If you've been curious about a new way to think about productivity and time... you may have started to bump into other, related beliefs.

Having tested the upper limits of efficiency as a strategy many times - academically, professionally, and personally - I can promise you that productivity is not the golden ticket.

A lot of people tell me that constant fire drills are a huge problem. The reactivity, the time hijack, the stress...

If it's not fire drills ... then it's another source of drama. Our own or someone else's chaos. A relationship laden with conflict.

It’s estimated we make about 35,000 decisions a day. Laboring over these decisions is impossible so our brain creates shortcuts to help.

Among the shortcuts are a (mostly unconscious) set of priorities, aka values.

Is there anything you are thinking about saying “no” to?

What’s holding you back?

I do love grit - the idea that the learning to be resilient and persistent in the face of difficulty is an essential skill.

I can tell it's time for me to share my reading list with you again because I have a new stack of books that simultaneously thrills and delights me while occasionally overwhelming me!

What will keep you warmed up and humming through winter?

Is it time to let some leaves drop? Are there drains on your time, energy, warmth and light? Could you say, “no” to these things? Maybe you ended up over committed just recently? Or maybe things you used to love have started to feel like an obligation?

How do we shift from this feeling of getting whipsawed by events into a feeling of being a proactive creator, setting the course rather than reacting?

About 30% of the people I work with have lost touch with what makes them uniquely suited for their work.

Another 30% need steady and gentle reminders about how truly talented they already are.

The cause of some of this is our natural negativity bias – the tendency of our brains to focus on problems, risks, and shortcomings as a survival strategy.

I've been thinking a lot about the ways we tussle for too long with the wrong problem...

I find most of us tackle the content of our challenges: the specific details, information, strategies and tactics associated with an issue.

This is a good place to start, but by bringing in context – elusive and dynamic solutions become accessible.

I’ve been increasingly disenchanted with the basic to-do list strategy for a variety of reasons.

But most importantly it was far too easy to do a lot but not achieve what really matters.