Three types of stones
What do milestones, stones you stack, and the Rolling Stones' "Money" have in common? Well, they're all in this edition of Wanderfull in one shape or form!
Welcome to Wanderfull! I hope you’ve had a fabulous weekend and are ready for a productive week ahead.
A Tip for the Modern Worker
Take action when someone is disengaged, disenfranchised, or underperforming. Even if you’re doing all the right things, management isn’t all sunshine and roses. People will invariably have personal or professional issues that impact their work. See if they’ll open up to you or human resources. There may be a way to help. Yet, there are times when rapport and communication will fail you. Teams are held back when a manager allows someone to underperform. Choose action over inaction: address issues head-on within Human Resource guidelines.
I tweeted that out exactly a year ago and it’s part of my Handbook for the Modern Worker. This tip was tough to write because I’ve been on teams where someone’s underperforming. It went on for far too long, but ultimately the company did the right thing. I don’t think everyone necessarily knows if they’re not meeting expectations, especially if you’re not willing to have a candid conversation with them. It’s so important to give feedback — the good and the bad — because ideally, that underperformer might be able to turn things around. Or, you start to help them realize that perhaps it’s not the greatest fit. Either way, you have to do something when this happens. You might start by opening the door with HR and see where it goes.
#365DayDraw
I drew this as part of my #365DayDraw project 6 years ago today.
I love coming across cairns while hiking. They show the way. Where are the cairns in real life?
A cairn can serve a lot of purposes: memorials, burial monuments, mountain summits, and trail markers. I commonly see these when hiking in New York’s Adirondacks or in Oregon’s Cascades. They’re also popular in my local Taughannock Falls gorge during summer when tourists walk the typically dry creek bed and create cairns along the way. However, a quick Google search for “don’t create cairns” reveals the controversy around casually building cairns, or disturbing existing ones. This National Park Service page is worth a read if you’re cairn-inclined.
Commentary
I use Todoist to keep track of pretty much everything. What does everything entail? Here’s a sampling:
Daily habits (meditation, pushups/situps/plank, piano/guitar practice)
Recurring chores (vacuuming, cleaning windows, etc.)
Recurring tasks (checking tire pressures, winterizing air conditioners, etc.)
Creative drawing, design, or development ideas (will I ever get to these?)
Gardening (when to start seeds indoors, when to sow outside)
Things to watch/read/buy (a parking lot for future consumption, if you will)
This section of Wanderfull was prompted by a recurring reminder that popped up this week. I usually add tasks, not delete tasks. I went to delete it nonetheless, thinking “Yeah, I think I’m done with this one.”
See, we’ve been helping the kids learn about money since they were 3 years old. We started off with little wooden banks. Then youth accounts at the local bank. Eventually, we moved on to larger virtual banks and brokerages. All the while, they learned fun lessons about the value of money.
They’re a little older now (ha, they’re both in college) and managing the habits we taught them on their own (well, sometimes we need to nudge, hence the reminder). But they’re doing it, and that’s super cool. I thought it’d be cool to recap our financial journey with the kids from the very start. If you have younger kids (it’s never too late to start, by the way) or relatives that might enjoy this, do give it a read.
Miscellanea
Are you an American football fan? There’s a new official Thursday Night Football anthem. It’s SO good! My son attends Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and they sent an email about the anthem. It was composed by Berklee alumna Pinar Toprak B.M. '00: she’s the first woman to compose the original theme music for an NFL media package.
This TidBITS article alerted me to a meditation option I hadn’t heard of before. I use Headspace for meditation, but the article led me to Oak (a free, no-frills alternative). I’ve been using it for a few weeks and really enjoy the simplicity!
Today’s a holiday in the United States, and it’s also a special day for me and Amy. School’s out for the day and I’m taking a day off so we can be together for our dating anniversary. That’s right: we started dating 26 years ago. We dated long-distance between her home in Massachusetts and mine on Long Island. A lot has happened since that time, and I’ll leave you with one millisecond of that time, captured by our kids as we walked onto Cannon Beach in Oregon. Happy dating anniversary, Amy!