Category: Behavior And Habits

How Do You Decide What Book to Read Next?

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

I’m the kind of person that always wants to add more books to the pile. More from Amazon, more from the library, more from the shared local bookshelf across the street in front of the coffee shop. How do I decide how many books to read this week? Which one? Help! I can’t decide! This is torture!

If I could read every (good) book ever made, I would.

In fact, I used to look forward to summer because the local library held a summer reading competition and I would try to read as many books as possible before the summer was out.

Gosh, I love books!

But, time has a way of limiting us, and I want quality over quantity.

Recently I stumbled on a great way of choosing which book to read next.

In 2017, I decided to keep a public list of every book I read and share my top 2-3 recommendations in my newsletter each month. I committed to reading more books by women, so at least half of all the books I’ll read this year will be by women. (I’m also tracking the number of books I read by people of color.)

I know that I want to read good books to recommend, and that I’ll probably have time for 2-4 books each month.

Simply by knowing that I’m writing down a list of all the books I’ve read has made me more discerning in which ones I pick up.

If this year’s reading list only has 24 books on it, which books will make the cut?

By limiting myself to two books, I’ve become more savoring of which ones to read. Sometimes having an edge increases the quality. When you choose what your boundaries are before you begin, sometimes the results are better.

And when you force yourself to decide—even if the constraints are arbitrary—deciding has power to it.

What books have you read this summer?

PS: here are my summer reading list recommendations.

A 4-Step Guided Framework for Journaling and Gaining Immediate Clarity

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

How I used Think Clearly’s Clarity Cards to inspire wisdom and peace at the end of my pregnancy. I wrote this out when I was eight months pregnant, and it helped tremendously.

Writing things down helps me understand things better.

As a nine-month pregnant lady living on stitched-together patches of sleep, planning for new motherhood, and wrapping up my many projects in startup land, finding time to write (and write coherently) is becoming an increasing struggle.

Suffice it to say, my book writing has gone a little bit haywire.

Instead, I journal as often as I could, whenever I can.

Sometimes it’s at 3 AM in the morning if the baby kicks me awake (or gives me one of those yelp-inducing punches to the bladder), sometimes it’s late at night to get me to go to sleep, and more often than not, it comes out in scribble notes in my iPhone while on the way in and out of the city on Manhattan’s clunky old C-train.

Pregnancy is both never-ending, and over so suddenly, so I want to write about it and capture it while I can.

(And if you’re only having one or two kids, you’re only pregnant for so long: and then you’re not. Maybe ever again.)

I want to understand it. I want to catalog it. I want to explain it, tell the stories of pregnancy.

Yet understanding pregnancy and being pregnant are so monumental. What does it mean? How does it feel? Who am I, and how is that changing?

So I used the Clarity Cards to spend 12 minutes journaling about pregnancy, and surprised myself with how quickly I charted out thoughtful ideas, insights, and clear perspectives on being pregnant.

A guided framework for journaling and gaining clarity

The deck of cards was surprisingly simple to use.

It walks you through four steps.

For each step, you take 2–3 minutes to write down as much as you can. You can go longer if you’d like, or keep it short and simple. The first step is the simplest, and by getting your pen onto paper quickly, it makes the process easier. Much like Julia Cameron writes about in The Artist’s Way, just getting pen on paper and making a list can be an extraordinary way to dive into your mind.

Here’s how I did it:

Prep: Grab some pages to write on.

I have a Moleskine I love using, and so I cleared fresh sheets and got out a teal blue pen to write with, because that sounded like fun. Make sure you’re not distracted (I prefer a Moleskine or loose paper on a desk without any other items on it — no computer, phone, or other distractions. Yes, take off your Apple Watch!). Have a timer ready.

Next: Choose a topic or area of focus.

Choose a topic or a subject. I suppose you could just let something tumble out, or try to define a problem. For my sake, and as the example in this essay, I chose “Pregnancy” as the topic, because I was struggling to understand it, and these prompts helped me unpack it.

I then stacked the four sets of cards out face-down in front of me in four piles, and started a timer.

