I recently discovered the delightful, whimsical, and encouraging art of Jackie of chibird.com. I love her messages of taking good care of yourself, and treating yourself with gentleness and compassion.

This is yesterday's post about progress. Being productive and making progress can look so differently for each of us depending on so many things.

Are you struggling with feeling "productive" or making progress right now? What's your definition of "productive"? And does that definition fit with what's going on, the stage of life you're in, and the emotional weight that you're carrying?

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2018!

I guess self-care has been on my mind lately as all of the resources I’m sharing this month fall under that theme. I hope you’ll find them helpful:

• A blog post on what self-care really looks like.
  
• A podcast about preventing burnout.
• A book about creating a life you love.
  

 
Blog Post:
The term “self-care” is thrown around these days in reference to getting a pedicure or doing some Netflix binge-watching. In this blog post, Brianna Wiest argues that true self care is “making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.”

Podcast:
Especially here in the Silicon Valley, it’s not unusual to hear of people working 60-80+ hours/week. What is the cost to doing this? And how do we stop? The podcast episode Lead to Win: How to Beat the Burnout Culture, invites us to take some time to think about this and make some changes.
 
Book:
The title says it all- Take Time for Your Life: A Personal Coach’s 7-Step Program for Creating the Life You Want by Cheryl Richardson. She drills down into various aspects of life to help readers figure out practical ways to start living a life they love.

Happy November! Below are a few things I hope you’ll find helpful:

• An article about NOT being busy.
• A podcast about single-tasking.
• A book about the 20s.

 
Article:
In this article, We Are Broke in Our Busyness, Zoe Kim makes an argument for slowing down. She questions the value of being busy and striving. She describes the costs of being busy. She also offers suggestions on how to slow down.

Podcast Episode:
Is multi-tasking really an efficient way to get things done? The podcast episode Note to Self: Spring Cleaning for the Mind, invites us to consider single-tasking instead.

Book Recommendation:
Are the 20s all about dating, having fun, and exploring? Maybe, but that's not all that they should be about. Meg Jay's book, The Defining Decade describes the professional and relational tasks that twenty-somethings need to focus on accomplishing.