Category Archives: work/career

Nudged: Review the original List

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Backstory: For the past couple of weeks I’ve been journaling and brainstorming and exploring tasks that might make it on to The List for 52Nudges 2.0.

This week I’m going to review old posts, to see if there are any old Nudges I’d like to do again. Take a look, and let me know if there were any you thought were particularly effective–or worth revisiting.

Before I started the whole project, I reached out to a my sister and a couple of close friends to ask “What do you remember about me as a kid? What did I love to do? What was I passionate about? What have I let go that you think I should try again?” Their answers led to some of my original Nudges, so I’m not interviewing anyone this week. But you might. What have you forgotten about yourself? What have you let go of that you’d like to try again?

What Happened: I took a break after delivering a big job early Wednesday morning and spent an hour reviewing all the post topics (dating back to March 2018) from the first round of 52Nudges. Some seemed so small, but had big impacts (Wear red lipstick, Visit a new-to-me bookstore). Some didn’t work out so well (creating a vision board was a bust), but others were fun, challenging, motivating. I got to “Create a chalk message on the front sidewalk” and immediately got up from my desk, grabbed the basket of chalks, and headed outside to do this:

Have a FUN day!

It’s going back on The List because it scratches my creativity itch, it’s uncomfortable (I’m sure the neighbors think I’m nuts), and it feeds my soul (those uplifting messages are really directed at me, you know).

The point of this week’s Nudge was to see if there were any I wanted to do over, either because they were really fun or because I feel there might be more for me to learn from them. Some that may make it onto the final 2.0 List:

  • Compliment a stranger
  • Work offsite
  • Go through one bookshelf
  • Be early to everything
  • Use the good silver
  • Fix something

Ah-Hah: One is definitely not going the list: Listen to 2 old CDs. Why am I dropping this? Because that one tiny Nudge has been a huge success. I drew that Nudge in September 2018, and after I went through our personal collection, I branched out. Now, every couple of weeks or so, I go to my public library and request CDs of music I’ve never listened to before. I’ve heard opera, hip-hop, jazz, pop. I’ve sung and groaned aloud, depending on how much I liked/disliked what I’ve heard, whether it be country or classical or contemporary. I’ve developed new appreciation and respect for great artists of past and current generations, and I’ve let go of any need to like someone’s music because someone else said it’s “great”.

All because I nudged myself to try something different.

Cool. 🙂

 

 

 

Nudged: Review the Big To Do List

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Backstory: I’m getting ready to re-boot my 52Nudges project in the fall, so I’m looking for new Nudges I want to include. Activities that are fun, that nurture my creativity, that feed my spirit, and that…well…just need to get done. If you have been on this journey with me for a while, you also know these tasks need to be things that can be done within one week, that aren’t expensive, and that make me somewhat uncomfortable, thereby nudging me out of old ruts.

So this week I’m pulling up the Big To Do List, a 4-page, 2-columned, constantly growing document that lives on my desktop. Yikes. I’m going to look at all the items I’ve put down over the past year-plus and see what I want to give some extra attention to.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be doing some other exercises to come up with tasks that will go onto my 52Nugdes 2.0 list. I hope you’ll join me in this process as you clarify what you want to put on your list. I’ll be sharing mine, and I hope you’ll share some of yours.

Let’s do this! 🙂

What Happened: Late afternoon Monday, I pulled out an old folder and discovered a to do list from 2013. You know what was on there? A lot of the same darn things that are on my 2019 list: turn my “office” into a “creative space”, lose weight, pay off all the bills, finish editing my book and get it into the hands of readers. GEEZ!

I stayed up till 1:00 am that night, having dug out similar lists from 2015 and 2017, along with scraps of paper where I’d scribbled reminders to myself to add more tasks to the to do list. I did a lot of thinking. Let’s be honest, I did a lot more self-loathing. Have I really made so little progress?

I figure I have two options: (1) Take every list and scrap of paper, run it all through the shredder, and just live my life. (2) Condense all those lists and scraps into one document, prioritize, break down those big goals into smaller steps, and get to work.

Option 1 is very appealing. But I know what I am: A list-maker. A manifestor. A finisher. I derive distinct pleasure from crossing something off the list.

A friend recently introduced me to Growing Gills, a book by Jessica Abel. I’ve been told it’s about helping creative people achieve creative goals, in part, my friend told me, by picking ONE thing to do at a time and finishing it. This makes sense to me. Clearly my current method of trying to do a little bit of everything, every day, is not working. Yes, some little things get done (like the laundry), but overall I feel scattered and frazzled. I have all these other big things (like find my purpose through my work) I want to do in life that stay on the list, that hang over me like a threatening weight, and I feel the need to make progress.

Ah-Hahs: Maybe I’ll take some of those big goals and break them down into smaller steps, steps that could become Nudges. Maybe I’ll work those Nudges into my plans for the coming year and make it possible to feel that I’m making real progress. Hmmm….

