Ease in August

Let's find it, together / Issue 1,186

Oh, hi friends!

My dear friend Charlotte posted on Instagram about turning the calendar to August, saying that action had “real karacut vibes.”

I love being associated with that fresh-start, new-month feeling!

But what does that mean, exactly? 

Especially after a challenging month?

Especially when things are scattered?

Well! Here’s what I’m doing to usher in the new month, with some little time estimates so they don’t eat up the day:

Sneaking on August with Ease

• Put phone in a cabinet (2 mins)

• Cut-and-paste old July tasks into another note and file them away. Bye-bye! (5 mins)

• Sort papers on desk (10 mins)

• Go through browser and close all tabs (I just stopped writing this newsletter to actually do this, so I’m not just lying to you) (5 mins)

• Open packages sitting by the door (got a cute new cat backpack for queen Lula!!) (10 mins)

• Sort wild task list into their correct themes (Consult, Creative Writing, Podcast, etc.) (15 mins)

• Take a long view (what do I want this month to be? to bring me?) (open-ended, but let’s give it 3 whole minutes for now lol)

These are little things!

They involve squaring corners and dry tasks.

But it’s a start. It’s something.

I like doing a lot, and the only way I can do a lot is if I have a sense of clarity and ease.

How do you like to — or want to — start the month? I’d love to know.

Did You Know I Have a Podcast? Sometimes I Forget, Too!

But here’s a realllllly good one.

Erica Rotstein is a producer, talent manager, and educator. We met a few summers ago at the New Musicals Lab in Virginia. She talked to us lyricists and composers about producing theater and what it actually looks like to put up a show, from a financial and logistical and emotional perspective.

As I often do with certain people, I thought, “Erica is wonderful! I want to be friends!” So I made that my mission, haha. 

We talked for my podcast and my biggest takeaway was her commitment to radical candor: How to say the thing someone might not want to hear, and deliver it in a way that respects your relationship.

“I am a person who actually finds more conflict and discomfort in not naming discomfort. Staying silent and not talking about it is actually much more uncomfortable for me as a human.”

This was something I really needed to hear. How to tell the truth without sugarcoating it!

Hope you love our chat as much as I did. Erica’s got the best energy.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast snacks.

Btw, here are the shows, books, and resources mentioned:

• Business of Broadway, where Erica and her partners teach online courses on producing, creative development, and more — HIGHLY RECOMMEND

• The musical The Appointment at WP Theater

• (This was recorded a few months ago, so while The Appointment is no longer playing, I also highly recommend seeing Parade — which closes August 6 — and Just for Us on Broadway, both of which Erica is a co-producer on, and which are A+++)

• Broadway-bound musical Water for Elephants, directed by Jessica Stone

• The book Radical Candor by Kim Scott (love this one)

• Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown 

• Author, poet, and activist Sonya Renee Taylor