sandbox. This post explores how this concept might be used in our personal development.

Game Cycles in Life. Continuing our game design analogy, this post considers how game cycles could be considered as we develop and refine our habits and routines.

Avoiding Ego Decisions. The final post of the week explores the idea of saying “yes” just because we have been chosen for something. How can we ensure we are making the right choice?

What I’ve Listened To – PodList  

This week, the curated episodes have us thinking about life changes, having financial runway, and prioritization. My favorite is the first one about our advice monster….so insightful!

How to Tame Your Advice Monster. 15 minutes. TED Talks Daily. We all have one! Michael Bungay Stanier shares how giving advice can easily go wrong. He offers a simple question to help you stay curious, strengthen your relationships, and tame our inner advice monster.

Techniques to Help You Figure Out How to Make a Big Life Change. 20 minutes. Life Kit. Are you considering big life changes, if so Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong shares exercises to help decide.

How to Prioritize. 14 minutes. Optimal Living Daily. In this episode, Steve Pavlina introduces the CARVER method, a military-inspired framework that evaluates tasks based on six key factors: Criticality, Accessibility, Return, Vulnerability, Effect, and Recognizability.

The More Runway You Have, the Safer You Are. 11 minutes. Optimal Finance Daily. This podcast explains how to calculate your runway, why an emergency fund is essential, and how financial independence shifts your options and decision-making.

Crafting a Compelling Offer. 7 minutes. Side Hustle School. We all have to craft offers at some point. This episode provides a framework to consider.

What I’ve Been Up To

This week, on the work front, I started playing with the idea of a new planning framework. The process would leverage a 9-box design which is one of my favorite strategic tools. Projects (or elements of one project) go in the rows and time increments (ie. 30 days, 30 hours, 30 minutes) go on the columns. The grid helps plan priorities and break down larger goals. I’m looking forward to continuing to refine the idea.

Outside of work, I created a cute little nook for all my personal product making supplies – I’ve been experimenting with making my own face wash, soaps, window cleaners and more. I also finished the fiction book Next Year in Havana. I really enjoyed it and would recommend it. The book is historical fiction and got me interested in learning more about Cuba and the history there.

What Do You Think?

Which podcasts and blog posts resonate with you this week?

What one idea do you take away for the week ahead?

Are there any projects you are looking to take on during the month of March?