Here are some of the Nudge ideas that came from reviewing my to do lists (yes, plural) and from the thinking that happened this week:

  • Plan a picnic (I love picnics, yet this has sat on my list for two summers!)
  • Do something historical (take a historical walking tour in my own city or google a historical event and learn more about it)
  • Pick something old from the Big To Do List and break it down (and add some of those steps to the Nudges bowl)
  • Book a month of walks/hikes (4 weekends) with different friends (helps me meet fitness and social goals)
  • Spend 15 minutes/day cross-stitching
  • Explore 5 blogs and comment
  • Go to a speakeasy for date night
  • Invite the nice neighbors over for wine & cheese (we have good intentions to get better acquainted, we just need to do this)

More ideas coming! I’d love to hear what’s making its way onto your list of Nudges.

 

Nudged: See the top of my desk

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Backstory: I feel like I’ve done this Nudge before. Or maybe that’s because this task seems to have a permanent spot on my To Do List.

Before.

Work projects, personal projects, receipts to be entered, reminders scribbled on scraps of paper, multiple versions of To Do Lists, articles to be read, notes for articles to be written…. No wonder my poor brain feels scrambled!

This week I want to clear space both physically and mentally. I hope I can post a lovely “After” photo soon.

What Happened: OMG, I did it. Seriously, I’m impressed with myself because Monday morning, as I got my work week started, as I looked at the To Do List, I thought, Screw this. I’ll just put everything on the floor or move it to the dining room table and cheat.

Instead, every day I devoted at least 20 minutes to tackling the top of any stack and getting things handled. At the risk of sounding like our mothers, I’ll also confess that I practiced putting items (file folders, calculator, pens, sticky notepads) away in their places as soon as I was done using them.  Step by step, piece by piece.

The Ah-Hahs: This morning when I came into the office, this is what greeted me:

After.

For the first time in ages, I started a day not stressed, not in total overwhelm, but calm.

This feels sooooooo good. 🙂

Nudging: See the top of my desk

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Backstory: I feel like I’ve done this Nudge before. Or maybe that’s because this task seems to have a permanent spot on my To Do List.

Before.

Work projects, personal projects, receipts to be entered, reminders scribbled on scraps of paper, multiple versions of To Do Lists, articles to be read, notes for articles to be written…. No wonder my poor brain feels scrambled!

This week I want to clear space both physically and mentally. I hope I can post a lovely “After” photo soon.

Nudged: Do my “do” (hair) 4x

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Backstory: Back in the day (high school), I would allow as much as two hours to wash, blow dry, set in hot rollers, and style my hair.

Sure, right.

That doesn’t happen very often these days, and “forcing” myself to do this will definitely be outside my comfort zone. However. Through some previous Nudges, I’ve realized that when I pull myself together, I feel better, and I carry myself better. I even included this practice as one of the things that might help me get my mojo back.

Let’s “do” this. 😉

What Happened:

Monday: Never so much as brushed my hair.

Tuesday: Threw myself together with kind of a fun and slightly messy bun. I’m no Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, but it worked.

Wednesday: I don’t have time for this sh*t! Geez! I work, I support friends and family, I keep the house standing. And somehow I’m supposed to make time to be runway ready?! I got myself to the gym and showered in the morning, then went straight to work. I had to run a couple of errands, and went out without makeup and hair that looked like it had been styled by Thor (the god who controls lightning, not my husband). I was That Woman in line at the market praying Please don’t let me run into anybody I know. Please. I’m begging. Happy to report my prayers were answered on this one. But geez. I felt like a hot mess, and I wanted to be invisible. That evening my husband had a work event, so at 4:45 I plugged in the trusty flat iron and rallied.

Thursday: Got a free pass today as Second Day Hair looked good with no special effort required. (I love my flat iron). Felt slightly better about myself when I went to the market. That afternoon, I caught up with a friend, another writer who also works from a home office. She mentioned she’s been feeling out of sorts lately, uninspired, unmotivated. So she took a cue from FlyLady (I love FlyLady) and tried dressing for work. Today, for example, instead of staying in yoga clothes all day, she put on nice slacks and an office-worthy cardigan instead of the ratty old thing we pull on when we think “Only the dog is going to see me today.” She brushed her hair, swiped on some mascara and lip gloss, and slipped into actual shoes…and had her most productive day in ages.

Friday: Got up early and gave myself a decent blowout, which made me sweaty. What a pain! Dressed for a business meeting off site—sweater, straight skirt, tights and boots—I checked myself out in the rearview mirror and thought, “Lookin’ good, Kath.” The meeting went well, and I had a productive afternoon. Toward the end of the day, I noticed I wasn’t slumping. I was sitting up straighter than usual for late on a Friday.

