55 - Are you giving a rule too much power?
This past week was one of the busiest I’ve had in a long time - but it was also filled with wonderful friends, reconnections, and loads of great memories. I hope whatever situation you’re in right now you take a moment to savor the goodness. It is there even when we don’t feel it.
Photo of the Week
As I noted in the intro, this week was insanely busy. I can get swept away in the busy very, very easily and forget to focus on the moment. Yet this week I kept that focus on the people and the memories. I’ll share two with you for this week’s photos.
On Thursday, my friend Caroline Dowd-Higgins celebrated the launch of her new book, Your Career Advantage. I’m not all the way through it yet but it is excellent. Definitely pick up a copy! It was great to reconnect in person with Caroline and with several other friends from when we worked together at the college.
On Sunday, sweet Gene Harrison was baptized. He was an absolute doll during the service and after as we all visited. I don’t know about you but that smile with those two little teeth on the bottom just gets me. The love between him and his brother Clifton is like nothing I’ve ever seen before in all my years of being an Aunt.
Are you giving a rule too much power?
As an educational administrator, one of my primary jobs was to determine when we shouldn’t follow a rule - often in the form of policies and procedures. Some rules are there to keep you safe and to keep you from breaking the law. Those rules should generally be broken ONLY as a last resort.
However, far more rules are there to keep things moving along at a steady pace and keep everyone doing things in the same manner. Those rules often need to be broken - and even sometimes reconsidered and completely remade because we now know more.
This came up for me this week as I headed off to Gayle’s quickly on Thursday night when her car suddenly died. I started to put Kona’s travel crate in the car and then realized he wouldn’t need it. He sleeps in bed with me and I was going to be at home with him the entire time except maybe for a few minutes when I took Gayle to pick up her repaired car at the dealership. Otherwise she’d be driving my car. While generally I wouldn’t think of taking Kona somewhere that he’d possibly be alone without a crate he functions quite well without one - something my dad and sister demonstrate regularly when he stays with them and I’ve left him out at my house for a couple of hours from time to time. It simply wasn’t worth the hassle of loading it for a trip where we likely wouldn’t use it for more than 30 minutes.
This is perhaps a silly example but I’ll leave you with this action step today. What are you treating like a rule that isn’t really a rule? Could you do exercise in the evening instead of the morning? Could you listen to music instead of a book in the car? Have you given a rule too much power in your life that it doesn’t deserve?
Where’s Kara?
June or July - I am (still) waiting on all the signatures but I may get to North Carolina later in the summer
July/August - A Northern European Cruise!
Around the Virtual World
The Facts of Life LIVE Cohort - You will often find me hanging out in the course and community for my course “Facts of Life Book” that launched on January 1! I know some of you were waiting for the first ever live cohort - and that is now available. From April 7 - June 23 I’ll be running a live cohort including virtual sessions every Friday afternoon during that time period. What is the Facts of Life Book? Do you need to organize your most important stuff for life’s most important moments? If so, then the Facts of Life Book course is just for you. With loads of templates, tools, and guides I’ll help you get your most important information organized. Join now and you’ll get access to all future updates as well as any additional future live cohorts I run. Use coupon code FRIEND to get 50% off of the cost of the course.
Quarterly Retreat - It’s still a great time to prepare for an awesome 2023 by signing up for the Quarterly Retreat All Access Pass or the Quarterly Retreat Workshop. Visit https://karamonroe.podia.com and download the workbook for free and check out all of the offerings.
Creative Work Hour - Every single day of the week, at 10 a.m. eastern, a group gathers online in Zoom to do a quick check in, a brief meditation, work for about 50 minutes on whatever they want to do, and then check out with one another for 5 minutes. Creative Work Hour is one of my favorite places to hang out online and I’ve been there every single day that I could be there since about March of 2022. Come as often or as little as you need to get projects done. To register for the sessions (they are free but you have to sign up to get the zoom link) and to learn more, visit https://lu.ma/CreativeWork.
AP Productivity - I’m once again joining my friend R.J. Nestor as a mentor in his exceptional course AP Productivity. Another new cohort starts soon.
Tools, Tips, & Tricks
Free Smithsonian images
If you need to use an image, check out the Smithsonian's vast collection of Open Access images available under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. This is a great resource for adding images to PowerPoints, videos and more.
How to cut a bell pepper
This isn’t the method I use to cut a bell pepper (which also results in a nicely cut pepper) but it’s worth a try. I came across the trick to cutting bell peppers in a newsletter this week and thought I’d share it with all of you.
Diversion
I’m doing a lot of research right now on work life balance so I was excited to find this video by my friend Caroline (the same one who just launched a book) on why you shouldn’t give up vacation days. Action item - put some vacation in your calendar right now and make that doctor’s appointment you’ve been putting off.
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