Author: 52weeks

I’m reading Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman which highlights the fact that the lifespan of us average humans is about four thousand weeks. As someone who’s always chasing time, it stopped me cold.

Recently, I’d been looking at my company product road map. As I looked at the three-year-out delivery dates, it hit me that in 2025 I’d simply be three years older. Not three years happier, not three years ahead, just three years older.

Then a funny thing happened, after a very long time (1378 weeks to be exact) working for a very large company, I was let go. I was hugely fortunate that my long service rewarded me with an incredible gift—paid time. Beautiful, elusive, hopeful time. Full of possibility, hope, and joy.

It was bit weird to be let go “remotely”—no physical building to leave or iconic cardboard box stuffed with family photos—just a meeting with HR in the comfort of my own home.

The last time my role was made redundant, I was invited to a meeting in an office that I had no idea existed with someone I had never seen before. Locating the door (unusual for an open plan environment!) felt like searching for Platform 9¾, I don’t think it presented itself to someone until you needed to go.

This time, I’d received a meeting invite late Thursday from my manager (the cheery term invite always tickles me) and an unfamiliar name was added overnight. Friday, the unfamiliar name started the meeting a few minutes before the hour, I hopped on, and everything changed. So with my husband working in our bedroom, my son enjoying a snow day home from school, and me wearing comfortable slippers, I was virtually—but actually—let go.

Throughout all of the reorgs I’d experienced—I took on new, expanded roles. I was continually challenged and incredibly grateful to work with talented, kind colleagues; many of whom became my dearest friends.

So since structure is also one of my dearest friends—I decided to record my progress and what shifts and changes along the way. I initially included a countdown widget on the blog but the down-to-the-second visual ticking, like the 4000 weeks calendar, was slightly terrifying.

I’ll share my game plan in Week 2—see you next time, same bat channel!

Hello, glad you’re here! As I mentioned last week, structure is my friend so with that in mind, here’s the game plan for the blog:

1. The Post: weekly post featuring mentions and links to positive, helpful people and information that I’ve found really worth sharing. Anyone who knows me, knows I just love to pass good stuff along. There’s an underlying scientifically-proven benefit that sharing what brings you joy effectively affects your happiness levels the same way compound interest works on your finances. Psychology Today cites Albert Schweitzer, German physician and Nobel Peace Prize winner, as saying “Happiness is the only thing that multiplies when you share it.” I’ll bank on that.

2. The Weekly Wrap Up: (aka Monday vs Friday): goal highlights from the week and the outcomes / lessons learned.

The Post

This week I took a rejuvenating trip to Rhode Island to visit with Stephanie and Jo: two dear and very creative former colleagues, now officially “outside of work” friends. When work is no longer the tie that binds, it’s like graduating to a higher degree of friendship when we hit “outside of work” status.  

Our three days were filled with exploring Providence, Rhode Island and its quaint seaside towns, shops, and galleries. All being visual designers, we equally share a love of finding beauty in what we see around us. We oohed and ahhed over packaging, beautiful light, paint colors of doors on historic homes, and possibilities of stuff we found in art shops like Mills Creek Natural Market and reuse shops like Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

The best part of the trip was our steady volley of ideas bouncing, that inspired us to prioritize working on creative projects that we parked. We even ended up setting up monthly “Makers Project” meetings to keep the momentum rolling.

I realized during my visit how each of my friend’s homes felt like them. Although Stephanie and I had seen each other almost daily working together through the pandemic, we hadn’t seen each other in person in three years. I’d never physically been in her apartment but it felt absolutely familiar. And she simply explained that it was because her apartment was her—and I know her and the stories behind so many things in her home so well.

My second Rhody pal Jo’s home also evoked the same sense of familiarity, comfort and warmth. Although Jo’s home is one of three (long story!) — each home feels like the other despite being on different sides of the Atlantic—calm, welcoming, and balanced with funny little moments and surprises tucked in.

A common thread between both is how each home reflects the considerate nature of the owner—considerate in terms of the kind nature of the friend but also how the experience of being in the home is considered. Each had a welcome mat, a clear entryway, and hooks for your things just where you needed them. Piles of fresh, soft towels, tulips bending graceful necks towards the windows. Thoughtful placements of objects like the chair set in front of a collection of kitty nose prints on Stephanie’s front window and a nautical-themed hat rack no longer gracing the walls of my son’s room greeting me when I closed the door of Jo’s guest room.

I hadn’t given my home much priority these past few years. Not having much time or energy or affection to dedicate to our apartment, the only real attention I was giving my home was listening to design podcasts like Little Yellow Couch. It sounds funny to listen to a podcast describing visuals, but it works! It’s kind of like a book versus movie experience—with a book, you interpret and personalize the content whereas a movie presents the material for you. Each Little Yellow Couch interview features a designer or artist and the impact of your surroundings on your happiness, creative process, and provides motivation for getting things done or simply making you feel better by introducing concepts or ideas that make you think in positive ways. The interview with Ingrid Fetell Lee the author of Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness is the podcast that got me hooked. (Check out Ingrid’s Ted talk for a good dive into how surroundings affect your well being. 13 minutes well spent!)

