I no longer know how to introduce myself.

Introducing ourselves in general is often a fraught experience (especially in the US, and especially-especially in NYC). If you’re in even a slightly professional context, people do a “Hi, I’m [name], I’m…

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The advice to “just say no” to more things sounded strategic to me until I had an intense full-time job, young kid, and was trying to moonlight as a healthy person. Like, what would you have me say no to? My paycheck? My sleep? Feeding my child?

But in the last few years my life has evolved: there’s lots more caregiving (my dad, daughter, elderly pets) and more professional success (a book! speaking!) but I no longer have the structure of a full-time role. My days are wacky and honestly glorious. Some days I feel guilty (?) and wobbly about not spending more time on my career or being professionally ambitious in the way I used to be. But then I think: I love my life. What exactly is the problem here?

Well, the problem is mainly that my instincts for what I say Yes and No to are outdated, and that feels clunky. I have new life hardware—the structure of how I spend my time, make money, meet my responsibilities—but I’ve been running old mental software. Old Bree said yes to every “exposure” opportunity for the book. (The old joke being you can, in fact, die of exposure). Old Bree endeavored to maximize her Luck Surface Area. Old Bree would play only once all the work was done because there was just so damn much of it.

It wasn’t that Old Bree wasn’t happy—she was!—it’s just that she was running an operating system designed to achieve different things. Things I wanted then.

I said No to two unpaid speaking opportunities recently. I get that not everyone has a speaker budget, but also, I don’t have to be the one to fill that gap with my time. It’s annoying that saying no surely cost me some book sales, but also, oh well! I know from experience it’s ridiculously easy to get busy working for free. Did you know people like it when you work for free?!

I’ve said No to probably a dozen evening events this year—ones with fascinating attendees and well-curated experiences. Their only fault being that these evening events were in the evening. I like being in bed by 9:30. I like cooking dinner.

I haven’t written here in ages. This one was really a bummer because I like it here and I like you all. The thing was, when my days were full with freelance consulting and physical therapy for my shoulder and taking various dependents to various doctors, writing was either going to cost me some exercise/cooking/sleeping, or require feeling stressed. And I just… didn’t want to.

So thank you all for your patience. Paid subscribers, I have been pausing your payments. Or maybe you didn’t notice I was gone at all in which case, I kind of dig it! We can be the kind of friends that even when we don’t see each other for a bit, we pick right back up where we left off.

So yes, it’s annoying to say NO to things because then (duh) things don’t get done. The books didn’t get sold. The connections didn’t get made. The words didn’t get written. Those are real costs. It only stops feeling like pure loss when I remember how much there is to gain! Which brings me to…

10 joyful things to say YES to this summer

One of my favorite metaphors from Today Was Fun is the 5-foot teddy bear:

As in, YES I got the promotion! Wait what do I win? More work you say? Which is great if that’s exactly what you were gunning for. Responsibility can be fun! But this summer I know what prizes I want to win and they do not involve more, bigger, fancier work. They involve cheese.

What do you want to win this summer? Come on down and pick a prize! We’ve got…

1. A Sobremesa. In Spanish it translates to “upon the table” and describes that delicious time after a meal when everyone pushes back their chairs just a bit, full of cheese and delight, and talks into the evening.

2. A time-free day. One day when I never check the time because I don’t care and it doesn’t matter. Maybe we take the ferry to Governor’s Island, but instead of hustling to the timetable, we just show up and get on the next ferry that comes. I eat when I’m hungry. Sleep when I’m tired. Get real into a book with no end in sight.

3. A morning garden check. I find nothing more delightful than the ritual of waking up and checking on my leafy darlings. Whether you have a big yard or a single indoor plant you can ask: Who’s blooming? Who needs water? Who has fruit to eat? I used to rush out the door every day, trying to maximize my sleep + working time. Now I maximize tomatoes.

