I haven't blogged in three weeks. In trying to use this as a chance to deliberately let go a little, I've learned something important: breaks are, in fact, O.K., even if we feel otherwise.

I'm a sucker for a YouTube video about self-improvement. Over the years I've consumed thousands of hours of content about decluttering and organizing and minimalism and cleaning and building better habits and maximizing my productivity. For a while I found this content really helpful. But I feel like more these days, I instead get an unsettling pit in my stomach and a whispered voice in my head that says, you'll never be improved enough. Despite all your hard work, you stil

Have you ever felt like the only way your life would be in order is if you made a time-blocked agenda for the week, scheduling your time down to the minute and slotting in every task you can think of to meet every goal you can think of for yourself? There's a word for that, my friends: hypervigilance.

I don’t think we talk enough about the value of a peaceful, streamlined environment for combatting overwhelm. We might talk a good game about how nice it is to have a clean house and the laundry done and no piles on the kitchen counter. But we don't do (or don't know how to do) the work to get us there.

I've been thinking a lot about productivity and perfectionism. And let me be someone who can reassure you: not every day needs to be (or even can be) a superhero day ... go easy on yourself.

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.

A friend recently told me he did not like to read time management books because he then felt he had to change everything about himself at once: time management improvement meant a total makeover, immediately. I understood. I've often felt that way myself. And who would want to read such a book if they then felt compelled to change everything about themselves! How exhausting. All-or-nothing, perfectionist thinking can creep in almost undetected ...