Prior to our apartment, we lived in a gorgeous 1860s-era Victorian with a wraparound porch. We sold our house way faster than expected and moved to a very modern apartment building with the intention of it being a temporary stop. Covid extended our stay from two to four years and although we have been looking for a house the past year—we hesitatingly signed another year-long lease. Thinking that feeling better in our space will lead to positive outcomes, I’ve added uplifting our home to the 52 weeks game plan. Inspired by yoga teacher Tara Stiles’ Feel Better podcast on how feng shui can bring more ease, abundance, love and joy into your life, I followed the prompt to leave the apartment so I could start at the front door with a user-centered perspective to gauge how each step made me feel. There’s the aesthetics of course—but also the ease or lack thereof that you feel in the space. Is the entryway clear or is it a dumping zone that depletes your energy as soon as you walk it? Is there a place to sit and take off your shoes? Can you simply function and do the things you want to do or is it just too much effort to move things out of the way?

I’ve taken a few steps since the walkthrough. I’d been treating the apartment as temporary but a fifth year of temporary time is still time worth counting.

The Weekly Wrap Up (Monday vs Friday)

So, as Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch (80s icon alert) used to famously ask: How am I doin’? Well overall not bad! Overwhelmed at times, excited at others, happy every day to have time with my family but worried by the blur of days on the calendar. Here’s a few highlights:

• Goal: Buy new iPhone!
• Outcome: done! updating from an iPhone 6 has been a game changer.
• Lessons learned: Buy a case for the phone straight away! I was waiting to get a gorgeous one of a kind case from Carved and dropped my phone on Day 3. I thought the screen cracked but was so relieved when the Apple genius told me just the Belkin screen protector was cracked. The folks at Apple store at Ridge Hill were super helpful and I highly recommend the free learning sessions—I was the only one and enjoyed a private lesson. Thank you Belkin for a great product and excellent customer service to quickly send a replacement.

• Goal: Learn to blog!
• Outcome: Well, I’ve jumped around from Squarespace to Google blogger, had a look at Mailchimp and Wix, and landed back on Wordpress where I had a blog about ten years ago. A huge headache to decouple from Squarespace. That’s a whole blog post in itself. Takeaway: if you use Squarespace: write post drafts in google doc. Squarespace doesn’t autosave. Ugh.
• Goal: prepare taxes!
• Outcome: Done! And shocked how little we got back. The credits with the pandemic were helpful during the year but definitely not the refunds we used to look forward to.
• Goal: work with son on preparing for Sixth Grade tests on Greek history and the Nervous System.
• Outcome: Decent grades on both tests! Greek history focuses on logic and the Socratic Method; all about asking questions to identify the problem and the outcome you want, reviewing and improving. Greeks apparently were agile UX experts! 

THANKS for reading through—and one last thought to share that I picked up from the email signature of a lovely person from the National Parks Service (that’s another post!) I hope reading through has made you feel good.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Maya Angelou

Stay in touch! See you next week!

The Post

I grew up watching reruns of I Love Lucy (and thought it was very unfair Lucy didn’t get to work at the club with Ricky) and one of my favorite episodes was when Lucy and her pal Ethel worked at a candy factory. Their task was to wrap candy on an assembly line and as the conveyor belt sped up, Lucy and Ethel did whatever they could to stay ahead of the relentless stream of chocolate. Little did I know that I’d often feel like Lucy when I grew up but with a hyperactive inbox instead of chocolate! I, too, had an amazing work partner—and we could never quite figure out which one of us was Lucy!

This week, I was surprised to feel rushed and panicked even though I’m not working for a company at the moment. I’m back to racing the clock—ticking through multiple lists and decisions and even though my time is my own, I still can’t harness it. What I want to do and what I need to do are in competition while I hurry to set things in motion that need time to progress outside of my hands.

And just when I needed a good calming down—one of my most intuitive friends shared an email from Supplies for Creative Living, a shop that offers art workshops and materials in the charming Hudson River town of Cold Spring, New York.

To always be open to beginning again. That the gawky, awkward phase is an intrinsic part of growing. To not rush or chase, nothing good gets away. To aspire to linger in the moments that are pleasurable without guilt, with full and present enjoyment. (Hammocks, furry pet cuddling and smelling growing things come to mind.)  That maybe we don’t always need to search for the right answer and the next move; maybe just by enjoying, being and making space, we’re all exactly where we are meant to be.

The full quote reads:

If it is right, it happens —The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

John Steinbeck advising his love-sick teenage son

I really needed this reminder. If it’s good for you, it’ll still be there. Sometimes it takes a few turns to get to the good thing. Or the thing that’s good may not be good for you. And sometimes what you thought was good at the time, you thank yourself later that you missed it.

The Weekly Wrap Up (Monday vs Friday)

So, how’d I do? Here’s a few highlights:

Goal: apply to Google

Outcome: well, looks like amazing jobs go fast. The one that got me excited closed within a week and I missed my shot. I’ve heard quick windows likely have internal candidates however this was a great kick in the pants and I learned a lot from youtube resume tip videos from Google.