4. A scandalous workday break. Today I watched the reality TV show Perfect Match while eating lunch. It felt highly unethical. When I was a teacher I would judge this one colleague who took a nap in the teacher’s lounge every afternoon. But you know what? While I was busy judging he was busy being well-rested.

5. A bedtime. I used to get in bed when my work was done for the day, however late. Now I get in bed at 9:30, whether or not there are dishes in the sink.

6. Love notes. Love notes are completely optional, and that’s what makes them magical. This can be a voice note to a friend. A tiny letter in a lunchbox to a child or partner. Seeing an old photo and sending it to someone who would enjoy the memory. I have a letter to (literally) pen to a friend this afternoon.

7. Taking impeccable care of your body. I have a plantar plate injury in my foot and have been going for this shockwave therapy twice a week. With the train and the appointment itself, it’s a 2+ hour excursion each time. Past Bree might not have done it and figured I’d heal eventually. Today I’m following my doctor’s orders like they were handed to me on stone tablets. As he tells me, “Bree, these are your wheels.” (I’m driving a classic ‘84)

8. A Ferris Bueller day off. A few weeks ago after Arden’s midday doctor’s appointment I said, “What would you think about not going back to school… and instead playing hooky at the botanic gardens?” We’re often told to invest in our careers, our retirement funds, our health—and these are all worthy things. But we must also invest in memories. The sweetest ones age like fine wine.

9. A quirky delight. When my shoulder gets a little better I’m going to learn west coast swing dancing! There are so few opportunities to really play with another person as adult, and social dancing is one of them. My friend Jenessa started growing her own sprouts. Brad works on his Go standing and reads Jiu Jitsu books at night. What does your inner nerd love?

10. One of these books! When people ask why I wrote Today Was Fun I know “to scale my impact” or “to grow my speaking business” are the respectable answers. But turns out I might have done it for the friends! Making author friends and then seeing their books on bookshelves feels exactly like when Buddy the Elf freaks out at the mention of Santa screaming, “I KNOW HIM!!” Similarly, my friends wrote these!

• Lift: For majorly upping your mentorship game

• Teams That Meet the Moment: For building a team you want to work in

• Unhinged Habits: For living life on your own terms ()

• Hidden Patterns: For designing workplaces of the future

• Upfront: For supercharging your confidence, especially as a woman ()

• Do More in Four: For starting the 4-day workweek at your org ()

• The Japanese Way of Parenting: For raising calm, caring, capable kids ()

• How to Not Know: For feeling certain you’re good at uncertainty ()

• Jolted: For knowing when to quit and when to stay ()

• The Coaching Habit, 10th Anniversary: For remembering people hate advice

• Seen Known Valued: For finding belonging in your career

• Today Was Fun: For having great days, even Monday-Friday

Sending you a big wave from my sunny couch in NYC. Feel free to send me one back in the comments from wherever you are 👋 😊

And happy May 29, 2026! It’s the only one we get.

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1. It’s most important to increase our skills at work because that’s where we’re being measured and paid. Our skills are most (only?) relevant when applied to producing economic output.

2. You don’t need to teach leisure. People instinctually know how to watch movies and go to restaurants and sleep.

I could write a whole half chapter about point one, but today I want to focus on point two. I think, in fact, we’re not very good at leisure, especially in the doses we frequently experience it.

In our most intense years of Arden being little and Brad and I having two intense full time jobs, it was easy to know what to do with spare time: damage control on the dishes, sleep, or zonk out in front of a screen to soothe our brains. We were living in deficit land. But now we’re (generally) well-rested people. Almost on cue at 42 (my birthday was last week!) we are very slowly but surely crossing over into the Era of Ironic Relief. Can’t wait til Taylor Swift writes about that one.

Which brings me to… what do we do with that relief? And whether or not you’re in the same stage of life/family set up as me, the question remains: what do you do with your time when you get to choose?

