Our days are full of schedules and to do lists. We have them in both our work and personal life. Days are spent transitioning between the schedules and lists. When we do have a minute to take a breath, we often fill the time with a screen of some type. This was...
The concept of thought leadership has been on my mind lately. The dictionary definition of a thought leader is “a person whose views are taken to be authoritative and influential. Some articles suggest that thought leaders have a following while “regular”...
When we look in the dictionary, the definition of a frame is to “provide structure”. This structure is then applied to many things including artwork, photographs, ideas, presentations, articles, events, and more. In any of these situations the “frame” provides...
Word pairs are such a great way to learn more about how we approach the world. They can also help us realize how others may approach the same thing differently. The segmenter vs. integrator pair considers both time and space. SEGMENTOR: A segmentor wants to...
Am I an introvert or an extrovert? Do I naturally approach the world by thinking first or acting? What motivates me to get things done? These are the kind of questions we seek to answer when taking a self-assessment or personality test. There are many assessments...
There was a meditation from Headspace that talked about the difference between personality and character. The premise was that personality can be shaped and changed while character is something that you are born with. This underlines the debate between nature and...
Stop what you are doing. How do you feel? Energized? Drained? Every job has things you love that energize you (cheers) and things you dread that drain you (chores). What fascinates me is that the same task may be a cheer for one person and a chore for...
There is a podcast I listen to called Optimal Living Daily that reads blog posts with permission from the authors each morning. Today’s reading was from a Cal Newport post titled “Do What Works, Not What’s Satisfying: Pseudo-Striving and our Fear of...
Today is National Simplicity Day. The day honors the life of Henry David Thoreau and advocates a life of simplicity. While Thoreau lived in a world without the distractions of today, this thought still rings true. “Our life is fritted away by detail…Simplify,...
Wabi-sabi is a term often associated with art and design. An aesthetic concept that values imperfection, impermanence, and simplicity. When we look at the words separately, the definitions of the parts make the whole clearer: Wabi – The celebration of simple,...
Today marks the first six months of writing this blog. The goal was to share content in the personal development space. Summarizing what I’ve heard, tried, and continued to learn in my own life. The content has covered many topics. This got me thinking. My Perspective...
Yes. There really is a day for everything. National Handshake Day got me thinking about the practice and how the pandemic changed everything. Ever since I can remember, handshakes have been a greeting – especially in the workplace. They are comfortable. A routine that...
Have you ever written a letter to your future self? There are many times we capture memories for our future self to come back to. We create time capsules to be opened in a prescribed year. We put photographs in albums to come back and remember moments in our...
Journaling is a great way to get your thoughts out of your head and onto paper. There are many ways to journal and many purposes. Below are the ones I’ve tried in the last 5 years. The GLAD Structure This form of journaling uses the acronym GLAD to remind you to...
Time Vampires are listed in the Urban Dictionary as “a person who finds creative ways to needlessly waste his/her friends time” and “someone who literally sucks your time like a vampire sucks blood”. In this definition, people are taking time from you. I came...
The title of this post may cause many to stop reading. We are in a period of overwhelm. The word productive automatically generates thoughts of “do more”. However, the definition of productivity is to maximize output. This could involve solutions that shift inputs to...
When we think about our days at work, most have at least a couple meetings on the schedule. When we expand this view to our personal lives, we have appointments, sports events, and dinners with family and friends. Most of these have at least a start time scheduled....
This week, I heard the phrase “doing vs. being” brought up a couple of times and the topic seemed a fitting way to end the week that started with a review of Gretchen Rubin’s new book Life in Five Senses. In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to get caught up in the...
Companies are looking for more creativity and innovation. This creativity often comes from looking at problems through different lenses. At the team level, this can be fostered by increasing the diversity of the team members ensuring there are varied...
The latest book by Gretchen Rubin, Life in Five Senses, was recently released and I highly recommend. I’ve been hearing about the development of the book on the Happier podcast that she hosts with her sister Elizabeth Craft. As you might imagine, I was excited to...
In an earlier post, we talked about a pairing tied to how you might approach an hour of free time. Today, we will look at another word pair as it relates to how we balance our professional work and the work we do to run our homes. This concept covers all home...