The leprechaun did indeed visit earlier this week, but he was not caught in any traps. Instead, he left candy, but not too much candy, as we really have an abundance of that around here anyway. We also had green shamrock-shaped pancakes that morning. It was a reminder that pancakes are not that hard to make and then everyone eats them so it might be worth doing that on occasion.
The kids are all off school today. We have care for the youngest so it will be a work day for me, at least part of the time. The others will just…play a lot of video games, I suspect.
This week’s content: Over at Before Breakfast, I interviewed Jenna Free, an ADHD expert. We talked about the benefits of not rushing. Basically, if you have to rush to do something, you don’t have time. I think this is an incredibly useful rubric. Also, using “should” isn’t terribly helpful with time. You “should” have done this earlier. But you didn’t. So now what? I found this interview very interesting, so please check it out.
In the shorter episodes, I suggested that people “Choose a spot for spillover work.” If you choose ahead of time when you can get any extra work done during busy weeks, or if something goes wrong during your usual work hours, then you can minimize the disruption to the rest of your life. I also suggested the mantra “Aim for better.” For many things, perfection isn’t a reasonable goal. Just aiming for better than you’re doing now will improve things a lot.
Over at Vanderhacks, my Substack newsletter, I suggested that people “Type first drafts of handwritten notes.” That way you can get the sentiment right via your usual editing process before you actually put pen to paper. Behind the paywall I wrote about “One weekend to a better schedule” — little projects (like hard boiling eggs!) that you can actually accomplish in a weekend to make the rest of the week easier.
Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community page, we’ve been discussing whether it would be OK to take a 2-year pause from a tech job, or whether coming back after would be quite hard. We’ve also been talking about albums we’re enjoying listening to. On Monday at 1 p.m. eastern, Sarah will be leading a weekly planning workshop for community members via Zoom. Membership is $9/month.
Please check those out. Thank you for supporting me and my work!
Type the first draft and then have ChatGPT kick it up a notch… then write the transcript out by hand.
@Omdg – that might work for some too!
On the topic of the benefits of not rushing, at least during mundane and routine tasks: a gamechanger for me has been to shift my mindset from, “How quickly can I get this done?” to “How relaxed can I feel while I get this done?” Said relaxation can happen by listening to quality music while cleaning/tidying, cooking dinner in a tidied kitchen while I sip some wine, folding my laundry in a space that is beautiful/light-filled rather than my dreary basement, planning podcasts for my drives, etc. It often doesn’t take much extra time to create the conditions for such enjoyment, yet it pays off.
@Jess – ooh, I love this. Aiming for relaxation rather than getting it done quickly – and probably it goes just as quickly, as these things tend to take the time they take…