(Grumpy aside: I hate that we call it “spare time.” I mean I get why we do in a world where we account for work, chores, sleep, and other necessities of life first. But when “spare time” includes the happiest moments of my life spent with people I love… I dunno that doesn’t totally feel spare?!)

I actually think I’m pretty good at knowing what to do with two free weeks: Vacay! Even a free day I can usually fill up with some good stuff. Where I struggle, and I think many others struggle, is with 15 minutes.

During one of those intense earlier years I remember talking to Brad about the fact that we didn’t have quality hobbies. I think he had just put down the video game he was playing on his phone. He said, “Sometimes it feels like I’m just waiting to go back to work.”

You know, kind of like this:

Apparently Waiting Mode is a pretty common ADHD thing, but I think there’s also a feeling in the air these days (no matter what kind of brain you own) that we’re all just waiting for the other shoe to drop. War, AI, you know. Personally I have a father with Alzheimer’s, three elderly animals, and a kid so every day it’s like whose doctor am I going to call today. Huh… on reflection maybe I’m not in my full Ironic Relief glory quite yet.

Regardless, sometimes I do have an unaccounted for 15 minutes and it can feel… odd. Too long to simply take a breath. To short to get into anything meaningful. So what can I do with this “spare time” that allows me to feel both temporarily relaxed but also still hyper alert because my stimulus is changing every three seconds? Ding ding ding Social Media you win!!! Cash, prizes, and a free trip to my Shop login to buy that cute dress! It’s all for you!

Because it’s definitely not for me. I know I could do better things with my time, but also, sometimes it’s hard to think of them in the .84 seconds it takes me to pick up my phone. So I’m doing myself a favor and itemizing the good ideas here. Seven good ways to spend fifteen minutes that (mostly) don’t involve technology. I hope you try one, and please add your own in the comments!

1. Shower with an orange. Showers are good for creativity, but that’s because first they’re good for relaxing your brain. And for anyone who holds tensions in your shoulders like I do, they’re also good for relaxing your muscles. Now 15 minutes isn’t enough to pull out the bubbles and candles, but you have time to grab an orange. Let the peels fall to the floor of the shower and enjoy some “aromatherapy.” Savor each citrusy bite amidst the backdrop of the hot water. And if you accidentally clog your drain with peel, well then you’ve got you next fun 15 minute activity!

2. Go on a non-face face scavenger hunt. You know, Jesus on your grilled cheese, a dorky looking door hinge, or maybe your bar soap will deliver like mine did this morning. (Arden made that divot, I guess for fun. But the eyes were all serendipity!)

   

3. Call a friend. Admittedly the introvert in me is not good at this. The emotional activation energy is high here. But also, I really like talking on the phone to friends. My friend Sue is so good at this. She will just… call. And we talk. It’s lovely. No pre-call text to ask if it’s a good time. If it’s not a good time, I just call back later! (Wild how this feels like an innovation to me…)

4. Dip into an ongoing game. This could be a jigsaw puzzle you keep out, or remember like 15 years ago when it was popular to play digital scrabble with people?! What was that called? I’ve started doing crossword puzzle books like a proper old lady-in-training and it’s so nice to write on paper (huh… writing on paper feels like an innovation too)

5. Have an exercise snack. You know, some jumping jacks, squats, dance moves?? I hesitate to include this one because it’s not really leisure, but also sometimes moving really makes you feel good! In other news, I just had shoulder stabilization surgery three weeks ago and I never in my life thought I’d crave exercise as much as I do now in my oversized sling.

6. Learn about an animal. If you’re craving some screen time but want to make it wholesome, pick an animal you’ve always been curious about and google it. Some quirky animals from my favorite college class, Animal Behavior: naked mole rats’ cooperative behavior, New Caledonian crows’ ability to use tools, Bowerbirds’s mating fortresses, Vervet monkey’s ability to communicate.

7. Make a mug cake! Need a treat? Mug cake’s got you.

I never use AI to write except for spelling and grammar checks. I only use AI for things I myself don’t want to do, and for me, the act of writing IS the point of writing.

