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I’m kvelling! A few weeks ago a wonderful Fast Company writer, Stephanie Vozza, approached me for input into an article on how to be as productive as possible during the summer. I told her that I actually thought the opposite: that summer should be for relaxing, and, moreover, that in summer people often relax into […]
Parenting Is Not a Zero Sum Game!
February 17, 2017 By 2 Comments
From Evelyn Tsitas, an exceptionally useful blog post about what it took for her to write her thesis: Admit it, if you are a mother, there is always that nagging voice somewhere – yours or some critic – that says ‘intense focus and study at the expense of much of everything else in your life […]
Do You Have a “Room of ReQUIETment?”
October 28, 2016 By Leave a Comment
Continuing on last week’s Harry Potter theme, I want to ask you: Do you have a “Room of ReQUIETment?” Of course that’s a play on Room of Requirement, the fantastic room at Hogwarts that could be anything, supply anything, a student needed. Back in 1929, Virginia Woolf published A Room of One’s Own, which discussed, […]
The Problem With Daily Word Counts
July 13, 2015 By Leave a Comment
This list of the daily word counts of famous authors has been making the rounds. The top producers, by far, are the late thriller writer Michael “Jurassic Park” Crichton and the late British historical novelist R. F. Delderfield, who both apparently wrote 10,000 words a day. Then we’ve got one 6,000-word-a-day chap (thriller writer John Creasy), a […]
Marriage Equality and How to Cope with Success-Related Losses
July 4, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Last week was amazing, here in the U.S. We started with despair (at the murder of the nine black parishioners by a Confederate-flag-wearing white supremacist in Charleston), followed by hope (a newfound widespread rejection of said flag), relief (the Supreme Court ruling preserving the Obamacare subsidies), and, finally, jubilation (the ruling establishing marriage equality as […]
Don’t Let Unintended/Unwanted Consequences Hold Back Your Projects
May 14, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Reblogged from the Thesis Whisperer. The anonymous author of this piece, originally entitled “What’s it like to Finish?”, does a great job of articulating how even a great success, like finishing a thesis, will almost always yield some unwanted consequences. Often we at least intuit these, and the fear of them can cause us to […]
How to Deal With Your Family Over the Holidays
December 19, 2014 By Leave a Comment
For many people, holidays are incredibly stressful. Even leaving aside issues related to family history and dynamics, when people who happen to be related but don’t have much in common get together there can be multiple points of contention, including food, politics, and religion. Here are some tips for coping. 1) Educate Yourself (or Refresh […]
My Most-Read Posts from 2013
December 18, 2013 By Leave a Comment
My most-read posts from 2013, in case you’ve missed any of them. Why, in Writing, Process Trumps Product, And Why You Shouldn’t Worry About The Quality of Your Work This is Called Situational Perfectionism Why You Shouldn’t Wait for Ideal Conditions to Start Your Project What to Do If You are Stuck in the Middle […]
Thank you AmEx OpenForum…
December 18, 2013 By Leave a Comment
…for including this blog on a list of The 10 Small Business Bloggers to Follow in 2014!
Guest Post: Your Power Zone
September 26, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Second guest post by Linda Marks. Given that, the older I get, the more life seems like a balancing act, the below rings very true. When reading it, bear in mind that procrastination and underproductivity are caused by disempowerment. So, we can infer that moving too far along any of the dimensions Cedar identifies can […]
Why the Middles of Projects are Tough (Part 3): Middles Have Middles!
August 13, 2013 By Leave a Comment
I previously wrote about how the middles of projects are tough: *They’re the place where the work seems to get much tougher right at the same moment that your enthusiasm starts to ebb. *They’re a much bigger part of the project than most people realize. (Around 80%!) However, there’s another problem with middles: they have […]
I’m Offering a Powerful and Economical Online Class/TeleCoaching Bundle at The Loft
August 3, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Super-thrilled to be teaching an online class at The Loft, one of the world’s premier community writing programs, starting September 30. Even more thrilled to be offering a class/coaching bundle. The class will set you up for greater productivity; the 40 minutes of individualized telephone coaching will personalize the class information and help you amplify […]
Welcome! My goal is to help you recognize and overcome any disempowering forces in your work and life so that you can reclaim your joyful productivity and achieve your personal and professional goals more quickly and easily than you ever imagined! Thanks for checking out my site, and I always welcome your comments, suggestions, and questions at 
