It was a frustrating and disappointing week at work, with some losses for public health and climate action. I told my team that “if it were easy, someone would have figured it out already.” That said, I am grateful for the opportunity to figure it out with 15 other leaders from around the world this coming year as part of the Indo-Pacific Leadership Lab.
Humans grieve at times of transition, whether it’s the loss of a loved one, a job, a dream, or expectations of how something would turn out. There’s no easy solution for getting through grief, but accepting it and allowing space for it helps. Similarly, normalizing the concept that nothing lasts forever may help us to be more mindful of precious moments when they’re happening.
One thing we tend to skip over when organizing our lives is evaluating our actions to see what’s working and what isn’t – which is arguably as important as the planning stage! I had to learn that evaluation wasn’t about beating myself up for not getting everything finished, but rather about recognizing what small steps I took that day to work toward my goals.
When a friend asked me specifics about how I maximize my productivity, I laughed. I also started to plan this blog series to share what has worked well for me as I continue to learn. Your mileage may vary with planners and scheduling apps, but the real path to success appears to be setting goals and continually questioning what does or doesn’t support them.
“Work smarter, not harder” is a bit of a misnomer, as it is frequently interpreted as a call to accomplish existing tasks more efficiently. What we should be doing instead is questioning what our goals are and what the best methods of achieving them are. It’s likely that there is a disconnect between what we spend our time doing and what we’re actually trying to accomplish.
Heading into the new fiscal year at work, and heading out of a particularly hectic spring, I wanted to be more intentional about building some good habits around optimizing my time and defending my boundaries. Fortunately I happened upon several great podcast episodes on a recent drive, starting with the best possible way to become more efficient: thinking about what you’re trying to accomplish.
When I think of mothers, I think of almost ritualistic, uncomplaining sacrifice for their families, often to their own detriment. Something we rarely discuss related to motherhood is the level of agency involved in that decision and how critical it is that people become parents when they’re ready for it. What some call an unsavory topic, I call a necessary component of comprehensive healthcare.
We’ve made it through another Lent, and on this Easter morning, many are celebrating the end of a period of fasting. I am less celebratory as I consider how to move forward from a digital detox that I (surprisingly) loved. I undertook this project because I wanted to make a change, and I have some ideas on how to build a healthier relationship with the digital world.
Not everyone is ready for a full-scale digital detox, especially when the social media apps we use are designed to addict us. For people who desire to create some distance from their devices, there are smaller-scale steps that can help to build stronger boundaries and healthier alternatives to what most of us do mindlessly. This week’s focus is on Catherine Price’s week-long phone-breakup challenge.
To recognize that your time and attention are valuable, non-renewable resources is to win a major battle in the David-and-Goliath fight we face every time we pick up our phones. Once we understand just how much money social media platforms make from what we give them for free, we will start to view each digital interaction as a war they don’t want to lose.