A Good(ish) Hair Day

 

Ah-Hah: I must confess, I’ve been in a deep, dark funk lately. There was one day last week when the only thing that got me out of bed was I needed to feed the dog. I’m not sure what this is. Maybe it’s the change in seasons. Maybe it’s the overabundance of rain (dammit) we’ve had this year. (I’m a Southern California, “69 degrees is cold”, I need my sunshine kinda gal). Maybe…I don’t know.

But I’m not throwing in the towel, and I’m returning again and again to my Mojo prompts to get through this. This doing my ’do Nudge is part of my efforts, and it was inspired in part by Elizabeth Gilbert.

In her book about living a creative life, Big Magic, she talks about how you should dress for work the way you would dress if you were going to meet your lover. Think about it. If you were dashing out, all excited and breathless, for a romantic rendezvous, you wouldn’t schlep about in yoga pants and a faded, stretched-out T-shirt. You’d dress in your very best, from the lacy underwear to your fanciest perfume. So, how are you meeting your work? Maybe it’s time to show it some respect, to demonstrate that it is your greatest passion.

I’m going to keep at this. I’m going to continue to do what I can to present myself to the world—or just to the dog—in a way that makes me feel my best. I’m going to do this for my work. Better yet, let’s do this for ourselves!

 

Nudged: Draw something to manifest x5

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Backstory: I think my original idea was to use this space in my office—the big white board I have on one wall and look at every day—to visualize something I want in my life. I’m not entirely sure what I meant by “x5”. Could be I wanted to draw a new image each day of the work week, or am I supposed to draw five different images that represent one dream? I’ll figure it out.

Please remember, I am a writer, not an artist, so don’t expect this to be pretty. 🙂 I hope this Nudge will be fun—and fruitful!

What Happened: I brainstormed what I might want to manifest. Breaking my Life into categories, I noted a few things under each. For Work, I want to finish a big personal project (maybe draw images of the final printed version). For Mind/Body, I want to reach that long-sought-after goal weight (I envisioned drawings of the scale with my “magic” number) and get in some replenishing naps. For self-care, I want to be gifted with some really nice PJs, both cozy flannels and something that feels feminine and luxurious.

Really? These are the big “dreams” I want to manifest for myself? Who is this person?!?

I took a step back mid-week to mull this over. Sure, things like winning the lottery so that I could feel financially secure would be lovely, and taking steps toward being more financially secure is a worthy goal. But a “dream”? Hardly.

Where did my big dreams go? What happened to being recognized for my creative work and feeling successful and finding true love? (That last item on my bucket list got checked off, by the way.) None of the items on my initial list are the least bit exciting. How depressing is this?

It crossed my mind that 50-something women don’t dream. The Big Things in Life are those we hope for in our 20s and 30s, when fame and fortune and achievement and recognition seemed all-important. I don’t, honestly, want to be living a Rich & Famous lifestyle, but every March I still imagine my Oscar acceptance speech (“I’d like to thank the Academy…”).

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to imagine manifesting something “impossible”. So here’s what I ended up drawing:

Starting at top left, my rendition of the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal, followed by my work at #1 on The New York Times’ Best Sellers List, and at the bottom a check for $250,000.00.

What this represents to me is being recognized for my writing, for my creativity, for my connecting people through my work. I have no idea what kind of work this might be, but I don’t feel that’s my job right now. My job is to state (or draw) my wishes to the Universe, then step back and let the Universe do its thing.

The Ah-Hah: Honestly, I felt disappointed in myself this week. I want to dream big again. I want to feel inspired and motivated and excited. What will it take to do this? I don’t know yet, but I’m determined to find that “impossible” goal and have fun going for it.

Nudging: Draw something to manifest x5

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Backstory: I think my original idea was to use this space in my office—the big white board I have on one wall and look at every day—to visualize something I want in my life. I’m not entirely sure what I meant by “x5”. Could be I wanted to draw a new image each day of the work week, or am I supposed to draw five different images that represent one dream? I’ll figure it out.

Please remember, I am a writer, not an artist, so don’t expect this to be pretty. 🙂 I hope this Nudge will be fun—and fruitful!

Nudged: Throw something out

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Backstory: This could be anything. A “thing”, a memento that no longer holds any sentiment, trash, something I’ve outgrown. Or it could be an attitude or a bad habit or a dream that no longer calls to me. Hmmmm….

What Happened: Tuesday morning, as I sorted through items in my to do folder, I came across the instructions for our “new” CD player (see “Nudged: Listen to two old CDs” from, well, a while ago). I had already figured out how to run the thing just by poking around, but it’s always a good idea to read up on all the functions. Except I couldn’t do that. Why? Because the instructions brochure I had saved to read was all in Spanish. Brilliant. Quick toss that one!