Step 1: The Facts

The first set of prompts is related to “the facts.” I pulled my first card, and it simply said, “What are the facts?”

I began by making a simple list.

I am pregnant. I have swollen and sore feet. I am doing Mathias’ Clarity Cards. I’m in the 9th month. I weight X pounds… (and more, but I won’t tell you all the details right now).

I pulled another card and continued listing. The prompts said things like “What is going on?” and “What is happening?”

My observations: It was easy to begin with a simple list of what the facts are. Even just the act of writing “I am pregnant” somehow makes it seem more real. I know, of course, that I’ve got a watermelon belly and I’m waddling around the city peeing at every coffee shop I can find, but still — it helps to list out all of the pieces of this puzzle, no matter how obvious.

The act of list-making can be profoundly useful as an instrument for getting inside of your own mind and beginning the process of journaling. Never underestimate the power of making lists.

Step 2: Feelings

The second set of prompts asks you to write down how you feel about the situation. Prompts included questions like “What gives you energy?” and “What are you sad about?” and other guided questions to help you understand how you feel about the situation.

Again, I spent a quick 2–3 minutes on the next clean page in my Moleskine journal to jot down as much as I could. I spent about a minute per card and wrote whatever came to mind first.

Observations: It was wonderful to parse out facts versus feelings. It’s one thing to be pregnant (fact), and it’s a completely separate thing to have a set of feelings about it (excited! happy! scared! kind of in shock!). My list included things like “I feel like a beached whale,” and “My stomach is really tender in the center,” and “I feel much more vulnerable and in need of protection than my normal, ambitious, athletic self.” It went from physical feelings to deeper emotional layers, like “I feel like my identity is transforming,” and “there are parts of me that are changing so quickly, it’s hard to get used to.”

It can be difficult to separate out feelings and facts, and this was an easy way to do it. In addition, the act of taking time to focus just on feelings let a lot of them tumble out. If you’re not used to talking about your feelings, having a guided set of cards prompt you through it can help you find awareness.

Step 3: Insights

The third set of questions asks you to probe a bit further. What are you learning, deducing, and understanding? How are you interpreting these facts and feelings? What insights have you gained? This step takes you from observation to analysis.

I stumbled a bit here, because the first question was “What insights have you gained?” and I felt myself think dismissively, “Um, none.”

So I began this third step the way the whole process began, which was: simply.

My first insight? “Drinking a lot of water helps the headaches go away.”

From there, it became easier to write out insights, and because I was writing quickly, it was almost startling how fast I dug into deeper insights. Once I started, it was like they were ready to come tumbling out of me. “Rest yourself as often as you recharge your iPhone, if not more,” and “It’s your own learning process and your own journey, unique to you,” and “Take time to reconcile external readings and advice with your own internal wisdom,” all made it onto my list of insights about the experience of pregnancy.

Yes, this.

Gosh I felt smarter just writing it down. Nodding my head. It was like the wisdom was there all along, but I hadn’t had a clear way of seeing it.

Intuitively, I know that each of these things are true, but the act of writing them down made them stronger, more powerful. They reminded me how important they are. They clarified, for me, what insights I have at my fingertips, if I’m willing to sit for a few minutes and record, reflect, and listen.

Step 4: Actions

The fourth and final section is about creating a set of actions that you’re going to take. What can you do with what you’ve observed, noticed, and felt? What steps can you take next?

At first, I was confounded. What “actions” do I take with “pregnancy”? There was a list I could draw up quickly, like “pack your hospital bag, set up an email auto-reply, stock your freezer with food,” but those seemed like just another list of tasks and errands. I could make a to-do list in my sleep; how could I apply this more broadly to a reflective session focused on the holistic concept of “pregnancy” and everything that it entailed?

Then the ideas that came forward seemed both obvious and silly. I wrote them down:

Decisions to be made:
— It’s okay for the baby to come.
— We are ready.
— This will be great.
— We can handle this.

What am I going to do?
— Give birth.
— Become a mom.
— Work hard during labor and delivery!
— Rest fully and recover well.

What is the next step?
— Rest. Allow. Enjoy. Be.

