Mountains, karaoke, and the Hope Diamond Last week, Kevin and I joined my parents, siblings, and two nieces in Asheville, North Carolina, one of my favorite cities in the country, for our first family vacation since I was a kid. We hiked Catawba Falls with my mom (which included 535 steep steps), roasted s'mores, sang karaoke (for the record, "Islands in the Stream" and "Blame It on the Rain" are much harder than they sound...), played games, and took a ghost tour. Did you know the Hope...
11 days ago • 3 min read
How many of you feel like you are Siri or Alexa to your team? If they reach out, you must respond immediately. And if you reach out to someone and it's been 32 seconds, what's taking them so long? Why it matters: Instant replies train your team to expect them, which means you've made yourself their Siri permanently. Constant urgency raises cortisol, which compromises decision-making. Nobody solves the big problem over emails. Sometimes, waiting to respond is the most developmental thing you...
21 days ago • 1 min read
Two weeks, 1,300 people, and one manager who called herself out. The last two weeks were full ones. I had the privilege of working with Delta Air Lines for the fourth time. (Bring on the Biscoff cookies!) The topic was Reclaim Your Workday, and one moment stood out. A manager realized mid-session that she was the problem for her direct reports. Interrupting them, going to their desk, stealing their focus. She said it out loud. In front of her direct report. I applauded her for it. Recognizing...
25 days ago • 3 min read
Notifications aren't on to help you be more productive. They're on to get you to use that tool more. Every alert triggers a dopamine response, your brain starts to like it, and so you leave them all on because that's the default. The default is not a strategy. Why it matters: Every notification, even ignored ones, is a microdecision that contributes to decision fatigue Being reactive feels like responsiveness. It isn't. Your clients and your team feel the difference. Badges, alerts, and...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
What a Design Day actually looks like... Last week, I spent three days in a dome house in the mountains of Burnsville, North Carolina, with my friend Wendy. I call this Design Days: No email, no meetings, just heads-down focus on one project. She was working on a keynote. I worked on my new book, The Right Things First: A Pocket Guide to Relentless Prioritization. It will literally fit in your pocket. It's with three beta readers right now, and I'll be launching it later this summer. More to...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Every ring, ping, buzz, and haptic triggers the involuntary part of your brain. The same part wired to respond to sirens and babies crying. Your brain hasn't figured out in 30 years that a Slack or Teams message isn't a survival threat. And even when you think you're ignoring it, you're not. You're making a micro decision Every. Single. Time. Why it matters: 150 emails and chat messages a day add up to 150 microdecisions before you've touched your actual work Decision fatigue follows you home...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
...cue the events, AND the connections. I keynoted Reclaim Your Workday and led an Email Extinguisher breakout at the National Society of Accounting Cooperatives conference in Nashville last week. What I love most about these events isn't the stage time. It's the conversations in between. I'm an extrovert, so staying for meals, general sessions, and entertainment isn't an obligation; it's my favorite part. I hear how businesses run, what keeps people up at night, and what problems still need...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Most meeting advice starts too late. Teams shorten meetings, clean up agendas, and tweak invite lists without asking the more important question: should the meeting happen at all? In the latest episode of the Health-Powered Productivity Podcast, I share why meeting overload is usually not a meeting problem. It's a prioritization problem. Why it Matters: Poor meeting culture steals time from high-priority work. Constant interruptions make real focus harder. Better meeting habits can't fix...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Last week, we wrapped the Reclaim Your Workday Action Club pilot, and it exceeded my expectations in the best possible way. This cohort wasn’t about tips. People implemented theme days, stopped “checking email all day,” built vacation buffer days, and started protecting focus blocks. One participant told me, “I took the first vacation I can remember where I didn’t think about work.” Heck Yeah! For an eight-week program, the attendance and completed commitments were well above industry...
2 months ago • 3 min read