The one new thing I do on Fridays
Oh, hi friends!
A couple months ago, I added a recurring Friday task to my calendar.
WEEKLY AUDIT — What went right? Wrong? What can I do better?
I assess the week and write up a paragraph in my calendar: Was my writing productive? Did I make enough money? How was my social life? How about my time management? Anything else that comes to mind.
Since I’m constantly looking at the future and what’s next-next-next, this has been a helpful reminder to look in the rearview mirror, even if it's just for 10 minutes.
What I've learned: I’m much happier when I write Monday’s newsletter on Friday (instead of waiting until Sunday), afternoon meetings are trouble unless I get my writing done in the morning, and that reading a bit of a play or novel when I wake up makes a happier start to my day. Among many other little tidbits.
Weekly audits. Try it. Let me know how it goes.
Your day can always be improved with dancing Porgs. This makes me so happy. (h/t Lavanya Sunkara)
For the screenwriters: How I Wrote Arrival (and What I Learned Doing It) (h/t Nina Semczuk)
For the actors: Good advice on how to reach out without freaking out.
For the writers: Do’s and dont’s on pitching and why editors are always overwhelmed. Especially love the advice to “write the beginning of the pitch as you would the beginning of the story” and the incredibly strong pitch with annotations at the end. (h/t Angelica Frey)
For the commuters: Sweet tales of heartwarming commutes.
For the moviegoers: I had no idea the New York Public Library has a streaming library called Kanopy offering 10 free films a month (provided you have a library card)! (h/t Jackie Pompei)
For the aesthetes: Minimums is a fun little site where the “most interesting people” share their most interesting possessions. And now I want to buy a bunch of stuff.
For my neighbors: Fort Greene has a new coworking space—in two of the most popular restaurants in the neighborhood. Commins offers a free week. I’m gonna give it a try! (h/t Abby Reisner)
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Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara