Anyone stressed as the holidays kick into high gear? My hand is raised.

I've really taken some lessons forward from my time off, and I want to share those gentle reminders with you.

When overwhelm threatens, remember that one of your best defensive responses is delegation!

For the sake of our sanity, my dear overwhelmed overachievers, we need a fall break.

"The most dramatic, effective way to boost your productivity is to completely avoid e-mail for the first hour of the day."

You know that feeling when you wake up in the morning with good intentions, and then suddenly it's 1 a.m. and you're still working? Yeah. I've been living that reality for longer than I care to admit. And a couple Mondays ago I ran myself into a brick wall at 90 miles an hour like a 1980s crash test dummy.

Henry Rollins—musician, writer, and all-around creative— wrote this back in his 2012 column, "Summer Be Gone!" when he was ready to wave...

Yes, that Kris Jenner. Of the Kardashians. Are you surprised to see her name pop up on my blog? Well, confession time: I've watched the Kardashians for years, from way back in the Keeping Up days. But anyway, I find them endlessly fascinating—Kris in particular. And yesterday a clip from Kanye West's just-released documentary started making the media rounds. I started watching through my fingers with squinted eyes, but I quickly sat up straighter as I watched Kris at the h

I've developed a fresh appreciation for my favorite topic: overwhelm. Though I'm not sure it's the field test I wanted, I'm smack in the middle of taking my own advice. My best friend has been my GPS system. You've heard me talk about this before: Gather, Prioritize, Simplify.

You know exactly what you need to do. The task sits there on your list, staring at you with judgmental eyes. But somehow, you just... can't start. Welcome to the peculiar purgatory of the overwhelmed overachiever: knowing what needs doing but feeling mysteriously unable to do it. This paralysis isn't a character flaw—it's a predictable pattern with predictable solutions.

It's 2 AM and you're lying in bed, mentally composing emails while planning your grocery list and worrying about deadlines. Welcome to the overachiever brain—that magnificent, exhausting organ that never learned how to turn off. Here's how to harness that spinning energy instead of letting it drain you, starting with the game-changing difference between ideas and action items.

You know that feeling when you walk into your office and immediately want to walk right back out? When just looking at your desk gives you chest palpitations? When your email notifications sound like a smoke alarm that won't quit? This isn't the time for elaborate productivity systems or color-coded organizational schemes. When everything's urgent, you need emergency triage. You need tools that work fast, cut through the chaos, and give you immediate breathing room.

If you're reading this, chances are you're drowning in responsibilities. We need fast, practical solutions for actual problems—our own version of the magic bag, ready for deployment when chaos strikes.

Love spring but also feel suspiciously overwhelmed? Me too. I think D.H. Lawrence has some answers for us on the energetic overwhelm of spring.

When time feels impossibly scarce, I've found that the "15-minute solution" can be transformative. The concept is simple: commit to just 15 minutes of focused work on a daunting task. No matter how overwhelming your project seems, anyone can endure 15 minutes. What makes this approach powerful isn't just the time management aspect—it's the psychological shift that occurs once you begin.

For my writers—and aspiring writers—out there: a vital reminder for us from Stephen King, from his On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

I've had two conversations about to-do lists this week that got me pondering how easy it is to overthink these simple productivity tools.

I want to show you some (possibly new) ways to think about routines.