So, you want to live a more intentional life? Your first baby step is to journal. Journaling can be a powerful tool for self-reflection. Setting aside dedicated time to ponder a question and write out your answer can lead to some fascinating discoveries. If you already have a journaling habit, you know that your answer to a prompt can really surprise you! I crafted the self-reflection journal prompts below to address questions we all need to ask, but most of us avoid. I’ve written before about the importance of sorting your top priorities from lower-value activities you spend time and energy on. That sounds simple, but it’s no easy task. Many of your “fluff” activities are valuable and enjoyable in their own ways. It’s nonetheless…
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So, you’re planning on traveling with a newborn. It’s an intimidating task to plan, especially if this is your first kid. But it’s actually not that scary if you’re prepared with a bit of knowledge and some newborn travel essentials. In fact, I recommend traveling while your baby is still in the newborn phase, because it actually gets harder when they’re a bit older – moving more and sleeping less. I’ve shared in a previous post some tips for traveling light with a baby. The focus of that post was keeping the products you’re packing to a minimum. Newborns require a lot. If you don’t know which products are truly essential, you can end up weighed down by tons of baggage for even a short trip. So, what are the newborn travel essentials that…
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I’ve shared plenty of tips here for how to declutter your physical space. Most of us have experienced a cluttered home. Things piled up in our living space because we didn’t take time to decide what is worth keeping. This series on the Enneagram offers similar advice for our minds. Each Enneagram type tends to hoard unique “psychic clutter” – unhelpful beliefs and habits that hold us back. For more context, see the introduction to my first post about the Enneagram 1. Here, we’ll focus on the Enneagram 7. How can personality typology help us with mental decluttering? Well, systems like the Enneagram and MBTI help us identify destructive patterns that tend to go together. Identifying your personality type doesn’t tell you everything about who you are. But it can show you some common pitfalls to…
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Are you a mom to young children and feeling some mom burnout? I would honestly be surprised if the answer were an unequivocal “no.” In researching this post, I even found out there’s a medical term called “Depleted Mother Syndrome.” There are so many reasons moms feel burnt out that I can’t get into them all here. But the Cleveland Clinic page linked above and this article from Prevention are great places to look for more information about how you got to this point. What I found lacking in those sources, and similar ones, is suggestions for how to turn things around. Some tips are helpful, but most are not…
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Have you tried all the traditional productivity tips to get more done each day? Are you often rushing to complete tasks and disappointed in your progress no matter how much you accomplish? There’s a simple reason for that (but one you won’t want to hear): your expectations for time management and productivity are too optimistic. If you’re in the time optimist club, you’re in good company – most people are unable to accurately estimate how much time and energy various activities take. There is good news, though – there’s a simple solution for time optimism: realistic time management. I introduced this topic in a previous post. I define realistic time…