Goal: figure out COBRA

Outcome: One of the most unintuitive acronyms ever, and nothing to do with the Karate Kid or reptiles, the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) gives workers and their families in the United States who lose their health benefits the right to choose to continue group health benefits provided by their group health plan. Also sorted through Life Insurance, 401K and other details. Done. Family covered. Now no excuse for me to get all the health stuff I’ve been putting off done.

Goal: Organize April Fool’s Prank

Outcome: I love celebrating low-stress, no-stress holidays and Friday was April Fool’s Day! As a fan of harmless, funny pranks—nothing embarrassing—just pure lighthearted silliness, this year I surprised my son with a super-sized drink complete with clementine garnish and a dozen jumbo “rocks” ice cubes meant for sipping whiskey. Cheers!

For a fun April Fools Day romp (and if you want to hear about a few more of the pranks I’ve managed to pull off), check out the Jocular Pugilists podcast “The Best Podcast You’ll Ever Listen to… April Fools, it’s Just OK“ available on iTunes or wherever you download podcasts.

THANKS for reading through—go do something silly. It’ll make you feel better.

Stay in touch and see you next week!

Hello again! Thanks for checking in!

At this point—I’ve been five weeks out in the wild. Five weeks out of the 52 that make up the year. Which roughly translates to .096 percent—really, really close to 10%. 

10% doesn’t seem like a whole lot when you’re looking at those thermometer fundraising goal posters that someone dutifully colors in with worn Sharpie markers but yet when it comes to my own weeks ticking away, I sat straight up and mentally shouted, “I’VE ONLY GOT 90% LEFT”! 

Thankfully, my self-soothing, optimistic other self piped in. “Hey! You. Calm down. 90% is a LOT. A lot of time. A positive lot of time!”

Now, not that negative can’t be good—in artwork and in design, negative space can be magical. You may see things differently. Or see another version of something appear. The invisible becomes visible. Your eyes and mind work together to draw conclusions and connect dots that aren’t physically connected. Negative space is important. Like pauses in music, those measures of rest allow you time to appreciate what’s happening and create distinctions.

The FedEx logo is a classic example. (Hint: look at the white space between E and x…)

But hey, back to that 10% which brought to mind the book 10% Happier by Dan Harris that my fellow positivity enthusiast nephew and his ever-wise wife introduced to me. 

After a panic attack on live TV, author Dan Harris eventually found meditation to help him focus and become happier. He’s gone on to create a terrific blog and podcast series focusing on mindfulness and getting happier.

The 10% Happier podcast “A New Way to Think About Your Time” with Ashley Whillans explores how intentional you are with your time is a key to happiness. In it, Whillans describes her research which led her to radically reevaluate how she spends her own time and how to move from “time poverty” to “time affluence” by exploring:

• how to do a time audit
• funding time, finding time, and reframing time
• the surprising extent to which prioritizing time over money predicts happiness—and what to do if you usually do the opposite
• the value of canceling meetings

I hope this post has been a positive use of your time and made you at least 1% happier! And here’s a little visual treat to enjoy. Something negative (besides a Covid test result) that’ll make you smile. 

The Weekly Wrap Up (Monday vs Friday)

So, how’d I do? Here’s a few highlights and takeaways 

• Goal: finalize resume. Amazing how agonizing putting yourself on one page can be.
• Outcome: thrilled to have this checked of my list with invaluable help from my resume coach DeeDee at Right Management. Also learned to customize resume according to the roles for which I am applying.

• Goal: create online portfolio
• Outcome: not perfect but progress! It’s up, living, and now I’ve got a place to upload things as I find them. The portfolio app from adobe is user-friendly and gorgeous.

• Goal: practice some “Life UX”. Essentially, make improvements in daily life by identifying a challenge, seeing what worked, what didn’t, and addressing the pain points.
• Outcome: I love time in the car with my son and drive my son to school every chance I get. Our middle school has an incredibly well-orchestrated drop-off system which involves filling the horseshoe-shaped driveway with two concentric rings of cars two times. After the first cycle is filled, kids get out. This depends upon a choreography of hand signals, shouts, and movable parking barriers. It’s an effective system and ensures safety. For the first time ever, we didn’t make it into the first cycle! By one car! We had to then wait for all the cars to leave. Although, we were the first car in round two, we had to wait for the whole repeat cycle. My son, like me, loves a buffer to get settled before sprinting into the day. And never being in the late ring—my son worried he’d be counted as late even though he was there! As a real rule abider—I wouldn’t let him jump out. (It’s also dangerous!) So that night we reviewed the morning to see where we lost time—hard-to-tie Vans sneakers, my grandma-driving, and tangle of backpack straps and seat belt needed efficiency. We’ve made it into cycle one every day since. My husband (embodying his Formula 1 fanboy self) took the challenge to a new level and is determined to get cycle 1, ring 1, number 1 position—but much like Mr. Bean and his three-wheeled Robin nemesis, the same car always beats him.

Hope to see you next week! Subscribe and stay in touch!