Memoirs and Self-Help Books that Moved Me, Motivated Me, and Made Me Think

Three shelves of books

The summer vacation season is upon us, and the weather here in East Tennessee is already getting hot and humid. Whether you’ll be lounging on the beach with a book or staying in your air-conditioned home avoiding the heat, the lazy days of summer are a great time to do a little reading. Most of the “Best Beach Reads” lists out there tend to focus on novels, but as someone who reads a lot of nonfiction, I thought it would be fun to round up some of my favorite memoirs and inspirational books that I’ve read over the past few years. Here they are, in no particular order:

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Making Space for Deep Work

Cover of Deep Work by Cal Newport

One of the things I miss most since becoming a mother is having blocks of quiet time to myself to really focus on something — reading, writing, or other creative or intellectual pursuits. Both my job and my hobbies require focused attention. I do a lot of thinking, analyzing, and writing, and those things are hard to do when distracted or in short blocks of time. When I do have quiet time at home (which is usually late in the evening), it’s easy to let my tired mind zone out by watching Netflix or clicking and scrolling online. During the workday, my brain often strays to the numerous little “to-dos” that I have to keep track of: remember to buy more diaper cream, get a birthday gift for so-and-so, pick out a picture day outfit for D, RSVP for the event on Saturday, etc. (This, for those who don’t know, is the mental load that working moms disproportionately carry.) Because I don’t get enough sleep these days, it takes discipline to stay focused on the task and hand and not let my brain run down all these rabbit holes all the time.

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The Beauty of the Brain Dump

The Pacific Ocean at dusk from a Malibu-area beach

Spring is my favorite season. The longer days and warmer weather lead to very noticeable improvements in my energy level, mood, and overall life satisfaction. Suddenly I seem to need less sleep, and I can actually do things in the evenings.

These changes have been particularly welcome this year because I have a lot of things to do right now. As I’ve previously written, I’ve made a big effort to unbusy myself by making fewer commitments and really prioritizing the things that matter most while saying no to the rest. Nevertheless, as a parent of a young child with a full-time career outside the home, things get busy sometimes. There are only so many hours in the day, and inevitably there are multiple tasks and desires competing for the few hours that aren’t devoted to work, commuting, child care, and sleep. When work becomes busier than usual and spills into the early morning and evening hours, squeezing the time available for chores, relationships, and hobbies, I can start to feeling like I’m jumping from one task to the next from the time I rise until the time I go to bed, with no time to reflect or plan. While the adrenaline produced by that lifestyle can be energizing, constantly reacting to immediate demands is not an ideal state of functioning for the long term.

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Settling Into Equilibrium: Some Thoughts on Balance

Ghost print, monotype, rumpled fabric

Finding balance in modern life is a topic written about with such frequency that I’ve begun to roll my eyes whenever I see a piece with the words “work-life balance” in the title. I hope you’ll indulge me as I again explore this topic about which so much has already been said. Like Sheryl Sandberg, I dislike the phrase “work-life balance” because it implies that work and life are separate and exclusive domains. To paraphrase Sandberg, who could ever feel good about work when it’s billed as the opposite of life?

Work is but one aspect of life, and it’s an important element. It helps to give meaning to life, to give us purpose, to keep us striving and feeling the thrill of accomplishments (in the best scenario, anyway). I am happiest when I’m industrious and can see the fruits of my labor. Someone once told me that they view life as a four-quadrant matrix made up of family and friendships, profession, health and fitness, and spirituality. At any given time, one of the quadrants may demand more of your attention than the others, but to live our best lives, we have to attend to all of them regularly. I picture the quadrants on the top of one of those toys that you can spin and push in any direction and it will always return to standing. Sometimes one quadrant will be up while another is down, and some teetering may happen, but the four areas will all eventually balance each other and keep the toy steady.

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7 Big Benefits of Being Less Busy

Tablet, keyboard, and mug on picnic table in screened porch

From the time I was in middle school until my early thirties, it seemed I was always busy. My evenings and weekends were usually filled with organized activities. Often I was the one organizing them. At my tiny college, more than once I heard the comment that the same students were involved in all the organizations. If they did one thing, they did everything. I was one of those students. I managed to stay slightly less busy than some of my friends (particularly the ones who were also athletes), but my color-coded weekly schedule had little visible space.

All these organized activities were, on the whole, enjoyable. For the most part, they energized me and gave me a sense of purpose. They padded my resume and school applications. They formed the basis of my social life. When I moved to a new town, they were how I met people and kept from sitting at home by myself all the time and becoming lonely.

But they also caused me stress on a fairly frequent basis. They competed for my attention and pulled it away from other important things like my career and family. They kept me from reflecting and from doing the deep inner work that I needed to do. These constant obligations had a way of keeping me in a reactive mode, responding to others’ desires and priorities, rather than being intentional about how I wanted to use my precious time and how I wanted to spend my life. I was well-rounded, but unfocused.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing during a certain stage of life. The teen years and extended adolescence are meant for exploring, figuring out what we want, making mistakes and finding our way, at least as contemporary Americans conceive of that life phase. But at some point, I think it’s important to step back and unbusy ourselves so that we can be sure we have our priorities in order. That means figuring out what and who truly makes us shine from within and focusing our days and energy on those pursuits and people. Because both our days and our energy are, of course, limited, and we too often lose sight of the finite nature of our time.

The process of unbusying oneself isn’t as easy as it might seem. It isn’t just a simple matter of removing all your commitments and becoming lazy. When you’re used to a structured schedule and a million things to do, learning how best to use your now-free time can be a challenge. There’s a temptation to spend it doing busywork, catching up on all the chores, getting extra sleep, making up for missed workouts. Those choices can be beneficial, but if you aren’t careful, you’ll end up with a sparkling-clean house, well-groomed lawn, fit body, and still without the slightest idea of what’s really important to you or what you want to do with your life.

Then there’s the challenge of sitting quietly with your thoughts. When fewer tasks occupy your mind, you may find that your inner voice becomes louder. Sometimes that inner voice is saying things that are neither nice nor productive. So then you must choose between attempting to drown it out with new external obligations or instead figuring out a way to unpack what it’s saying, get to the source of those internalized beliefs, and reprogram that messaging.

Sometimes life events provide handy excuses for deobligating ourselves — a move, a new job, a baby. They can make it easier to let go of things that are no longer serving us. But to really transform our lives, we have to do it intentionally and consciously. Otherwise we’ll just end up re-filling the white space with more obligations brought about by our new circumstances. Saying no isn’t always easy. Walking away isn’t always easy. But if you make the decision to build more space into your weeks and remain steadfast in that decision, you will be free to say yes to the best opportunities, the ones that fully align with who you are now and where you want to go. You’ll have the time and space to craft a life in which you truly thrive.

Here are some of the things that happened when I freed up a significant amount of space in my schedule:

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