And Exhale.

The power of putting words to paper continues to astound me. Twelve minutes of writing and journaling later, and there’s a renewed sense of calm about the transition that’s coming up ahead of us.

Recognizing that then, at the end of my pregnancy, I was getting ready to meet my little boy and bring him into the world — this makes me tear up. And it’s okay. The next things to do are to be here, in the moment. And to decide: decide that it’s okay, that we’re ready, and that it’s time. And to rest, allowing the process to unfold. I have a bit of work ahead of me as I achieve the physical feat of pushing a new human out into the big world ahead, and I think it’s going to be great. I can’t wait.

A Look Inside My Writing Habits

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Are you optimizing your writing habits?

We have a limited amount of attention, bandwidth, and energy. There are only so many “hacks” we can take before it’s going to become ever more important to cull the flow of information and set up systems that let us optimize for our strengths and internal design.

My writing and publishing is best done on a system that allows me to have some freedom, but within a structure. When I have a structure that I no longer have to think about when or why I’m writing, I’m then free to write without spending time wondering when I’ll actually do the writing.

What is a writing frame?

Frames are incredible important for both my own practice as well as for connecting to other people. A writing frame is a pattern or schedule that you stick to in your habit or practice. Some examples of writing frames are: publishing a new blog post every Monday at 10am, writing a monthly newsletter on the first of every month, or writing every weekday at 7am.

Podcasts, television shows, and great newsletters use these schedules to stay consistent. They also use them to communicate to the subscriber, reader, or viewer (you) when new content will arrive.

Think about the newsletters that you read. Do you appreciate ones that are regular and consistent? If it’s something you’re a fan of, you might be a regular reader: you know when your latest episodes of Silicon Valley go live, and when new episodes of your favorite podcast are released.

I’ve written previously about the 20 Mile March and why it’s so useful as a set-up for getting things done. Today I want to share how I’ve broken down my writing structure and why the frames are so helpful for me.

These are my personal writing frames:

A weekly blog, delivered every Monday at 10AM.

I publish a weekly blog at sarahkpeck.com/writing, every Monday at 10AM. (The newsletter ships at 10AM, but the post is scheduled to go live by 6AM Eastern time.)

I try to maintain a queue of posts that are ready to go for at least six weeks in advance, so I’m not operating at last minute. (This doesn’t always work out, but I do my best.) When I need a break, I follow the likes of Paul Jarvis and James Clear and announce that I’m taking a monthly break (this often happens in August for a summer sabbatical and in December/January, when most people are on winter holiday).

In the past, I committed to writing once per week, but I never committed to a specific date or time. This year, I’m increasing the rigidity of the structure by adding a day and a time to it.

Every Monday at 10AM, there’s a new post.

It’s my goal with this to get into a regular habit with my readers to deliver great essays right at the top of the week, when we’re primed to take action and set ourselves up for success.

A monthly newsletter, delivered on the 1st of every month.

On the first of every month, I write a popular newsletter that’s a round-up post linking back to all of the writing I’ve created, the best blog posts, and the newest offerings. I include a monthly writing practice, a review of best books I’d recommend, and links to the best articles I’ve read and think were worth sharing.

One of the things that’s important in my practice of writing a monthly newsletter is curating and culling. Finding ways to set up a structure and add limits allows me to reach for higher-quality work.

The structure of my newsletter is loosely based on the following:

  • A short opening essay (usually personal in nature)
  • A quiz or a question (”what should I teach or write next?”)
  • A round-up of top 4 posts, visually with links
  • Monthly journal practice
  • Book recommendations of the month
  • Quote of the month
  • Best of the web: top 10 links that are worth putting in your reading queue
  • Accountability: a tracker of my yearly goals and how I’m doing with them (books, meditation, exercise, and learning)

Here’s an example of a past newsletter that follows the structure above.

Daily, public journal.

Sometimes I just need a free place to write, free-form, to work through ideas. I’ve used this Tumblr at sarahkathleenpeck.tumblr.com for years as a place to house ideas, show my process, and write out new pieces.

