Words. Ideas. Actions.

02 January 2023

Welp, as I type these words, the power just went out at our place, so I have no idea if you’ll ever get to read them. And, to be honest, this is the second draft I’ve done tonight (the first one I did with full, glorious internet!). But it wasn’t the right one. 

See, that first collection of thoughts was about all the things I was starting the year worried about and why I was worried about them. I could quickly list them here to give you the general idea, but the whole reason why I’m writing this new post is because after looking back on the first version, I decided that’s not how I wanted to start off this new year. Instead, I want to tell you a hopeful little story that happened on New Year’s Eve. 

We generally watch CNN’s coverage of the Times Square ball drop because we love it when Anderson Cooper gets the giggles. And, since we watch from California, we get to go to bed at a reasonable hour, if we’re so inclined. Most years, we’re so inclined. Or reclined, if you will. Anywho, after watching about an hour of CNN post-midnight in New York, my daughter quietly singing “Hard Candy Christmas” while playing an iPad game reminded me that NBC’s event this year featured Miley Cyrus and her godmother, Dolly Parton. We changed channels just in time to catch Cyrus’s duet with Fletcher. Pretty good timing. 

Other than Dolly, I didn’t really have any idea who else would be on. And I was pleasantly surprised more than a few times. Yes, the Fletcher duet was good, but it was the “Wrecking Ball” performance with the two co-hosts that really forced me to start paying closer attention. When Dolly came in with her harmony on the chorus, I almost broke into tears. To say “Wrecking Ball” is a favorite around here is a vast understatement. Thanks to our daughter’s playlist curation, we probably hear it about three times a week. At least. But this version was something altogether different. As if that wasn’t highlight enough, then came the most surprising part of the show. 

I’ve mentioned before how much I love record stores, right? The serendipity. A clerk’s curation. Discovering an unknown gem deep in the bins. All of this felt familiar after Cyrus introduced a band I’d never heard of called Liily. I didn’t know it at the time, but they did a song of theirs called “Applause”. I literally sat up to take notice. It was angular and propulsive and just the right amount of noisy and unhinged. And then they broke into a little bit of “Sabotage”. It was great! Seriously, watch it yourself.

It was so exciting to have something so fresh on my TV. But at the same time, I was a little disappointed in myself for having NBC be my musical tastemaker. It’s one of the many reasons I miss Rdio so much. Unlike current streaming services, Rdio used to be a consistent, reliable way for me to find new music. Only slightly embarrassed, I Post.ed about it, and then looked up more information about the band. Turns out, they’re coming to San Francisco in February, opening for FIDLAR as part of the Noise Pop 30th anniversary celebration. I spent the rest of 2022 and the first few hours of 2023 reading about and listening to Liily. Then I cued up some FIDLAR, and threw in some Hella for good measure before finally falling asleep. 

I’m not too happy with how little new music I’m being exposed to these days. But I’m grateful for discovering both Liily and Not on Tour in December. I’m not one for resolutions, but I’m hoping to find more ways to find, hear, and support more new music in 2023. If you have any favorite ways you’re discovering new bands to love, I’m all ears.

(By the way, the power just came back on!)

See you tomorrow?

26 December 2022

This is a weird week for a lot of people. Are we working? Are we pretending we’re working? Did we just go ’head and take the week off? I didn’t have to work today (it was our observed Xmas holiday), but before I started typing this tonight, I did take a glance at my calendar for tomorrow to gauge how many meetings I have. Any wagers on whether the two which are scheduled get canceled?

So, what should I do with this quirky, holiday-shortened week? At the risk of creating a BuzzFeed-esque Listicle™, here are a few items I’ll be tackling in the next few days as the lull between years sets in:

1) Cataloging- This is something I’m not great at, but I’ve found it’s a really valuable resource when performance reviews come around. I’ll look back at significant launches, big projects, and notable accomplishments, summarizing what I did, why they were important, and any obstacles we overcame to bring them to life. Bonus points if they happened long enough ago to have some meaningful metrics already attributed to them.

2) Calendaring- We have too many meetings. I can almost guarantee this is true, no matter who you work for. Use this week to take a look at your calendar for every work day in January. Any recurring meeting you see on there, delete it. Or at least ask yourself if it can be deleted. There’s a good chance — if your calendar is anything like mine — that your days are already pre-scheduled with a handful of meetings which could instead be an email. Or at least reduced to once a month. Scrutinize what’s already scheduled for you, and make some changes to how many, and how often, you and your peers are getting together just to share the status of things. Most of these tend to get in the way of actually getting some things done.

3) Clearing- The other impediment to productivity, for me, is email. But every year, one of my favorite habits is to empty my email inbox. Just get rid of ’em. Delete anything from 2022. Now, I know that some of you may have recoiled in horror. There may be a couple of reasons why causing you to question this advice. Here are a few: 

“Stephen, did you know that  practicing ‘Inbox Zero’ would keep the number of incoming emails at a manageable cadence?”  
Absolutely not. I wasn’t hired as an email manager. My skills (and time) are better spent doing the job I was hired for. I set up a system of filters and triaging time, and spend time working instead of replying. I check my mail three times a day, and trust my filters to sort items I’ll only need as reference. One good practice is to remember that your inbox should not work as your to-do list.

“Stephen, my company has policies in place which compel me to keep each and every electronic missive I have ever received, so I can’t just delete everything, right?”
Fair enough. But you can move them out from in front of your face. My favorite trick is to create a folder (you can even call it something super creative like 2022) and move everything in your Inbox to a newly created collection. This way, you won’t lose anything, but you also won’t have to face each and every unresponded-to missive like it’s a Xmas card from that aunt you forgot to mail a gift to.

“Stephen, there’s important stuff in there that can’t just be deleted, can it?” 
Let’s get a little real for a moment, shall we? If there was really something important in that inbox of yours, you would have already taken care of it before the holiday break. And, if there is something truly essential that you need to get to in the first few days of January, odds are you’ve either noted it elsewhere or you’ll be reminded of it soon enough to knock it out before any early-in-the-year deadline.  

I have a few other habits that I like to restart at the beginning of each new year, but they don’t really have cleverly alliterative “c” names, so maybe we can talk about those later. And if you have any yearly habits which help you in your work, please let me know.

See you tomorrow?