jello nostalgia, 847 unread emails, and the recipe for burnout-free time off
by Hannah Keyes
Jul 20, 2025
You sit down at your desk with a freshly made coffee and stare at 847 unread emails, a back-to-back calendar, 150+ unread notifications in Slack, and feel a shiver up your spine at the thought of opening your project management system to see the notification number there too.
This is the general M.O. of "welcome back" routines after time off.
So intensely focused on the exit of time off, that we've built a bridge to nowhere.
Last week we talked about why productivity systems fail.
It's not you, it's the mismatch between how systems are designed and how you actually work.
It's easy to think that means it's all bad.
But we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater... productivity tools exist because they DO help.
We just need to adapt them to work with our wiring.
I went through this exact thing when I wa...
There's a graveyard in my notes app... (and at least a few drawers in my office.)
Maybe yours too?
📓 Bullet journals that lasted exactly 13 days. ⏰ Time-blocking calendars abandoned after the first sick day. ☀️ Morning routines that died the moment daylight saving hit. 📱 Productivity apps downloaded with hope—and then deleted in frustration.
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What goes together like the last dregs of summer and poolside reading? Fall back-to-business rush + burnout.
It's that time of year where everyone is looking forward, closing out summer mentally and putting the pedal to the metal before we hit the holidays.
Which also means, me and my 1:1 clients are revisiting burnout basics.
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