The Gifts of Imperfection: A Chart!

I’ve been on a Brené Brown kick for the past several months. When I read The Gifts of Imperfection, I made a spreadsheet-graphic of the guideposts to wholehearted living.

How to Balance Writing Time and Chores

your work done first, then you’ll never write. Here’s a five-step process I’m trying out to set boundaries around my writing time. List Your Chores and Rank Them by Importance First, list all the chores you have to do on a regular basis. How you define “regular” is up to you — I interpret “regular”…

The Myth That Paid Work = Personal Fulfillment

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not against women in the workforce. I just don’t think that paid labor is creative salvation.

How to Find Your Ideal Job

With jobs, knowing what you want can be difficult because so many factors are involved. But here’s an outline for how to figure out what your (current) ideal job is. Identify Your Dream Job For now, stay in the real world. (Don’t choose “unicorn wrangler” as your dream job.) But don’t worry about money. Ask…

Sleep Routines for Writers

I’ve had significant sleep problems for a while now, so how one gets good sleep has been on my mind. One common recommendation is to have a regular sleep routine, and today we’ll talk about some options that you can incorporate in your routine to enhance your writing, reading, and entertainment life as well as…

Decluttering Books: Making a Buying Plan

In a magical world with endless public libraries in every city, we would buy only the books we want in our personal Hall of Fame. We will have previously read these books, likely more than once, and know that we love them and that owning a copy of each will make our homes more joyful…

Decluttering Books: Donations and Joy-Sparks

Kondo says we want to focus on what to keep, not what to get rid of, which is generally a solid plan. But donating books is one of my favorite things, and it’s positive enough that in the case of donation, I think focusing on what I’m letting go is great. So here’s a post…

Decluttering Books: Personalizing the KonMari Method

As with recipes, I subscribe to the “try the advice and then change it as needed” approach. With books, I depart from Kondo’s philosophy on two main points.

Decluttering Books: How to Figure Out What “Sparks Joy”

Marie Kondo has been in writing-community newsfeeds recently because of her statement that most people she’s worked with tend to end up with 30 books or fewer. (Or, for writers and others who work with books, like 100 books.) Now, if you’re currently saying, “Yeah, there’s no way I would get rid of that many…