Are you making things hard for no reason?
Oh, hi friends!
Are you making something harder than it needs to be?
I feel like I’ve asked the exact same question before on this newsletter, but that’s because it seems to happen, again and again!
So often we run into roadblocks for the same reasons:
We need more information (more research, more feedback, more answers to our questions).
We need less information (we’re overwhelmed, need to focus).
We’re sabotaging ourselves (if the end seems impossible, why not just muck it all up before trying!)
What the solutions then?
Finding the information we need.
Making a decision using the information we have.
Reminding ourselves that any progress — any at all — is better than a lil’ sabotage.
Which one of these are you running into lately? And can you use one or two of the solutions today?
PS — I was dark on Friday because the week simply got away from me. Did it for you, too? While weighing the options of what I could/couldn’t get done in a single day, I let the newsletter slip. And that’s OK! (She tells herself.) Because I got right back to it. You can too, for whatever you need to do.
I wish you a very symmetrical day.
Photo by Benjamin Suter from Pexels
“I also love being edited. I love a hard edit. It’s a privilege to be edited hard.”
Everyone’s talking about Jia Tolentino’s new book of essays, but this insight into her process — she’s a staff writer at the New Yorker and edited The Hairpin! — was so satisfying to read. And it made me think back to all the edits I loathed and loved…
The Best $15 I've Spent All Year
Here’s a perfect example of making things harder than they need to be…
I’ve wanted to buy prescription sunglasses for months. Even got an eye exam! But paying $700+ for something I don’t see myself wearing that often was hard to swallow. (I’d rather buy a keyboard.) I mainly wanted them to wear under a helmet as I bike around anyway. And now, as you know, summer is nearly over.
And then one night at 2am, trolling Amazon for God-only-knows-what, I suddenly thought: CLIP-ON SUNGLASSES EXIST?!
So, look, I paid $15 for these kinda cool, kinda enormous, probably-not-perfect-but-who-cares clip-on, flip-up sunglasses and I am over the moon. When I inevitably roll over onto them and they break, who cares! I have a second pair in pink!
I’m just saying that solutions exist if you Google long enough!!!
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Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara