Happy Friday! It has been another week of the snow not going anywhere. Since historically we don’t get snow so often in the Philly area, and when we do it tends to melt in a few days, I have mostly had the mindset that snow is something of a “treat” — a little thing that makes winter a bit more special. But we’ve had snow more or less on the ground since January 18 now (with about 1-2 days where it was mostly melted). This is feeling less like a treat and more like a permanent fixture. Plus the temperatures are back down to 3-4 degrees this weekend.
There’s been the usual mix of kid stuff this week. I went to a mandatory Disney trip meeting for my high schooler — his school music department will be taking over 100 kids down to Florida at the end of the month. My experience of taking five kids to Disney is that this is stressful, so I’m kind of in awe of the teachers chaperoning this excursion.
I’m planning on watching the Olympic opening ceremonies and the Super Bowl this weekend (unlike last year I don’t really care about the game itself but I’m always up for an excuse for guacamole). I don’t normally structure my weekends around television viewing, but these are both pretty rare events, and I’m looking forward to them. There will also be the usual mix of playdates, birthday parties, and kid activities.
In the meantime…this week’s content! I was on the Mel Robbins show this past week. You can watch/listen to the show here. In that episode, I talked about the nine rules from my book Tranquility by Tuesday. Please check that out! And if you’re new here because you saw/heard me on the show, welcome! I hope you’ll stick around.
Over at the Before Breakfast podcast, I interviewed Daniel Coyle, author of the book Flourish (and The Talent Code and The Culture Code). He talked about building communities and systems where people thrive. I run an interview episode every week, and if there’s someone you’d like to hear from, please let me know.
In the shorter episodes, I talked about how to “Get the confetti out of your schedule” and the little phrase “I wish I could but I’ll be working.” Even if you work flexibly, you can protect your work hours. Indeed, it might be wise to try as no one else will do this for you! Before Breakfast has featured a short tip every weekday morning since March of 2019, so if you’re new here, there’s lots to peruse in the archives.
Over at Vanderhacks, my Substack newsletter, I suggested making a rule to “Quit multi-tasking in virtual meetings.” It is so tempting, I know. And yet it’s so easy to miss something, and if you’re not worried about missing something, then why are you even there? I talked about how we can “Put a lid on it” — and use travel mugs even when not going anywhere. Today’s post is about how to “Curate your view.” It’s a major perk of working from home (which a lot of people do on Fridays) that you can at least partly determine what you’re looking at through the window. Behind the paywall, I talked about how to “Battle your energy vampires” — those people or tasks that are particularly draining. Please consider a free or paid subscription!
Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community, we’re talking how to embrace the cozy, and how we’re doing on our 2026 goals so far.
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