Places to Put Things
When I think about work, I sometimes visualize a collection of little boxes in which I can put things. This is true of paid work—the projects that help me make rent and buy groceries—but also the sort of work I…
What I’ve Got
It can be useful to embrace your limitations when you feel stuck, uninspired, or unable to make any progress on some task or undertaking. Sometimes you’re missing what feels like a vital component or data-point, and the slow-down is related…
Energetic Expenditures
There are countless ways we might visualize our portfolio of intrinsic resources, but one metaphor I find to be useful is that of electrical production and expenditure. You can produce electricity in all sorts of ways, ranging from the burning…
Motivation Sources
To what degree is what I want shaped by how I think others will treat me if I get it? This is a question I ask myself semi-regularly, as I think it helps me focus on what’s truly important to…
Notes On Speaking
I’ve been speaking professionally (in the sense of standing up in front of groups of people and talking for a while, for money) since 2009 (though it didn’t become a real-deal part of my career until a few years after…
The Spark
Recent data almost universally suggest we’re in the midst of a loneliness epidemic. Folks are spending less time with friends and acquaintances, more time wishing they were hanging out with other people, and are benefitting from fewer of the warm feelings we tend…
Weighing Maybes
I’m in the process of figuring out “formats” for some experimentation I’m doing in the video world. In publishing or production, your format is a bit like a template you use for whatever it is you’re making. So the format…
Training Wheels
A few months ago, I decided I should learn to do crossword puzzles. My dad’s done them as far back as I can remember, always opting for the hardest ones—which for the New York Times means those at the end of the…
Fumbling and Juggling
I turn 38 this weekend, and as tends to be the case every year I’ve been wrangling over whether to instill the day with additional meaning (beyond the accolade of having survived another orbit around the sun). My inclination is…
Microgrid Thinking
In the world of energy transmission and utility, a “microgrid” is an electrical grid that operates like a typical grid, but smaller and more modular. When we talk about electrical grids, we’re talking about all the energy generation elements (power…