Sometimes you’ll see an overlap as an idea develops here, and then moves to my more formal blog. Sometimes I take years off (see: having a baby in 2016), and then return to the writing practice time and time again. This frame is more of a house, or a home, and a place I know where I can always go to write. It’s not guided by a specific time but it’s a house all the same: it’s a place I can go write when I need to write in a flurry.

The components of a great frame:

Every time we reduce the amount of thinking we’re doing about the thing we want to actually be doing, we create more space to be doing what we wanted to do in the first place. Frames create a particular quality of freedom by removing the number of times you have to make a decision about how you’re going to behave in the future.

A work schedule is a frame, for example. When you’re committed to working between the hours of 10am and 5pm, that’s a specific pattern and your behaviors fall in line accordingly. (How you decide to spend the late evenings, when you get coffee, what you wear, etc, are all influenced by the work frame.)

A habit pattern or frame consists of the following:

  • A rhythm or a pattern tied to a specific recurring day or date.
  • A frequency (daily, weekly, etc) or total quantity (I will do this 100 times)
  • A specific time
  • A place where you do the work, and show up to do the work
  • A clear, actionable, specific (SMART) way to measure whether or not you’ve succeeded.

A writing frame that’s every Monday at a specific time (10AM), delivered via WordPress (my online home), publishing via blog and email, and looks like a published, live, blog post is a frame that works for me.

Past frames I’ve given up:

I’ve tried on other frames, like daily blogging, and that hasn’t worked for me successfully. I’ve tried publishing more frequently, and that erodes my available time for other things (like book writing, or running my Mastermind, for example).

What structures do you use to set yourself up for success? How do you plan out and map your own writing or creative practice?

One of my favorite things about the word “practice,” is that it reminds us that all we have to do is keep practicing. If we can optimize for making space to practice, with weekly rituals and reminders, then we’ll be doing the work.

Because doing the work is what matters more than almost anything else.

How will you set up your own frames for success?

The 20 Mile March

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

What does it take to be great?

In the book Good to Great, Jim Collins and his team of researchers study how some companies rise to greatness and uncover a key strategy: the 20 Mile March. They asked the question, “Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not?”

They analyzed companies that were 10x better than the competition, and, across all the data, realized that they had something in common.

First, imagine, for a second, that you’ve got two teams walking across America.

The first team takes the strategy of walking 40-50 miles on the good days, and resting in between.

The second team decides to walk 20 miles every day, rain or shine, injuries or no injury.

Which team wins?

Consistent, methodical actions take you further.

The team — and the companies, and the individuals — that set up consistent, methodical, repeated actions go further. They go 10x further, in fact. The “20 Mile March” became a clear differentiator between those teams that flounder or stay where they are, and the ones that rise to greatness.

The person that crosses the finish line on a big goal or dream is the person that takes consistent action, with clear performance markers, on actions that are largely within your control.

In the book, there are seven elements of a good march, and those include:

  • Clear performance markers,
  • Self-imposed constraints,
  • Appropriateness to you (or the company),
  • largely within your control,
  • Proper timeframe,
  • Designed by the individual, and
  • Achieved with high consistency.

In my work with people in my private Mastermind, we do a three-month program where people put together a monthly goal, with self-imposed constraints, over a short enough time horizon to get feedback and learn.

Now is the time to learn.

In your own practice, what is your 20 Mile March?

For me, a weekly writing habit has been the cadre, or structure, or frame that has unlocked so much more. When I show up to write, it’s not a question of when I’ll write, or how much: it’s already pre-determined that I will write.

I’ll write {this much} at {this frequency} on {these specific days}.

What’s your recipe?

The trick to a 20-Mile March is to make it something you can do repeatedly, on a consistent pattern. Often, in my personal life, I’ll try to tackle a 60-mile march and then get frustrated when I’m tired a few weeks later and (sometimes literally) can’t get up out of bed because my muscles are too sore. A 20-Mile March is something you could do every day, easily, for a year.

