I keep a set of juggling balls in my desk (and in my backpack), so I can take a play break whenever I need one. If I have a really intense day, building marketing campaigns for clients, and I know I will have to spend multiple hours in focused work, I make sure to designate [...]
In the game of life, how well you play determines your success. Every day is another round, every year is another level, and at the end of the game, it doesn’t matter if you won the high score - all that matters is that you played the game well. There are lots of ways [...]
I was in the middle of mighty-tasking when I had a brilliant idea. This idea had nothing to do with the project I was working on. If I had stopped to tend to this idea properly, it would derail the state of flow I had achieved. I did not want to sacrifice my current project for a [...]
I'm just gonna say it: Candyland is a boring game. Candyland art by Midjourney I’ve played this game dozens - maybe hundreds - of times with my own children. We don’t play it anymore, because now that they are older, they agree that it is boring to play. But when they were [...]
Ever since I ran away and joined the circus (true story!) I’ve always seen my work as a form of play. The harder the work, the harder I have to play to get through it. I learned this from the Seven Dwarves. They worked all day in the mines, and they didn’t grumble and [...]
The first three hours of my day are rigidly scripted. I find that having a choreographed morning routine removes my ability to make bad decisions about how my day starts. (My morning routine changes as my life and circumstances change, so what I do today is not the same as what I did ten years ago.) [...]
90% of the world’s drops are done by jugglers. Whatever you juggle - balls, fruit, chainsaws, or family schedules - you are statistically more likely to drop what you juggle than the people who never throw anything. Dropping the ball is part of how we learn. The placement of the drop - way off to [...]
As the military general in charge of US operations in Europe during World War II, Dwight Eisenhower had many difficult days. He had to handle shifting priorities in complex, uncertain situations. His leadership was characterized by a keen understanding of the difference between urgency and importance. “What is important is seldom urgent and what is [...]
In his book The Game Changer, Dr Jason Fox says that a game is anything that has goals, rules, and feedback. A good game balances all three of these against one another, to make an experience that can be so good it can be addicting. Work is often the opposite. Unclear goals, arbitrary rules, and confusing feedback (if there [...]
The house was a wreck. That’s what happens when six young boys spend Saturday morning running amok. My two brothers and I were often left with another family when we were young. This other family had three boys the same age, making us six boys under the age of ten. Containing this hurricane of activity [...]