"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.

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.

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.

An important reminder from high achiever Susan L. Taylor for we fellow high achievers: relaxation is not a luxury. If you don't make time to recuperate, you will burn out. Please don't do that to yourself. You're worth taking care of!

Procrastination often happens when a task feels too big or ambiguous. Writers tend to think things like "today I need to write" or "I want to make some progress today." Writing and progress are vague concepts that make for hard starting points. Then our inner resistance fires up, making it even more daunting! Writing mega-charges that resistance. It's so personal, exposing our deepest selves.

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.