🪦 PivotList: Stop Trying to Leave a Legacy
My favorite principles from Chris Guillebeau's new book on Time Anxiety
Hi Friends,
How often do you feel behind in your own life? In your day-to-day tasks?
’s new book, Time Anxiety: The Illusion of Urgency and a Better Way to Live, addresses both quandaries—the existential and the routine—through straightforward, compassionate, and kind advice paired with simple experiments.
A few of my favorite principles and pointers:
On the Inbox of Shame: “When you’re drowning, you can’t just swim faster.” A few tips that might help assuage guilt and stress: send shorter replies, use delayed send, and recognize the power of doing what you can.
Make free time more memorable by planning a mini-adventure for an upcoming weekend: Having an adventure is an exciting or unusual experience that is often associated with novelty, challenge, and exploration.
Instead of leaving a legacy, learn to live well: Engage more in creative projects without worrying as much about the outcomes. “Be proud of all that’s brought you thus far. To do more of what you can. And to stop trying to do it all.”
🎧 Check out the special Free Time podcast episode we recorded (with epic show notes if I don’t say so myself!), and shout-out to Emily McDowell for the brilliant graphics she created throughout the book, one of which is featured above :)1
On a related note, let’s examine the next energizer (or not) in our Strengthscope series . . .
💪 Strengthscope Deep Dive: Efficiency
Is efficiency an energizer or a drainer for you?
🔋 If efficiency energizes you, you love taking a well-ordered and methodical approach to tasks to achieve your desired outcomes. Color-coding closets and ticking to-do list boxes makes your heart sing. So does creating order from chaos through smarter systems, even for (especially for!) the gnarliest problems.
My third book, Free Time, is my own love letter to efficiency—with twenty-seven chapters teaching you how to take small steps today that save time far into the future.
Who annoys you: People who appear to be unplanned, unsystematic, and even spontaneous. They often leave things to the last minute and appear chaotic, inefficient and/or untidy.
Who is annoyed by you: People who are more creative and flexible in their approach to work might feel constrained by your focus on organization and planning. They might feel that your strong emphasis on efficiency leaves little scope to incorporate new information and options as the project or task unfolds.
🥵 When in overdrive: Your excessive emphasis on organization and efficiency may leave little scope to incorporate new information and options in your planning.
Self-check by asking: My efficiency energizer makes me want a clearly defined process for everything. Is that something we need to create at this moment?
🪫 If efficiency is a drainer for you: Your approach to your work can sometimes be unsystematic and spontaneous. This can appear chaotic and inefficient to others. It might be beneficial to choose a few systematic approaches that you know can work for you (setting alarms so you don’t forget appointments, for example) or even to partner with someone who highly values efficiency.
Reframe it by reflecting: Which of my energizers help me build a great process?
📊 Get to Know Your Significant Seven Energy-Strengths
If you want to dive deeper into the 24 energy-strengths, including an assessment that will show your biggest energizers and drainers:
Individuals: Purchase the Strengthscope report here and get instant access to your results and a 45-minute Upgrade Your Energy pre-recorded workshop to better understand your unique profile, with tips to find more flow at work.
Or book a 45-minute 1:1 with me that comes with a Strengthscope report; together we’ll talk through your results and develop a customized strategy based on your Significant Seven energy-strengths.
Teams: If you work within an organization and have the budget to run this as an in-person half-day team-building workshop, we are now booking for next quarter. Learn more and inquire here »
That’s it for now . . . thank you for reading!
❤️ With Love,
👉 Follow CG in all the places:
Substack: 🌻 A Year of Mental Health and Chris Guillebeau
Podcast: Side Hustle School
Take the quiz and get your copy of Time Anxiety anywhere books are sold!
📧 If you enjoyed this PivotList, you might also appreciate:
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Do you ever read about a book and feel like you have the takeaways? That's how I feel about your summary! Though I know you want me to read the book ;)
Especially "Instead of leaving a legacy, learn to live well"
Good to see you pop into my inbox!