Some ideas of 20-Mile Marches:

  • Writing a daily, short, free-form blog on Tumblr (here’s mine; I write a log whenever I need space to free-form think out loud)
  • Writing a weekly blog (this blog posts every Monday at 10am)
  • Writing a monthly newsletter on the 1st of every month (if you’re on my list, you’ll get the newsletter).
  • Doing a yoga practice 3 times per week
  • Simplifying to do a 5-minute yoga practice every morning
  • Emailing one new person every day for a year.
  • Weightlifting twice weekly for a year.

A 20-Mile March does not have to be a daily practice. But it does have to be a practice, and one that you dedicate to a specific time, place, and duration. The compound interest of showing up to practice with regularity is the work of mastery, and the work of moving mountains. Inch by inch, with steady practice, we become something new.

So, I’ll ask you all some of the questions I ask my Mastermind folks in our one-on-one session:

  • Are you taking clear and consistent action? Are you learning each month and building upon what you’ve learned?
  • What’s working?
  • What systems do you have in front of you?
  • What still needs to change?
  • How can you change strategies and tactics to keep showing up, piece by piece, to carve away at your dream?

PS: If you’re looking for an amazing seminar on marketing, persuasion, and creating change, I’m currently taking the inaugural session of The Marketing Seminar with Seth Godin. It’s beyond incredible; I’m likely going to take it again. The latest round of the seminar just opened for registration, July 10, 2017. Push the purple button and get a discount on the 30-day summer session.

No Excuses: How to Stop Bullshitting Yourself and up your Mental Game

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

No excuses: how to go beyond what you think is possible

It was my junior year of college, and my third year making the National team as a varsity swimmer.

We were two weeks out before the big races: the national swimming meet drew colleges like Emory, Kenyon, MIT, Williams, Amherst, and Johns Hopkins. The 3-day event is held in March in a major U.S. city every year. From the time we got back on campus in the Fall, up until this point in March, we were training. Swimming was life, and life was swimming. Training started in earnest in September, and we had 10 practices each week, often clocking in 10,000 yards of swimming on a daily basis.

I lived in the dorms, housed with three other women in a two-bedroom suite with a shared bathroom. We had access to a dorm kitchen downstairs. A brilliant thought came to mind that early day in March: why don’t I make some cookies for the team?

For however well I could swim in the water, however, I couldn’t walk on land for shit. I fell down a flight of stairs, broke my foot, and realized with panic that I’d have to go see my coach and tell him that I’d just broken my foot.

I broke my foot two weeks before the national meet and didn’t know whether or not I’d be able to swim.

I grabbed an ice pack, put in on my foot, and called my mom. “What do I do? Do you think it’ll heal by tomorrow?”

The next day, my coach looked at my foot and said, “What the hell did you do?”

“Go get in my office.”

(He said this kindly, but it was still very intimidating.)

I hobbled across the deck and went into his office and shut the door.

In his office, he asked me what happened. After a few moments, he paused, look at me, and told me that I’d have to choose.

Would I be swimming on the national team, or would I be done for the season?

“I don’t care which way you decide. But if you choose to swim on the national team—if you’re going to train these next two weeks, and get in the pool to race—I don’t want to hear another word about your broken foot until after the meet is over.”

I was wide-eyed.

But in retrospect, it was one of the kindest things he could have done.

This story—and what happens next— I dig into in detail with Steph Crowder on her podcast, Courage and Clarity. We talk about how these specific life events shape us, and the backstories behind where we are today. (I’m actually on two episodes with her: in the first, we break down how to overcome mental weakness, kill excuses, and make things happen even in shitty circumstances. In the second, we look at how to create clarity in your business through a decision-making tool I love.

But back to the story.

That day, down at the pool, when my coach made me make a decision about how I would proceed, he taught me the power of mindset and how important it is to not let an excuse build up in front of you.

I had a great opportunity to make an excuse: my foot was broken!

Sure, you can have a broken foot. But I could also hang my hat on that as a reason for why something wouldn’t work, and opt myself out mentally, before I’d even given myself a chance.

The true test of perseverance and resilience, the people who make it through their 20 Mile March are the ones who look at that moment when they COULD make an excuse and they say, “I’m choosing to do it anyways.”

