This isn’t the first time I’ve posted about work-life balance, but it does feel that, in 2025, more people have the assumption that WORK has won and the imbalance is fine. We know it. We’ve felt it. I’m sure some researchers have excellent terms for it, but I’m thinking of it these days as overproductivity. And it succeeds because we have zealots, who probably get up at 4am, who push for overproductivity. And when they,…
Motivation to create –and breaking out of perceived writing blocks and creative ruts– feels like an evergreen problem. In fact, there’s enough books and articles and videos about such things that I believe it’s fair to say creative folks find themselves in different shaped ruts so that one solution might not fit all. BUT, in case this video is the one that helps you today, spend 15 minutes with filmmaker Luc Forsyth as he explains…
Thinking of last Monday’s post about how to tackle life and its inherent constraints, here’s a video from leadership speaker and business school lecturer Conor Neill that might scratch some similar self-reflective itches. The video was posted five years ago when the pandemic was in full swing and the title purports to be something for middle-aged folks to ponder, but I would suggest it’s useful for many people. For example, teenagers might not get the…
Periodically, some variant of a meme pops up in my feeds that goes “Adulting is saying ‘maybe next week will be easier’ until you die.” Yeah, I know. Great thought to start your Monday, right? Well, author Oliver Burkeman has a different approach in what he’s termed this “age of bewilderment.” It’s not going to get easier, but once you let go of “being on top of everything,” you have some options. Your mileage may…
I’m deep in writing on one project and also reading books by writers about writing, almost an ouroboros about creativity, and this multi-part piece on creativity by Matthew Inman must have sensed it through the algorithm and it came up in one of my feeds. I had seen it when it first came out, but it’s been a while. All praise the algorithm! (It might be listening). You get a sense of Inman’s journey and…
While I continue to spend less time on Facebook and more time on Bluesky (or reading or, gasp, walking in the outside world), there’s a couple elements of connectivity I find still useful. One is remembering birthdays, which I did used to do via a treeware calendar designed for the purpose (specifically one with artwork by international treasure Sandra Boynton). But let’s face it, some electronic and digital reminders help us. And so I often…
Statistically speaking, some of you made some new year’s resolutions regarding writing, but what if you’re finding that difficult? Dennis Palumbo is a screenwriter-turned-therapist I’ve referenced before on this blog (see this one about getting notes on your script and this interview with veteran screenwriter Ken Levine). Well, there’s three more articles I can share, ones he wrote for the Psychiatric Times last fall — and ones that might help writers figure out their author…
Okay, so “the system” is not something people are generally groovy about, now that I think about it, but I came across this article by James Clear from December 2013 that I shared more than a decade ago, pre-blog. What with the new year approaching, he was counseling against setting goals and instead establishing systems that would become habits. If this sounds familiar, or in fact he does, that’s because five years later, he published…
I really should have posted this back in January when New Year’s Resolutions were top of mind… or perhaps when, here in the States, we sprung forward for Daylight Saving Time. However, whether or not our collection of Mason jars in the cupboard can successfully store daylight, having routines is a good idea… and certainly we’ve all heard about the importance of morning routines. In fact, go-getters who manage their extroversion without caffeine can be…