Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest. But for many of us, it’s a day of dread. The to-do list feels like it’s growing, not shrinking. The Sunday Scaries show up. The day becomes a catch-all for everything we didn’t finish last week. What if, instead of defaulting...
Kendra Adachi was recently on an episode of The Next Big Idea Daily. She provided an overview of her book The Plan: Manage Your Time Like a Lazy Genius. The book is about leading what she calls and integrated life. She comes at planning through the lens of a life that...
The concept of work-life balance has been a conversation since I began my career. Doing a little searching, I found a research report that gave some history on the origins. Back in the late 1800s the work hours of women and children were limited and in 1938 the Fair...
We have heard about the benefits of networking. They say having a strong network can serve you well if you need support in your career. Prompting points of view like this one: “Networking is one letter away from not working” – Kerry Hannon When I first heard this...
There are many different approaches to planning our week. None of these are “right”. The key is to find the method that is “right” for you. I have an idea of using the questions – what, why, when, and how – to help prioritize. Start with What What is already on your...
Zen isn’t a one-size-fits-all routine. It’s an inner spaciousness. A quiet clarity that looks different for each of us. Some find it in silence. Others in deep focus. Still others in doing less and doing it with intention. In Zen at Work, Les Kaye offers a...
When working on a client project, the topic of scope creep comes up. This is when a discussion or sub-assignment emerges that wasn’t planned. The scope of the project has crept into something different. Often this creep takes up more time. Reducing the revenue from...
Yesterday, we explored how to use CliftonStrengths to shape the way you naturally approach tasks. What energizes you. What drains you. And what might keep you stuck. But awareness isn’t enough. You still have the list. The pressure. And the uncertainty of where to...
We’ve all been there. Staring at a massive to-do list, not knowing where to start. Everything feels urgent. Nothing feels doable. We close the folder. Or the notebook. Or just quietly panic. That’s to-do list paralysis. And it has less to do with laziness than we give...
Often when we set goals, the goal is not really the goal. Each goal is building to something larger. The ultimate goal. Sometimes we are aware of that goal. Sometimes we aren’t. Finding the Real Goal To understand the goal that our goals are laddering up to, we need...
My website has a program called WP-Optimize. Yesterday, I got an email that said, “updates have been made”. Specifically, “WP-Optimize – Clean, Compress, Cache”. As soon as a saw the message, I chuckled and thought about how this applies to life. I love finding...
Most of my life, I’ve used the term “forcing mechanism”. The situation might be when there was a presentation looming. The deadline forced me to figure out challenge that had been working in the background. I’ve been thinking about forcing mechanisms lately. There are...
I came across a post focused on planning for retirement. While the content related to focusing on your financial future was great, I also believe the concept can apply to all the areas of our wellbeing. The five areas of planning laid out in the article are strategic...
At the end of January, I had the opportunity to be a special awards judge for an Engineering Society of Detroit event where student teams of three designed sustainable cities. I was so impressed by the knowledge and ideas these young students presented. One thing all...
Several years ago, Gretchen Rubin selected the word infrastructure as her word of the year. Before that, the concept never really crossed my mind. Infrastructure is the basic physical and organizational systems needed to operate businesses, cities, nations, and even...
We have made it to our last dimension of wellbeing – environmental. This does mean nature and outdoors. However, it also means the spaces in which we spend our time. Our rooms, desk at work, or even that corner of a coffee shop we choose every time. Having spaces we...
Job descriptions, resumes, and conversations at work are full of words focused on change in a fast paced environment. We hear things like we need people with “agility and flexibility” who can “deal with ambiguity”. These words can mean different things to different...
When we talk about the relationship between employers and employees, there is a focus on policy. Retirement plans, benefits, salary, hours, location where work is done, etc. There is less conversation about people. People are the ones making the decisions and doing...
A new co-working space opened in Detroit called The Creators Nest. I love the name. And the concept of the creator space. The founders, Adam & Stephanie Vaught developed the co-working space for creatives. A place where they could come and be inspired to do their...
Sometimes we just need an organizing day. Something has become overwhelming, and we need to get things back in order. This could be a physical space that has become cluttered or needs maintenance. This could be digital files where we can’t seem to find what we need....
What if we shifted our thinking about our goals at work? Instead, we could think of them as projects. With a project, we assess the current situation. We identify gaps between where we are and where we want to be. Roadblocks are discussed. Deliverables are split into...