(For those worried about my foot, I went to the doctor and they said I wouldn’t cause any further damage to it by using it in swimming. If I was a runner, it might have been another story.)

The person who wins, the person who makes it happen isn’t the person who has some magical better circumstances than you.

No one has perfect circumstances. I realized, as I looked around the pool, that everyone has something—tired, bad night of sleep, social stress, and more—and the ones who find a way to do it in spite of, and alongside, all that’s going on, are the ones that rise to the top. When we make excuses, we’re just making excuses.

My coach gave me a gift: the gift of letting this major hurdle go. Every day I iced and wrapped my foot, and in the pool, I spent time practicing how to do a new swim start, a dive, with my foot in a different position.

And, I realized: my foot didn’t hurt too much—the swelling made it somewhat protected and wrapped. And as a sprinter, the adrenaline fueled my body before I had even a fraction of a second to register that there was pain.

I went on to swim in 17 different races across three days. By the end of the meet, I earned three All-American trophies and placed in the top 16 in the nation for swimming alongside my teammates.

And I had a broken foot.

You’re either strengthening the muscle that makes excuses, or you’re strengthening the muscle that does it anyway.

###

Huge thanks to Steph Crowder for inviting me to join her on the Courage and Clarity podcast. Listen to the full story on Episode 31 here: https://www.courageandclarity.com/podcast/31 . If you’d like to hear more stories like this, check out the entire podcast with amazing courage stories and their badass business wisdom.

How to publish to both Medium and WordPress at the same time.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

This was meant to be a private test of the Medium-Wordpress plugin. But I blasted everyone instead.

If you’re looking for how to post to both WordPress and Medium at the same time, check out this article I wrote all about it:

How to Link Your WordPress Website To Also Publish on Medium

January Writing Theme: Discernment

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Each month I share a monthly writing prompt for you to reflect on, write about, and discuss. I’ll be writing a lot on this theme, and I invite you to join me in writing by linking your blog in the comments below or following the hashtag #mowriting on Twitter or Instagram.

Discernment: What is it? What does it mean to be discerning?

How do you decide? How do you know?

Discernment is “the ability to judge well.”

It is, to me, about our own internal ways of knowing.

How do you know? 

Growth, after all, is about the knowledge and discernment to see who we are, to test what we’ve done, and to figure out how to change it. If we don’t pay attention — if we aren’t discerning enough — how will we learn?

Discernment implies judgment. How do you judge? When do you know you’ve used good judgment, and when do you realize you’ve made

How do you judge? When do you know you’ve used good judgment, and when do you realize you’ve made poor judgment?

What does wisdom look like in your life? Today, this moment, this month?

Join me in reflecting on this question this month. What does it mean to be discerning and why is it important to do so?

I invite you to consider the ability to discern your own path and inner wisdom, as well as the ability to discern more about the world around you.

Leave a note in the comments on this post with your reflections, share your pieces using the hashtag #mowriting, or send me a note with a guest post if you’d like to contribute to this month’s theme.

###

Get Better at Scheduling Your Time, Get Better at Email (New Classes)

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Do you ever get overwhelmed by scheduling your day, week, or month? Does email bog you down or frustrate you?

I’m teaching two new virtual seminars this November all about rethinking the way you schedule your week (November 9th) and becoming a jedi master with your email inbox (November 17th).

The seminars are 1-hour long, live, and will be recorded.

Registration is $49 per class.

Live Session 1:
Rethinking & Reinventing Your Schedule

Wed, November 9, 2016 1:00 PM Eastern
A 1-hour class plus live Q/A

About the session:

How do you think about the time in your week? How do you plan ahead, carve out time and space, and make certain activities a priority? In this one-hour webinar, I’ll walk you through a session of scheduling, planning, and re-thinking about how you organize your time. I’ll also share with you 8 key tips I use in planning my own time. If you want to rethink your week, your organization of time, and how you schedule and plan, join me. Register Now: Rethinking Your Schedule.