What else in this office/this house/this brain is taking up space, nagging me to do? What really needs to get done, what really matters? Or better yet, what do I want to do that is being put off or blocked because I’m so busy dealing with unnecessary stuff?

The next couple of days I thought about this intermittently as I faced down a huge deadline on a client job. I was exhausted, mentally, physically, and spiritually, and I started think about the feelings and judgments I might throw away: feeling stuck, feeling underappreciated, feeling stressed, feeling tired of working so hard for what often feels like so little return. I delivered the job Thursday afternoon (ahead of the deadline, thank you very much) and allowed myself a brief respite to recover. (Ha. What I wanted to do was crawl into bed with a bottle of wine and cry, but I had things to do.) Friday morning I got back to work on the next set of deliverables.

Friday afternoon, during a break and after I received a “thank you, but we’re going in a different direction” rejection letter on a project that I really really wanted, I started looking around again at what I could get rid of. Let me see, what is “dead” around here? There’s the houseplant I’d tried to resuscitate by placing it in a sunny spot on our front steps (hello, death blocking the entry to our home!)…into the trash. The table center bouquet that had been so beautiful a week ago but now smelled like rot…buh-bye. This morning I pulled out several long-dead lavender plants and planted their healthy replacements..hello, beautiful!

Ah-Hahs: Will this make a difference? We’ll see. But it felt good to throw out the dead and make room for the new, both inside me and in the world around me.

52+: When Nudging pays off

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There’s this local craft spirits distillery I’ve been curious about for a couple of years. When a friend introduced me to their gin, in particular, I was surprised by how much I liked it. I wanted to learn more. I picked up a book about the history of gin. I tried flights at bars and experimented with cocktails at home.

Then about eight months ago, I nudged myself and coordinated a group of friends to go for a tour and tasting. It was fantastic. The whole time we were there I kept thinking, “It would be really fun to work here.”

So I nudged myself again and called them. Turns out they were hiring for the tasting room team, so I applied. And then I interviewed, went through intense training, was tested extensively, and got hired. I’m now there every Sunday alongside wonderful colleagues. I welcome guests from all over the world, tell stories, and learn new things.

I know: Wow!

This isn’t replacing my day job; it’s actually on top of all the other things I do. Friends have suggested I’ll one day write a book about gin, or start distilling my own in the bathtub. (Never say never!) I don’t know. I don’t know who I might meet or where it might lead. The future is uncertain, of course, so for now I’m just having fun. (And getting paid a bit while doing it.)

I have been meaning to share this with the 52Nudges community for ages, but there was part of me that wanted to make sure the job would “stick” before I went public. That sounds silly, now, but I was uneasy. Would they like me? Would I screw up? Would I burn out?

So far so good.  🙂

I share this with you now because I realize all of this came about because I opened myself up to opportunities and I nudged myself to:

  • Plan a fun outing with friends
  • Do something that scares me
  • Take a risk
  • Challenge my intellect and learn something new
  • Pursue a passion

If I wrapped up this whole 52Nudges project right now, I’d consider it a win. However, this experience inspires me to keep going. What might the next Nudge reveal? I am excited to discover the possibilities.

How will you nudge yourself this week? Is there something on the edge of your dreams you want to try? Please hear this from me: Go for it. ♥

Nudged: Work two hours outside of the office

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Backstory: This is about shaking things up. Getting out of the routine (aka rut). Nudging myself, literally, out of the nest of my own making.

I work from an office in our home. I love doing this, but I have to be hyper-aware of the toll isolation takes on me. In previous years, I made a point of going out to lunch once a week with a client to make sure I had human contact. It’s a little harder to do now because most of my clients are remote. (One of my all-time favorite clients lives in Detroit.) I spend all day, every day, on a computer, communicating with friends, family, and clients through emails and text messages. When I start talking with my Head of Security (Louie, the dog) and expecting him to answer, I know I have to get out.

Maybe I’ll take my laptop to a coffeehouse. Maybe I’ll take a folder and review it in the park (sitting in my car, if the weather is too chilly). Maybe this is the week I check out the other nearby library branch, to see if they have a cool workspace.

What Happened: I’m writing this from a coffeehouse down the street. I got out, I walked here. I fired up my laptop and was immediately annoyed by the loud music. “I’ll never get anything done here!!!” I lamented—silently, of course. And then I started working and tuned everything out. I sipped a delish mocha, I reviewed some notes for a project, I did some research for an upcoming interview.

You know what was really nice? I could only work on the three things I brought with me. When I’m home, I’m easily distracted by the phones, the pinging emails and text messages, the dog, the stack of files that need to be filed, the to do lists on my desk and white board and desk top. Here it’s just me, my laptop, and my thoughts.

The Ah-Ha: That bit about No Distractions. Among the three projects I brought with me is something I’ve been putting on the backburner while other tasks took priority. Here I have no choice but to focus on this one thing. Hmmm. There’s something here that needs further examination.