Dolly Parton, screen apnea, and the Meaningful 67.

I've been binge-listening to Dolly Parton and doing something I almost never do, which is watching videos on YouTube.

When I was four, I sang "Two Doors Down" to my grandparents to their 8-track. I still remember it clearly. Last year I listened to Dolly Parton's America, one of the best podcast series I've ever heard, and her Imagination Library stuck with me.

This year Kevin built me my own Little Free Library. It has been such a joy. I can't think of anyone in our society right now who was as lovable and loving as Dolly, didn't take sides, and is the epitome of what it means to be a good human.

On to work.

I spoke for the Georgia Society of CPAs on deep focus, fewer fires. and taming the inbox. At the end I asked what people were committing to and what their first move would be in the next seven days. It was a big room, and of the four people who answered out loud, three said the same thing: they were going to breathe more, because they had just realized they had screen apnea.

One attendee, Michelle Anthony, came up afterward and showed me the word "breathe" tattooed on her arm. She figured out a few years ago that she was holding her breath through the workday.

This week I also spoke to the NC State Park Scholars on deep focus, fewer fires. College students aren't my typical audience, but I always love to hear their takeaways, and a big one was not realizing how much their devices were effecting their sleep.

​Action Club hit week three. I love this kind of coaching, and it's especially fun when team members do it together. They go farther, faster, with shared language and an opening to conversations they weren't having.

It was also my birthday weekend. I already do a lot of reflection and planning, and this year I started the Meaningful 67, created by my friends Justin and Tanya Jones-Fosu.

Kevin said he'd do it with me. We walked three miles around Lake Johnson while I read him all of the instructions, and we talked through what our challenges would be. I already do a lot of them. He doesn't, and he's excited. Afterward, we went for a walk, had Yemeni coffee, and filled out our goals. I'm grateful he loves reflections, weekly family meetings, and planning with me.

I also had a few friends over to watch the Rocky Horror documentary and the movie. One of them performs as Frank-N-Furter next month. Another is a superfan who made me an amazing cake that will go down in cake history.

On my actual birthday: my annual birthday donut, solo coffee time, Brussels sprouts for lunch, and a massage in the afternoon. Beautiful messages and videos from friends and family all day. Plus a lot of mountain biking!

When you get this, I'll be having coffee with my friend Wendy and heading into a music-filled weekend, watching Kevin play three shows in two different bands.

On with the Weekender!

​Episode 128: Why Your Top Priority May Never Get Done: Ability, Capacity, or Agency The mini keynote I recorded in Austin, and where the The Right Things First: A Pocket Guide to Relentless Prioritization came from. This episode walks through the Relentless Prioritization Filter: Three questions that help you identify the actual bottleneck rather than optimizing the symptom.

One Thing You Can Do Now: Pick the meeting you'd least want to defend as necessary, and ask whether it should happen at all instead of making it shorter. WATCH 14 min Which meeting was yours? Reply and let me know. I'm collecting them. Prefer to read? Here's the 5-minute version.​

​The Right Things First is Here​ The little guide that fits in your back pocket. Most productivity advice helps you do more.

This one helps you decide what deserves doing at all. ​The Right Things First: A Pocket Guide to Relentless Prioritization covers health, work, relationships, home, and digital life in a 3.5-by-5-inch format. Every copy includes a free 65-minute audio version I recorded, so your team can listen on their commute.It works on its own or alongside The Right Things First keynote or training. Bulk pricing starts at 10 copies. ​ ORDER HERE​

Inside Action Club ​ Two commitments: One member started scheduling her replies to send later instead of firing them off as soon as she wrote them. This cuts down on the back-and-forth conversation.

The harder part, in her words: she was already comfortable making some people wait, just not the senior ones. The tactic was easy. Giving herself permission was the work. Another stopped flagging emails she didn't have time to answer. Once she counted how many she was flagging with no plan to act on them, the pile of flags turned out to be a second inbox. Two ahas: Most of what gets called a focus problem is a reentry problem. You didn't lose your concentration. You lost your way back in. Responsive and reactive are not the same thing, and neither are dependability and reactivity. Being fast isn't what makes people count on you.

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P.S. Thinking about the Pocket Guide for your team? Reply with the number of copies you'd want and I'll send you a quote. Bulk starts at 10.​