Today I want to share a tool that can help you set yourself up for a successful day. I learned about it from Hugh Jackman. Hugh is a well-known musical theater performer, artist, and singer (who holds the Guinness World Record for “longest career as a live-action Marvel superhero”). He talked about the practice he uses on a recent episode of The Tim Ferriss podcast. Here’s how it works.
Saying no is powerful. My toddler wields the word on a daily basis, and in many ways, I’m in awe of his unabashed claim of the word. Yet saying no can be hard! How do you do it well? Here are my time-tested strategies.
Every summer, we take a break as a family and take a summer sabbatical. Typically, we take a few weeks off in August, sometimes up to a month. This year is a little different, of course, because 2020 has been a tidal wave of epic proportions. Still, despite everything going on, we’re going to hang onto the threads of the idea of a sabbatical and take a small step back. Sticking to a semblance of structure and routine can be stress-relieving, especially when things are chaotic.
Decision paralysis is real. Sometimes when I have a huge decision looming ahead of me, it’s hard to figure out what to do. Just the other day, I met with my operations planning team, and we reviewed the pile of work that I had on my plate ahead of me. My lead operations person looked at me and said “Sarah, you have to make some tough decisions here. You no longer have enough bandwidth to complete all of this.” We had to get real about the time we had, and the projects we could do. The hardest part? Decision making. I’ve written before about why making decisions is so hard. Today I want to share four strategies you can lean on when you feel stuck and don’t know your next move.
Since starting my social media break last week, I’ve noticed something interesting. I’m hungry for more books. Books feel like a breath of fresh air. Like a complete conversation in a world that’s forgotten what more than a sentence feels like. The comparison between a book and Twitter is divine, and real. I’m back on track to read 50 books this year, but I want to read more. Here’s how I’ll do it.