I've been thinking about how we can honor the summer energy that calls us to slow down without guilt or dropping everything we are responsible for.
We are (unfortunately?) adults...
To enjoy the season without the "I should be taking advantage of these beautiful days" pressure or the "everyone else seems more relaxed" comparison, but genuine permission to let our rhythms shift with the season.
What if instead of fighting the pull toward a different pace, we designed our weeks around it? Not abandoning our goals, but letting them breathe a little more.
This week, we're exploring how to give ourselves summer hours—not just at work, but in how we show up in life.
🌱 TIPS FOR A MORE SUSTAINABLE LIFE + BUSINESS
Pencil in "Do Nothing"
I used to spend so much time trying to fill every gap in my schedule. If I wasn't being productive, I was failing. I didn't know how to have blank space in my calendar without feeling guilty.
Those open hours felt like missed opportunities, proof I wasn't maximizing my potential. (And 20-something me had so much belief in our potential, so that was unacceptable.)
But here's what I've learned: unstructured time isn't empty time—it's a playground.
Some of my best ideas come during the supposedly "unproductive" moments: staring out the window during my morning coffee, taking the long way home, letting conversations wander without an agenda.
Research backs this up. Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang's work on "default mode" brain activity shows that when we're not actively focused on tasks, our brains are actually doing necessary work—making connections, processing experiences, and generating insights. [1]
Yet most of us schedule ourselves so tightly that we never access this natural creative state.
As I recovered from burnout, I had to start asking myself why I avoided unstructured time beyond the standard productivity-obsessed cultural messages. The answers weren't always comfortable, but they were necessary. That's a story for another day, but if you find yourself struggling with this week's exercise, that exploration might be helpful for you too.
Try This: Select an amount of time to intentionally leave completely unscheduled this week—this could be 30 minutes, a couple hours, or an afternoon. Not as "catch-up time" or "buffer time," but as genuine white space.
Spend some time with your brain and notice what emerges when you're not rushing to the next thing. The goal isn't to fill this time—it's to practice being comfortable with unfilled time. (I did this recently and yes, I put it in my calendar as "do nothing" lol)
A gentle reminder: I don't think our busy-obsessed culture is all bad. I think our minds and bodies adjust and cope the best way they know how. And, at least for me, keeping busy has always been a coping mechanism to escape difficult times. Escape equals safety when the world is too loud, overstimulating, too painful, too horrific, and too everything.
If this week's exercise feels more than difficult, there may be a good reason for it. No one knows your body better than you, and while I try to share tips that are helpful for us all, they may not be right for you—right now. Trust your gut and take care of yourself. Your nervous system won't thank you for this exercise if you are in a period of necessary coping. Needing to cope doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong, it means you are doing everything you can to support yourself and that is more important than any tip I ever share 🫶
✨ TIPS FOR A MORE SOULFUL LIFE
You Don't Need to Justify Your Joy
When was the last time you did something purely because it brought you joy?
Not because it was good for you...
Not because it might lead somewhere...
Simply because it felt delicious in the moment?
I'm talking about the things that made you lose track of time as a kid: drawing with sidewalk chalk, lying in the grass watching clouds, staying up late reading just one more chapter.
Somewhere along the way, as life asks more and more from us, we internalize the idea that pleasure needs to be earned, that enjoyment should be productive, that it should serve a purpose. We turned hobbies into side hustles and relaxation into "self-care routines."
But simple pleasure—pleasure for its own sake—is a true act of presence.
At the beginning of my journey, it helped to know how beneficial unproductive, pure play actually was. I used that research as a stepping stone—a bridge from the extreme side of 'everything must be productive' to a more balanced 'I can be productive here and just live life the way I want to there.'
You'll enjoy adding more play when it's not backed by the pressure of going 0 to 100.
So let's start gentle: Make a list of 10 things that brought you pure joy before you worried about being "good" at them. This week, choose one and do it without any goal other than enjoying the experience.
If you notice any guilt coming up, gently remind yourself: joy doesn't need to justify itself.
📈 TIPS FOR A MORE SCALEABLE BUSINESS
Juggling Prevention, Presence, and Polishing
While everyone else is building more sophisticated tracking systems, the most successful business owners I know have mastered something simpler: the art of paying attention in real time.
In business we are constantly balancing between:
🛡️ Proactive protection (anticipating and preventing problems)
👇 Active presence (noticing what's happening now)
🔍 Review-based optimization (improving based on past data)
I think a lot of business advice leans too heavily into the review-based optimization—after X happens, review and improve—rinse and repeat forever. The always trying to catch things before they happen can lead us too far into the proactive protection, which can be just as damaging to momentum, just like only ever being focused on the now can get you into trouble.
The goal is to use a blend of all 3—together.
And while all three matter, active presence might be the most underutilized for us high-achievers—and it's available to you right now. Let's look at some examples of how we can incorporate this in the day-to-day:
- When you're actually present during client calls, you hear the hesitation behind their "yes" that saves you weeks of scope creep later.
- When you notice your own energy during different tasks, you discover which work energizes you and which drains you—information more valuable than any time-tracking app.
Present-moment awareness gives you real-time feedback about what's actually working versus what looks good on paper.
One client described it perfectly: "I used to make decisions based on what I thought I should do. Now I make them based on what I notice actually happens when I try different approaches."
This week: Set a gentle reminder to pause 2-3 times during work this week—not to optimize anything, just to notice what you're actually experiencing.
Are you energized or depleted? Focused or scattered? Excited or resistant? This isn't data to judge, it's information to use.
The most successful people I know aren't the ones with the most sophisticated systems—they're the ones who trust what their real-time experience teaches them and act on it.
BEHIND THE SCREENS
I'm writing this from my (completely dark) office on Sunday morning, because this week was riddled with migraines. And when I am able to work through them, I fully embrace cosplaying as a vampire to get through the day.
