Oh, hi friends!
Lula loves food.
Lula is our cat.
This is Lula.
Don’t let her sweet, snow-white looks fool you.
If given the opportunity, she would eat an entire bag of movie theater butter popcorn. And a loaf of cornbread. And a bag of Trader Joe's blue corn chips. (Are you sensing a theme here? We don't get the corn thing either.)
The point is, meal time is extremely important to Lula. She gets a small can of wet food, twice a day. (And treats; don't tell Colin.)
If we woke up one morning and there was no cat food in the apartment, well, there would be no newsletter either, because Lula would have eaten me.
Back to the point. We always need to have her precious Purina Pro nearby — wow, why is this sounding like an infomercial? — we always need to have her precious Purina Pro nearby, and so we enabled the "Autoship" setting on Chewy.
Every couple months, food shows up at our door. We don’t have to remember to order it. It just arrives.
Lula is pleased.
When you set up this auto shipment on Chewy, they give you two options at checkout:
Yes, make my life easy.
No, thank you.
Let's pause.
Yes, make my life easy.
This makes sense. We should reduce our mental load for the small tasks. Asking ourselves "are we out of cat food" every week isn't the best use of time and energy.
But now I’m thinking beyond cat food, OK?
This also makes me think…
What other autoships can we create around…our work? Projects? Writing? Schedules?
These are also essentials you need at regular intervals.
Why not hit the button once? Doesn’t that sound nice?!
Here are a few things you might consider autoshipping:
Setting up a weekly meeting with a collaborator or coworker
Opting in to regular text updates from your bank
Adding a bunch of books to your library queue (so you'll never have to ask, 'What should I read next?')
Working on three new jokes every Tuesday morning
Signing up for fitness classes two months in advance
Reaching out to one old contact each week on Wednesdays at noon
Holding a biweekly "creative development" hour with yourself
Hiring someone to make TikToks for you
They might not make life easy. But they will make life easier.
We don't want Lula walking around searching for food and potentially eating Colin's slippers when she doesn't find any.
We don't want you walking around searching for something to do and potentially sitting on all the great ideas you say you want to do but don't.
So.
What's one regular, recurring task that would make your life easier?
What can you set to autoship?
I’d love to hear about it.
And then I’d love for you to do it — do it for Lula!
PS — Plane Talk
THANK YOU so much for the warm wishes on yesterday’s launch of my Launch the Plane sessions. One dear friend said, “There’s no one I’d trust more to help get over the hump of scary contemplation and get into the actual (different kind of scary) doing!” which is maybe the greatest compliment I’ve ever received?
I’m so excited to talk to the folks who’ve already signed up!! If you missed yesterday's newsletter, here's background, and how to book an hourlong commitment with me to move forward on your most meaningful work.
Also, is it just me, or is the summer already having really good vibes?
I think it’s going to be one for the books.
(Lula’s also tried to eat a book before. That cat loves paper.)