What Works

Here we are at the tail end of 2025. I just "opened" my Spotify Unwrapped... And after 3 years of burnout recovery, I’m finally ready to figure out what getting my shit together in the shadow of everything I’ve learned about myself and my needs in the last five years is going to look like.

It’s tempting to assume that getting one’s shit together is a forward-looking pursuit. You know, “Here are all the things I’m going to do.” But, in my opinion, an important part of getting one’s shit together is taking stock of said shit. And so this episode is a step in that direction. I enlisted my husband, Sean, to do a bit of a year-end review. 

This review is in no way comprehensive. It’s a wee bit stilted. And if it sounds a little forced, it is—because getting your shit together takes doing some things that you’re out of practice with.

This episode is simply an exercise in remembering. It’s that first awkward practice that you just have to get through at the beginning of a new season. 

Getting my shit together is very much a work in progress, not a grand announcement of some new project or direction for my work. Maybe that will come. Maybe it won’t. My main objective is to feel like I’m steering the ship again.

Heads up: this will be my final new episode of 2025. I'll be back on January 8 with fresh ideas, stories, and ways to rethink work.

This episode contains repeated uses of the word "shit," so if that's something you'd prefer not to hear. Skip this one!

Footnotes:

If you’ve ever chosen an ambitious, unconventional, or deeply meaningful aim only to see your plan devolve into something far more run-of-the-mill, this one is for you.

Footnotes:

Try as we might, many of us can’t shake the overwhelming sense that we're just too damn busy—that feeling that there’s something we’re forgetting about, somewhere we should be, some person we should be checking on.

Busyness is sticky. And that’s because busyness is more than the amount of stuff we have on our to-do lists or the appointments on our calendars. Busyness is social, structural, and even political—though our go-to “solutions” for it tend to be individual. This episode examines busyness on a deeper level—and in doing so, offers ideas for how navigate it with more care and grace. And I can think of no better way to start than by talking about The Pitt. 

First, we’ll explore a nuanced theory of what busyness is and why we experience it. And then, we’ll distinguish between two forms of busyness and why differentiating between the two matters for how we navigate our responsibilities. Finally, I have a few recommendations for how we can approach limiting the harms of busyness without isolating ourselves.

Footnotes:

How we think about a problem or goal really matters. The variables we include, the relationships we draw between them, the flows of influence or resources—they change the interventions we choose. They change what interventions might even be possible.

Today, an episode about crosswords, coffee shops, and rethinking your assumptions.