Hi Friends-
Three thoughts as we head into 2019...
1. A Question: "What's the best decision you've ever made?" I ask this question at the end of every Hurry Slowly interview. The most common answers are: Getting married, having a kid, getting a dog, and quitting something. In keeping with this trend, mine this year was definitely adopting my dog, Pablo. A close second was learning reiki.
What was the best decision you made in 2018? →
2. A Curative: If you're keen to break bad habits in the new year, a quick reminder about RESET, which is my new online course about how to work in a way that's intentional, energizing, and inspiring. It begins on January 19th, and the special early-bird registration price is only available for one more day!
Register for RESET before the early-bird rate expires →
3. An Invitation to Declutter: On the newest episode of Hurry Slowly, I finally chat with a writer who is as obsessed with staying focused and doing your best work as I am — Cal Newport. We talk about Cal's new book Digital Minimalism, the benefits of a 30-day digital declutter, and how managing your "attention capital" is the secret to getting ahead.
Listen to "Using Technology with Intention" →
| | BEST OF 2018
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I combed through every single article I linked to last year, and sussed out the very best pieces — the ones that still stuck with me 6 or even 12 months later. These are some of my favorite reads, looks, and listens from 2018:
How to diagnose a "sick system." A revealing set of rules for toxic workplaces and toxic relationships: "Any combination of intermittent rewards plus too much exhaustion to consider other alternatives will induce people to think they love you, even if they hate you as well."
Don't hold your breath for 7 years. The inimitable Bjork on creativity as an ongoing experiment: "Don't hold your breath for five or seven years and not release anything, and then you've just got clogged up with way too much stuff… Maybe you've gained some immaculate, perfect versions of some of the songs, but overall, I think there's more minus to that because of how you clog your own flow. That's more important, to sustain that flow, than to wait until things are perfect."
Human doing to human being. The meditation teacher Tara Brach kept coming up in conversations with friends so I finally looked her up and — wow. This talk about our addiction to doing, and how to unravel it, is an absolute marvel. The rare combination of something that's wise, funny, and useful. Here's the podcast version, and here's the video. 50 minutes well spent.
"Curious, encouraging, experimental, forceful, inquiring, and nurturing." These are the key qualities exhibited by good problem-solving teams, as outlined in an intriguing new piece from the Harvard Business Review. How do you get there? By creating psychological safety and a cognitively diverse team.
What I wish I'd known before starting Design*Sponge. There is so much wisdom about building a business and building a self in this longread by Grace Bonney: "You will lose readers/customers/fans who want you to stay the same forever, but in exchange you will gain a greater sense of self and hopefully connect with others who know what it's like to grow into something or someone new. And that feeling is worth more than X amount of followers any day."
Every opportunity comes with a cost. A great piece by Paul Jarvis on saying NO: "As much as we'd like to be nice people, we owe others a lot less of our time than we believe we do. It's your business, you're allowed to be a little selfish with it, especially when the net result of saying "yes" to everything to be "nice" is that you have less time to actually spend on your business and serving your customers." (Paul also has a fantastic new book called Company of One that's worth checking out.)
The role of luck in life success. This absolutely fascinating article will make you completely rethink the role of "talent" and "merit" in success: "Many meritocratic strategies used to assign honors, funds, or rewards are often based on the past success of the person. Selecting individuals in this way creates a state of affairs in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. But is this the most effective strategy for maximizing potential?"
How to get a job. I agree with the proactive spirit of this piece 100%: "Most of those hires just showed up and sat in that exact same chair and did nothing remarkable. They did what most of us for most of our lives do: wing it. They let the interview dictate events rather than seize control of it — rather than earnestly make a pitch for what they think they can do."
Fixing the gender imbalance. An essential read on curating diverse voices: "Crucially, I tracked how I was doing in a simple spreadsheet. I can't overstate the importance of that: It is a vaccine against self-delusion. It prevents me from wrongly believing that all is well. Four months after I started, the proportion of women who have a voice in my stories hit 50%, and has stayed roughly there ever since."
How to do nothing. This essay by Jenny Odell is easily one of the most illuminating pieces I've read in a very long time. There are so many wonderful thoughts on deep listening, the creativity of maintenance work, the value of sabbaticals, and even bird watching! Plus, the photos are marvelous.
| | | TOOLS FOR CALM COLLABORATION:
| | SHOUT-OUTS:
The crisp illustrations are from: Trüf Creative, who are based in Santa Monica, California.
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Hi, I'm Jocelyn, the human behind this newsletter. I created the online course RESET, a cosmic tune-up for your workday, and I host Hurry Slowly, a podcast about how you can be more productive, creative, and resilient by slowing down. Occasionally, I write books and give talks too. | | | | |
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