🥁 Zipper Pouches, Meeting Minimalism, and a 10-Minute Morning Practice

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 11 things to rev up your creative engine this week:

📝 A “Change Your Life in 10 Minutes” Exercise from Julie Michelle Morris: I’m a sucker for a pen-and-paper self-reflection exercise and this one is a goodie.

🧠 A reminder from Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer on the need to not only accumulate information but also to reflect and digest it: “You may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself; because only through ordering what you know by comparing every truth with every other truth can you take complete possession of your knowledge and get it into your power.”

🤐 A recommendation for zipper pouches: These have become my go-to for compartmentalizing within my work backpack. I use one to hold all my chargers, one for Mary-Poppins-bag-miscellany (gum, lens wipes, Advil), etc.

📒 A lower-cognitive-load alternative to journaling: I’ve never been a successful journal keeper BUT I’ve been a lifelong list maker. And not just to-do lists & grocery lists, but lists of business ideas, quotes, life goals, meaningful moments, travel memories. If you want to journal but struggle to keep up with it, try lists. I love this list idea from Mari Andrew:

✍️ A comeback for cursive: Students across the country are practicing cursive in clubs after school and at libraries. Vulnerable confession: I still, even after having signed my name one gazillion times over the course of my lifetime, don’t have a go-to signature. I sort of constantly futz with it, try different takes on it. It’s weird because I generally have decent handwriting. I’m envious of people with great signatures!!!

🏢 A set of 33 simple, easy-to-use facilitation methods that replace or supplement conventional meeting formats: Have you heard of Liberating Structures? It’s an approach to collaboration by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless focused on “small, elegant shifts in the protocols of how we meet, plan, conference, and relate to each other.” The methods range from “25/10 Crowdsourcing” (a way to rapidly generate and sift a group’s most powerful actionable ideas) to “Nine Whys” (a way to make the purpose of a group’s work crystal clear). Something tells me Elise Granata would be into this.

📅 A “meeting minimalism” practice: Meetings are indeed the “barnacle on the hull of the business.” I love these suggestions from Rishad Tobaccowala for how to ensure they’re as painless as possible.

🎻 An unexpected suggestion for a 10-minute morning practice: In Laura Linney’s episode of the Smartless podcast, she shares that playwright Edward Albee told her to listen to Bach for 10 minutes every morning because “it organizes the mind.” I played classical percussion in high school (it was a requirement in order to participate in the jazz ensemble) and have been rediscovering this timeless music. Try this Classical Bangers playlist if you’re interested.

🚪 An idea for a “creative cabinet” in your workspace: In sound engineer Geoff Emerick’s book Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles, he describes how The Beatles had a sound effects cupboard under the stairs in Studio 2 at Abbey Road. If they ever got stuck during the overdubbing process, they’d head into that cupboard to find something: “There was so much paraphernalia, from wind machines to thunder machines, bells, whistles, you name it. Whenever that door was opened, we knew that something fun was about to happen.” Wouldn’t it be fun to have some kind of creative cabinet in your workspace? It could have a hodgepodge of tchotchkes and treasures collected over time.

🎨 A website that tells you which Rothko painting your city’s weather most resembles: Use your location or plug in any city.

🖼️ A guide to turning creative living into a career: Four ways Alice Katter has transformed living creatively into making a creative living.

Have a fantastic, fruitful 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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