In honor of joining a new book club, I'm digging this post out of the archives from January 2020 and publishing it here.

"I am part of everything that I have read." Theodore Roosevelt

Last year my goal was to read one book a month. I just tallied my results:

• 23 Audible Books
• 15 Kindle or Traditional Books

Thirty-eight books, I blew my goal out of the water. And the truth is, my list of books I would like to read grows bigger each day. If you throw in all the articles I would like to get to from my favorite writers and bloggers, I could spend all of 2020 cozied up with a book.

Although that sounds amazing, real-life would set in fast. Is there a way to consume all the content that piques my interest and still participate in real life? Let’s dive into speed reading and find out.

Business or Pleasure

There’s a special kind of joy that comes from curling up with a good book. Taking your time to follow along with each word as the author weaves their story. ...

The dark and dusty attic was full of old furniture, holiday decor, and boxes.  Over 40 years of memories stored in these rafters.  I opened a box to find my childhood journals.

I opened the pink journal on top and read “Another LONG day in the car.  Almost 8 hours!” 

HA!  These were my tales from a two-week journey from Northern California to Yellowstone National Park.  My summers were defined by the family road trip.  Dad would start each day with his checklist of our must-see/do for the day.  

• Wake up at dawn
• Drive into the park - don’t miss the bison
• Checkout Old Faithful
• Relax a bit at Old Faithful Inn
• Move onto Morning Glory Pool
• You get the idea….

Have you ever thought about how much of your vacation style is shaped by the trips you took as a child?  

Fast forward to my Tahitian honeymoon a decade later.  I awoke on my first day in paradise and hightailed...

Yesterday I lost my shit.

In two weeks we should be in paradise (AKA Hawaii) but we still hadn’t booked our COVID tests. I delegated it to my husband but he didn’t seem to give it the same level of importance it was currently occupying in my brain.

I pulled out my laptop determined to finally check this off my list.  In just a few mouse clicks, I realized all the free appointments were gone.  Putting this off was now going to cost us.

I was grumpy, irritated and felt rushed.  I finally found the best option and got hubby on board to complete the online paperwork.

My temper tantrum was 100% a result of a mismanaged task list. I fell off track with managing my list.  This is a reminder for me and hopefully it helps you too.

To-Do List Like a Boss

The first step is to find a system for organizing tasks that works for you. I’m not going to get into that here but I recommend finding one that works for your ...

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” Steve Jobs

Thanks, Steve, but what if you don’t know how to go after those BIG dreams? 

We talked about how to set goals for your dreams. Now let’s dive deeper into the action plans for your achievement goals (not habits).  The steps you need to take to bring yourself closer to living out those dreams.

Often we feel lost and overwhelmed with anxiety with the thought of sitting down to tackle those big dreams. This is because you don’t have a clear path to your dream.  How do you face this unknown? I want to share with you a tested method I picked up from Jessica Abel.

Start with the Questions

First, write down all the questions that occur to you in a short brainstorming session.   

You could use a journal, a digital notebook or any other means of capturing info that works for you. (NOTE: keep this list handy so...

“A person should set his goals as early as he can and devote all his energy and talent to getting there. With enough effort, he may achieve it. Or he may find something that is even more rewarding. But in the end, no matter what the outcome, he will know he has been alive.” — Walt Disney

Walt definitely knew how to dream. The more remarkable thing is that he made those dreams come to life.

How do we dream BIG like Walt without slipping into the world of fantasy?

Start with Your Why

If you’ve created a life plan, tie your goals back to the areas of your life that need the most attention.  

No life plan? That’s ok. (Although I HIGHLY recommend it). Wherever you want to focus your goal, think first about why. You’re going to have to dig deep here.  It must be tied to your values.  What really matters.

“If the heart doesn’t find a perfect rhyme with the head, then your passion means...

The day I bought my first Franklin Covey Planner in the 90s is a fond memory.  Categorizing tasks into quadrants of urgency and importance (Eisenhower Matrix) blew my mind.

Yes, I geeked out on my planner.  

Fast forward another ten years and my baby girl taught me that life doesn’t always fit into neat little boxes.  She was a colicky baby and to this day a free-spirited girl.  She challenges the status quo while I grip my to-do lists.  

Every brain is wired differently. I agreed, in theory, but I didn’t grasp the concept until I was changing its diapers.  

These struggles turned into a journey that changed my concept of mental health.  

I won’t get into all the gritty details here but if you want to more check out my outdated Instagram account.  Today, mental health is at the core of Life After Busy.   You need to take care of your mind to craft your best life.  

I’m not a mental...

Last weekend felt normal.  We had dinner inside a restaurant with friends and both kids competed in their sports.  Seems like coronavirus might be loosening its grip.

One lesson I’m taking away from all the isolation and quarantine of the last year is the power of routine. 

Now you're thinking...routine sounds boring.  Why should you care?

Here are the benefits of establishing routines:

1. Lower stress levels

Even if it’s not a mediation routine, going through a practice over and over again each day will calm your mind.  Plus, if you have routines in place to get it all done, your brain can stop worrying.

2. Form good daily habits

If you are trying to work on anything from spending more time with your kids to losing weight.  Building a routine around that habit will increase your success.

3. Take better care of your health

What’s the change you want to make for your health?  Develop a routine to support that change...

It’s been in my closet since we moved into this house over a year ago. A giant whiteboard with sketches to organize my dreams because some “guru” said I needed it. A tool I wasted too much time on because it worked for somebody else. 

GASP! I just took a closer look at those sketches. I date one April 2019!

I love checking off to-do lists and planning the details of my day. I admire those that can easily see the big picture, and if that’s you, I have a giant whiteboard for ya. It’s littering my precious closet space.

Have you ever felt that spending time to organize yourself is an exercise in futility? It’s not you!  It’s the tools.

This assessment helps you find your personal productivity style. Go ahead, take it.  Who doesn’t love personality tests?

Cognitive Style

In school, and as parents, we are told to identify and work with learning styles. They labeled some kids visual learners, while others did...

Managing your to-do list should never take more time than checking those boxes.

This is the wasteland of productivity. I have waded through it too.  

We all want a system that’s effortless.  Something that supports the way our brains work rather than drag down our productivity.

The ideal is to find a system that works with you and then make productivity improvements.

Remember when you tested a hypothesis in junior high school science class?  Memories of the egg drop experiment are rushing to me.  You designed a vessel to protect an egg when dropped and then tweaked it until it worked.

Let’s use the same approach with your productivity.  Test these changes and see what works for you:

Email Monster

Can you believe about 28 percent of the workweek is managing e-mail?  That’s over a quarter of your time spent on someone else’s priorities. Some reasons we spend so much time on email...

Gripping tightly to my mom’s shoulders, I hobbled from the car to my daughter’s first-grade classroom.  I had just celebrated my 40th birthday, but no doubt I moved like a 90-year-old

I was using my mom as a makeshift walker.     

Looking back on it now, I have no clue how I maneuvered my broken body into a tiny wooden first-grade desk.  After the Back to School presentation wrapped up, one of the other moms put her arm around me to ask what was wrong.

“I’ve got scoliosis,” I sighed, “and this just happens every once in a while.”

She offered to come to my house and rub magic oil on to relax my spasming muscles. Kinda creepy but desperate for any relief, I agreed.

The oil didn’t save me.  

Had I reached a new low in my desperation to stop the back pain?  

After I regained the ability to stand upright, my mission was to sit less.

Sitting is the New Smoking

This phrase caught on like...