I set ten New Year’s Resolutions for 2018. Now that we’re halfway through the year, it’s time to shave some of them off the list and refocus on what I still think would be valuable to accomplish this year. My friend Sarah calls the act of consciously giving up on goals that no longer make sense “strategic abandonment.”
First, here’s what’s staying: Continue reading “2018 Goals: Strategic abandonment”
A few weekends ago, I cleared my schedule and holed up in my apartment for a DIY creative retreat. The main goal for this weekend was to catch up on the writing schedule for my novel, which meant writing 21 pages over the duration of the weekend. There were other things I wanted to get done — two blog posts, a visual rebrand for my blog and social media accounts, and an editorial calendar for my blog through the end of April — but all were secondary (and tertiary, etc.) to the main goal.
During the weekend, I reached my desired page count, wrote two blog posts, and made incremental progress on my other goals. Want to do something similar? Here are some tips. Continue reading “Plan a DIY creative retreat for this weekend”
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to get more out of my days. My work involves a spectrum of projects, some of which are very task-oriented, check-the-box type things and others of which require deep concentration and focus. It’s difficult for me to switch back and forth between deep Continue reading “Be more productive: Try the ombré workday”
A few months ago, my friend Devin paid me the best compliment I’ve ever received: “You are a life artist. Everything you do is a work of art.”
I don’t know if this is true, but I do know that I want it to be true.
So much so, in fact, that I updated my social media profiles to include the above designation. Continue reading “Live more creatively: How to be a life artist”
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn*
I’ve been thinking about the above quote a lot lately, because I’ve been thinking about where my time is going, who it’s going to, and how that is enabling or limiting my ability to reach my goals and continue becoming the person I want to be. Continue reading “I don’t know the five people I want to be the average of”
The first week of 2018 has been, frankly, a bit draining. Here in New York, as in much of the U.S., we’re covered in snow. I managed to make it out the door for yoga this morning (for which I deserve a medal), but other than that I’ve been holed up in my draftier-than-preferred apartment, working from home on my chaise lounge under a pile of blankets. This is not hygge; hell, it’s not even hygge-adjacent. Continue reading “Too tired for focused work? Try planning instead”
I spent much of the past year reprogramming my brain, but until recently I didn’t have a term for the big change that has had a halo effect over all areas of my life. Recently, through the On Books podcast (also on iTunes), I discovered Carol Dweck’s excellent book Mindset, which gave me the phrase I was looking for: growth mindset. Continue reading “5 benefits of a growth mindset”
[Full disclosure: I started this post three years ago and recently found it in my Medium drafts. I thought there was a decent idea here so I decided to finish it. Some of the specifics are… from December 2014.]
In a former life, I was the board liaison for a major performing arts nonprofit. I realized recently that one of things I miss most about that job is the feeling of closing out a year. Each summer, as the fiscal year came to an end, I’d wrap up every task related to that year and start the new fiscal year with a clean slate. In my current career as a content marketer, I’m unlikely to experience such a clear break between one year and the next. Projects, plans, and deals often span years, without the possibility of being able to tie everything up neatly at one time. At times, this has left me feeling burnt out and like there’s no end in sight.
As such, I started thinking about ways I could recreate the clean-slate feeling despite murkier circumstances. Here’s what I came up with: Continue reading “Starting 2018 with a clean slate”
I’m a recovering control freak. I’ve long been prone to getting ideas in my head about what “should” happen, and then ignoring all evidence to the contrary. I habitually refuse to let go of my vision for the role a person or thing should play in my life, which makes it hard to get over situations where that vision is never realized. Continue reading “Finding a backup purpose for someone”
I’ve written before about how I basically used my own off-brand version of The Secret to manifest my last two serious, long-term relationships. This post went live four months before I started the nearly-three-year relationship that ended in April.
I’ve been trying to write the 2017 version of that post — what I’ve been calling “my most reliable form of sorcery” — since this summer, and I just can’t get there. Continue reading “On trying to manifest something you’re not ready for”
Spirit for Skeptics 