Try the wacky experiment first
Starting with wacky on a team say that on this team, we try stuff that may not work.
Spend money on what separates you from the ground
Shoes, a mattress, a desk chair, and whatever else. If it holds your weight then it’s worth splurging on.
“Can’t let it go to waste!” Oh yes I can.
“Not a single hungry child in Africa was helped by you finishing a meal you didn’t enjoy.”
Weekly journal: 2023-01-22
As part of my year of connection, I’m going to experiment with a weekly journal here to connect with myself. You’ll probably be bored if you read this.
Create a rotating thank you list
Yeah, it’s forced and inorganic, but how much does that really matter?
“Firing people is so hard you’ll invent excuses not to do it.”
This spoke to me, as someone who’s really really good at inventing those excuses.
Weekly journal: 2023-01-15
As part of my year of connection, I’m going to experiment with a weekly journal here to connect with myself. You’ll probably be bored if you read this.
If you can’t stop it, change it
My nine year old won’t brush his teeth at night unless an adult stands there and watches him put the toothbrush in his mouth and turn it on.
Who’s reading those meeting notes?
Every single “how to run effective meetings” thing ever says there should always be a dedicated note taker. But how often do those notes get read? Who is reading them? Anyone?
Weekly journal: 2023-01-08
As part of my year of connection, I’m going to experiment with a weekly journal here to connect with myself. You’ll probably be bored if you read this.
Let me write, I mean, think about it
Writing as a form of thinking is maybe the single most valuable personal habit I’ve built in the past few years.tuns
What are you subtracting in 2023?
Most New Year’s resolutions are additive. More exercise. More water. More books. More learning. More money. More passion. More more more.
Apple Reminders sucks at subtasks
I tried to switch to Apple Reminders for all my todos, but the garbage (and downright weird) subtask support killed it.
Weekly journal: 2023-01-01
As part of my year of connection, I’m going to experiment with a weekly journal here to connect with myself. You’ll probably be bored if you read this.
Five things I like right now: January, 2022
A phone case and charger, Apple Reminders, a short story, a web app, and Cloud To Butt.
2023: The Year of Connection
I want deeper connections to everything. To my family, to myself, to the world, to my work.
2022 annual review, kids edition
I ran my kids through a Tim Ferriss style annual review. Here are the raw notes, just because.
No, the average American home probably doesn’t contain 300,000 items
That number gets thrown around a lot as fact, particularly in “minimalism is the answer!!!11” contexts.
“Your calendar is a better measure of success than your bank account.”
As 2023 rolls around, now may be a good time to work out your ideal week. What do you want your calendar to look like? How can you make that the reality?
The beauty of an empty Downloads folder
“Downloads is the new Desktop” as they say. Crap just gathers there. It’s worse than my garage.
Five random work conversation starters
These are good for anything from cross-team lean coffee sessions to 1-1s with direct reports.
Regular 1-1 question: “What gave you anxiety in the past week?”
Just voicing your anxiety can go a long way towards fixing it. Try making this question a regular part of 1-1s with your boss (and your direct reports if you’re a manager).
On maximizing leverage
Here are a list of ways to answer a question, in order of low to high leverage…
If we are not building relationships…
It’s like the old cliche in business: “When you stop growing you start dying.”
Relationship overhead of large teams
A five-person team has 10 relationships and a nine-person team has 36 relationships.
ChatGPT uses for lazy managers
“Here are the OKRs for my team. Please generate a slide presentation about them.” (Or, please rewrite them in the form of a rap song. Or, write a short story about them. And so on.)
“Why We Sleep” considered harmful?
Ever since reading about the replication crisis, I’ve enjoyed watching so many “must-read” self-help books get debunked.
“What are you hoping to get out of this meeting?”
If the “parting a-ha” is my new favorite end-of-meeting ritual, then this is my new favorite start-of-meeting ritual.
Nice things should be repeated
The great tragedy of compliments is that the receivers may think the givers don’t feel that way anymore if they stop saying so, but the givers assume the receivers know it’s still true unless they hear otherwise.
Talk to me when the novelty wears off
Because you don’t know if it’s working until it’s old and working.
Click and drag to rearrange Zoom participants
You can click and drag people in Zoom meetings to rearrange and reorder the tiles.
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Mike Crittenden 