Live Session 2:
13 Ways to Become A Gmail Jedi Master

Thu, Nov 17, 2016 1:00 PM Eastern
A 1-hour class plus live Q/A

About the session:

Does email overwhelm your life, and you don’t know what to do about it? No one wants to be the best at emailing. We’ve got better things to do. Stop being overwhelmed by email. Start winning over your email inbox by learning these key insights and tricks that I’ve collected over the years to make email mastery work for you. And then, get back to building better things with your day and time. Register Now: Become an Email Master

8 Essays on Routine, Pattern, and Habit Change (The October Monthly Round-Up)

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

October was focused on the idea of Routine: what is it, how does it show up (or not show up) in your life, and when is it useful? From re-thinking what you spend your time thinking about, to parsing out time differently, to changing up your behaviors in an experimental fashion, it was a good month to focus on the habits that get us more of what we want. Read on to see a round-up of this month’s essays.

Here is a round-up of all the posts on this topic from the last month:

  • Default to Finish: Co you let things slide, or do you finish them? There’s nothing quite as suffocating as letting an idea slowly die. How can you default to finishing behaviors?
  • Eliminate the Thinking: Is everything worth thinking about equally?
  • Change it Up: Consider your life as a series of experiments. Do you change up your patterns often enough?
  • Don’t Use The Full Hour: The clock has wreaked enough havoc on our lives. It’s time to take back control of that minute hand.
  • My Routine: A glimpse into what my present-day looks like, and where I began when thinking about this idea of “routine.”

Plus a few relevant posts from the archives:

Also! If you’re interested in routine and habits, and you haven’t registered for the live seminars I’m teaching yet, go sign up today.

I’m teaching a class on November 9th all about rethinking how you schedule the time in your day and week, and a second class on November 17th all about how to get better at gmail (and email). Readers of my blog can enjoy a discount of 40% off the ticket price with the coupon code SARAH.

Readers of my blog can enjoy a discount of 40% off the ticket price with the coupon code SARAH. The classes will be recorded and a replay link will be sent to you after the live class is finished.

Default to Finish

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Pssst! Quick note: I’ll be teaching a live-stream class on November 9th all about how to plan your week and set up your schedule. Go register in advance for the seminar here.

Do you finish what you start?

Let’s be honest: we’re pretty terrible, as humans, at estimating time. How long something will take, how much work it will do to finish something, how much energy we’ll have later.

Me? I always over-estimate how much I’m going to want to do something later. I get swept up in the high of the moment, in my exuberance, and sign up for ALL THE CLASSES.

The difference between something that gets done and something that remains unfinished is huge.

Unfinished work feels heavy, difficult, like a burden.

We pile up unfinished projects like additional rooms in a house, never returned to, until we’ve designed a house with 187 rooms and we don’t even know where to begin again.

Finished work — although scrappy, messy, and imperfect — is released. It is put into the world of exploration, of connection, of refinement. Push publish on the draft. Release a thought into the world.

If you only have an hour left to do the work, default to finishing it.

Put a smaller timer on it.

If you only had 5 minutes left, how would you finish it?

So many of my blog posts on this site are the product of a timer and a few minutes. I often set 6-minute, 8-minute, and other short burst intervals to write as quickly as possible.

Do it now or not at all.

This applies to signing up for online courses, too. Here’s a rubric I use and love, that might work for you.

You’re hesitating about signing up to do a new program or a course. (For me, it was Krista Tippett’s course on The Art of Conversation that really called to me.) Did I have time to take it?

If I have time today to take the course, at least an hour of it, then I have time to do it. If I can carve out time to do it now, then I know I have enough wiggle room in my schedule to make it happen.

However.

If I do not have time to do it now — in this moment, in this hour, in this day — then I am already too full and too busy to give it attention. (One way, however, to get around this is to delete something from your life to make space for the new thing. Everything is a tradeoff.)

That’s a rubric for deciding that helps me.

Do it now or not at all.

###

How many things are unfinished in your life right now? Leave a note in the comments with your best tips for finishing your work.

###

On Wednesday, November 9th I’ll be teaching a live-stream class all about how to rethink and restructure your week. Join me!