The alternative paths that I’ve been writing about resonate with me, and they help me to feel more myself when I follow them. But if your path takes you in different directions, then your preferences are valid. We are all unique. So the most important permission you should be granted is to be unapologetically you.
Read MoreIn last week’s blog post, I referenced a recent Marie Forleo podcast in which she shared some of her top time management tips. Another one of her tips is to create before you consume.
Read MoreIn a recent podcast, Marie Forleo shared some of her tips for how she manages her time. One of her tips is to schedule your priorities, including your personal priorities. Marie says, “If it’s not scheduled, it’s not real.”
Read MoreOur culture inundates us with messages of more. We’re told we should always be striving for more money, better homes, more expensive cars, more luxurious clothing, more opinions, more networking acquaintances, more power, more rewards, more acknowledgement, more, more, MORE! But Ed Mylett and Harvard Professor, Arthur Brooks, had a different point of view during a recent interview.
Read MoreMany of us live in a world littered with broken promises. We vow to get our kids their favorite fast food in order to make them behave one moment and then hope they are distracted and don’t remember the pledge in the future. Buddy the Elf would probably yell at us, “You sit on a throne of lies!”
Read MoreOne of Greg McKeown’s most notable quotes is, “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.” He learned this lesson the hard way. Greg often tells the story of the day when one of his children was born. He had a professional meeting set up for that day, and after much tortured consideration, he ended up attending the meeting. It was there at that meeting on the day his child was coming into the world that he realized he had made the wrong choice.
Read MoreThe oracle, Greg McKeown, wants us to stop equating EASY and LAZY.
Easy ≠ Lazy
Greg says, “Ask yourself, ‘What’s the simplest way to achieve this result?’ When we remove the complexity, even the slightest effort can move what matters forward.”
Read MoreWe human beings have a really hard time saying no to anything. We fear missing out on opportunities and hurting people’s feelings. But inevitably, we end up saying yes to so many things that we become overburdened and burned out. But saying yes to everything is not the only way we can proceed.
Read MoreIn last week’s blog post, I introduced my counterculture oracle, Greg McKeown. In a recent Instagram post, Greg asserted, “The key to networking is to stop networking. 99 percent of networking is a waste of time. It’s fake. It’s self-interested. People are always looking over your shoulder to see who else is there. People put on a show. Nobody likes it.”
Read MoreOver the past few months, I’ve been writing a “permission granted” blog series. In the series, I’ve been pointing out countercultural mentalities and habits that successful people swear are part of their path to excellence. I’ve had a lot of influences who have taught me to be brave in living a life that feels authentic to me. One of my favorite mentors is Greg McKeown.
Read MoreThrough the years, I have heard countless colleagues and clients complain about the amount of time they spend on administrative work. They have jobs to do that often require strategic, specialized thinking and work, but they feel held back from actually tackling that work due to their email inboxes and other busy bureaucratic tasks. Unless you purposely restrain administrative work, it will often expand to highjack every minute of every day. So introducing constraints into your work day is a way to wrestle back your time.
Read MoreWhen I was in school, aiming for 100% (or more) on every assignment and test was the standard. Absolute perfection was what we were encouraged to strive for, and I was pretty good at being that kind of student. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve encountered and seen the beauty in different mindsets as well.
Read MoreMost of us have a few hours a day when we are at our peak energy. I’m a person who is most on my game in the morning between about 6-10am. Some people come alive in the afternoon. Others thrive at night. Once you know when those hours are, protect them!
Read MoreOne of the most powerful time management tricks I teach is scheduling time with yourself to complete your tasks.
Read MoreAs useful as email can be, at times it can be really frustrating. One irritating aspect of email is when someone sends a quick one-line question that will require many minutes and paragraphs to respond to. Did you know, some people have ways to sidestep this annoyance entirely?
Read MoreIf the technology at your disposal is hindering instead of helping you do your job, then experimenting with ways to limit their distractions is a powerful way to be a more effective employee.
Read MoreMost people, colleagues and clients, are sending emails and contacting us to simply get tasks off their plates and out of their heads. They rarely care how quickly someone responds as long as someone does respond, and the issue is resolved. If you feel like you need to be perpetually available, consider trying to experiment with less accessibility for a couple of weeks.
Read MoreCal Newport has a podcast called Deep Questions. In one of his episodes, he interviewed another favorite counter-cultural crusader of mine named Laura Vanderkam. Laura Vanderkam is an author and podcaster who loves to study and write about how to make the most of your time. In Cal and Laura’s episode, they talk about the importance of designing your ideal week - like really sitting down and thinking about and refining what the building blocks of an ideal week are.
Read MoreCal Newport is one of my favorite counter-cultural authors. He has done so much to help me retrain my brain to reject the trance of busyness. In his books Deep Work, Digital Minimalism, and Slow Productivity (his newest tome), he makes persuasive arguments to discard pseudo productivity busyness mindsets and embrace languid intentionality instead.
Read MoreLazy is a four-letter word in our culture. It’s one of those adjectives we never want affixed to our names. However, a recent podcast helped me to reframe my ideas on laziness.
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