🥁 Sniffaris, T-Shirt Wisdom, and the Future of Jobs

I’m Allison Stadd, drummer turned CMO, and I write for people who want the way we work to work for us.

This issue’s soundtrack:

Happy Sunday,

Here are 12 things for your creative larder this week:

🧘‍♀️ A guide to 6 ways to practice mindfulness that don’t involve sitting cross-legged alone in silence: The “point” of meditation is to get rid of some clutter in your mind. That can happen without a meditation cushion, a straight spine, or a sound bath.

🧭 A quote from on reorienting your life in the direction of what you actually want to be doing with it, instead of how you think you ought to be living it:

“[W]e’re living in an era when all the old rules seem to be changing, and when the most powerful people on earth ignore all the rules anyway. So might it be worth reassessing your lifelong strategy of following the rules as dutifully as possible?”

🛋️ An exploration of refusing the “open-office model” of existence: This great piece from discusses how rest is a critical part of creativity:

“Our creativity is not mechanical—insert coin, get output. It’s botanical. It thrives in the rich soil of rest, where seeds of inspiration can lie dormant, then bloom. Rest is not the opposite of productivity; it’s the soil that makes the harvest possible.”

💭 A list of 17 AI prompts for deeper thinking: I like how conceptualizes how we can stay thinkers in an age of machines that can “think”, too. She advocates for treating AI as a thinking partner rather than a thinking replacement. The prompts she shares here are from classic critical thinking frameworks that make your AI conversations more useful.

🤯 A realization that your happiness is more dependent on HOW you choose than WHAT you choose: dives into why satisficing (choosing something relatively quickly that meets your basic criteria) is so much more satisfying than maximizing (exhaustively researching and comparing all available options to optimize outcomes).

👕 An idea from my close friend and former colleague to make shirts printed with just the word “Alas,” to which he’d point periodically throughout the day. Genius. What else would be fun to print on a shirt?

• "That's One Way To Do It"

• "Technically"

• “Fine”

🧠 A theory that you’re not just the average of the 5 people closest to you, you’re the average of the 5 places, the 5 routines, and the 5 inputs you’re exposed to most: The idea that the spaces you occupy shape who you are is absolutely true in my experience. Living in New York for the 10 most formative years of my career changed my life. I don’t believe I would have learned and grown as much and as quickly as I did in another environment. Likewise for my residence in Philly now: I don’t think I could be as grounded and balanced in a more hectic (blood pressure too high) OR a smaller (not stimulating enough) place.

✍️ A month’s worth of daily creative prompts: 30 thoughtful, gentle journaling prompts from . My favorite: “If your current morning routine had a personality, how would you describe it, and do you like them?”

😵‍💫 A look at the concept of a “creative hangover” and how to kick it: Why might a productive, fulfilling creative day leave you feeling worse the next morning? And is there, then, an optimal way to maximize creative energy and output? I loved this Creative Factor interview with cognitive scientist & creative director (what a cool combo) Kaile Smith.

👓 A challenge to identify the five items in your personal style “starter pack”: I love this prompt from : “What are the five items so essentially you that someone could use them to cosplay you entirely?” It works beyond personal style, too; what are the five behaviors or tendencies so essentially you as a leader? What are the five things you bring to every close relationship? Etc.

💻 A look at how “jobs are a silly phase that work is going through”: I had the chance to hear speak at a marketing leadership summit last year and have gobbled up all his writing since then. He has a fascinating, clear-eyed perspective on the future of work. In this piece he argues that work will be increasingly done asynchronously by distributed workforces; that “[j]ust like how people compile playlists to customize music for mood and occasion rather than buying full compact discs or vinyl records, companies are going to compile and access skills and expertise to get work done.”

And in many ways this phase makes sense cyclically:

But importantly, he argues fewer full time jobs doesn’t necessarily mean less opportunity. There may be fewer jobs but more work to be done.

👃 An invitation to take a “sniffari”: Who says dogs get to have all the fun? If you have a dog, or have ever walked one, you know they love sniffing. (My mom calls it “reading the news”—checking out the scents other dogs have left at prime-time spots.) Dogs experience the world primarily through their noses, and sniffing releases feel-good chemicals in their brains plus gives them a sense of control over their environment. A “sniffari” is a slow, intentional walk designed around scent exploration. According to Woof, this enrichment can be more tiring than physical exercise! Try one with a dog or on your own. Let your nose, rather than your eyes, lead you on a 15-20 minute walk; slow down and stop whenever you encounter a new scent.

Go get ‘em this week,

Allison

Folks across 42 U.S. states and 73 countries from companies like LVMH, Unilever, Salesforce, The Atlantic, and The Home Depot are reading along. You in?

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