Friday round-up: Dragon Masters, etc.

Well, it has been a week…I am hoping everything goes well for Sarah today and that she’ll be home this weekend.

In the meantime, I wanted to thank people for their recommendation of The Dragon Masters series. The 5-year-old and I read the first book in the series this week, and so I ordered the next few. We have been reading that at the same time as the first few books in the Magic Treehouse series. In a fun overlap, his preschool class was learning about pyramids as we were reading through #3 (Mummies in the Morning). He informed me that his school pyramids didn’t feature a dead queen or a cat, which he made sure to tell people about. It’s a parenting milestone to have moved out of children’s picture books and into chapter books, but I am here for it.

I’ve been enjoying learning a little bit more about Beethoven and his marketing/personal branding as I’m listening through his works this year. There was obviously a time in his life when he was not yet one of the world’s most famous composers. Apparently there was a popular Vienna ball where the hot composers would be tapped to pull together works for an orchestra. In 1795, Beethoven, as an up and comer, was given the smaller ballroom. He created these 12 German dances for orchestra…then immediately turned around and sold piano sheet music, so people could learn the pieces and relive the night in their own homes.

This weekend will feature another jazz band competition, plus the state robotics tournament, and an assortment of other things (ninja class, voice lessons…). I’m hoping to make a bit more progress in the book I’m reading on early life on planet earth. It’s a little old  (like 1999), which since we’re talking about 4 billion years, seems like it wouldn’t matter, but a lot of genetic analysis has been done since then, so in fact the last 25 years of the past 4 billion years have been important for understanding the rest of them!

In the meantime…This week the Before Breakfast podcast featured an interview with Sabina Nawaz on how to manage your team and life better. Managing people is hard, and I feel like there aren’t enough resources out there on practical management tips (there’s a lot on leadership…but that’s a little different), so I was glad to get to know more about her work. I also did an episode on why and how to spring clean your calendar. I did an episode on how life administration is real work, so it’s best to build time to do it into your schedule.

Over at Vanderhacks, I talked about how to Mix and match your morning routine — every day doesn’t need to look the same to have an effective routine! I made the case that we should “Reconsider normal.” Sometimes we assume things that might not be true. Behind the paywall I talked about “Things you might not be outsourcing, but could” — there are all kinds of ways to lighten the load. Please consider a free or paid subscription!

Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon page we’ve had a fascinating discussion about what it’s reasonable to expect from an elementary school in terms of screen time and the healthfulness of snacks. If you didn’t get a chance to listen to this week’s episode on “Making a name for yourself,” please do. It had some useful ideas, if I say so myself!

Thanks for your support of me and my work. I really appreciate it.