But yesterday I was in the shower having so many brilliant thoughts, and this piece was writing itself in my head. I got out of the shower, opened Claude, and thought, “This is the use case!” I orated a 10 minute monologue with all those great ideas and then instructed Claude to give me both the transcript and a version organizing my monologue with structure. Feeling so AI fancy I hit the button to send it aaaaand: IT FROZE. Fucking 2004 Microsoft Office’d me. Just like my 10 page college philosophy essay—gone.

It really wasn’t for the best but I’m telling myself it was. I’m still in a sling 24/7 so typing is labored. But here I am, because it is good to write.

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I’ve made hundreds of consulting decks over the course of my career, with all the fanciest words. In that time, the buzzwords have changed (from 2010’s gamification to 2014’s Internet of Things to 2017’s blockchain extravaganza) but one word has always been en vogue: Growth.

It’s infinitely interpretable in just the way you like: bigger company, more revenue, more impact, more learning. Sounds like dollar signs and smells like wellness. It’s almost a strawman of a term because, like, who wouldn’t want growth? You can’t roll up to your performance review and say, “I didn’t want to learn anything this year.”

And yet…

MAYBE BUSINESSES SHOULD JUST CHILL SOMETIMES

I used to write more about quirky alternative business structures and it was a lot of fun (see: Time Bonuses, The E Corp, A Spirited Defense of Tea Time, and Seasonal Living For Business). My goal was never to advocate for any one idea as the ultimate better way to do things (although I like these ideas), but rather to point out that every bit of what we call “business” is made up. By us. And therefore, we can make it up differently if the status quo isn’t working. Which brings me to my next wild idea:

What if a business designated one quarter a year for simply existing; for percolating.

(Yes, you can totally replace “quarter” with “month” or even “week” but let’s start big)

Sell the items, deliver the services. Work in the business. Just not on the business. No new marketing campaigns. No product launches. No reorgs. No performance calibration. Just keep the storefront open. For a quarter.

I once consulted for a several-hundred-person department of a global organization that was burning its people out. When interviewing employees and wondering how much of their exhaustion and urgency was strictly necessary I asked, “What would happen if your department just stoped working?” and across the board they responded, “Nothing, really. In about 9 months things would become more disorganized for the company.”

This isn’t to say this was a useless department or that they should be laid off. Investment in company infrastructure and organization matters. It is to say that if you’ve built a robust business with strong product-market fit, you’ve earned yourself some momentum. It would have been sacrilegious to suggest, but the department literally could have taken a three month vacation and all that work would have just happened… three months later.

People will say, “We have to keep moving fast to keep up with competitors! The speed of change in the world, in technology, is increasing all the time!” Yes, of course, to some degree this is true, especially for companies that have competing product launch timing (i.e., new phones). But I’m honestly so tired of the “Run! The world is moving faster than you!” rhetoric that is mostly perpetuated by consultants trying to freak you out, and the media, also trying to freak you out.

Sure, there is a cost to going slower. There will be less activity. But maybe not all that “business activity” was going to be impactful in the first place. I’ve seen re-orgs reversed within a year. New products launched that did nothing at all for the business. New tools and systems rolled out that actively made employees’ lives harder. I am all for experimenting and even failure! I just also want to debunk the notion that all activity drives value, and that easing up on activity is necessarily damaging to the business. As they say, you don’t want to spend your effort climbing a ladder only to get to the top and realize you leaned it against the wrong wall.

And think of what you’d gain! A quarter each year with actual slack in the system to rest, dream, and make it home for dinner. Employees with regulated nervous systems. A recruiting tool your talent team would drool over: “For a quarter each year, we take it a little easy. We percolate. No one needs to be sprinting a marathon.”

So how would this work? I don’t know! But I think it’s important to be ridiculous enough to imagine:

• The whole company keeps up with “existing” and maintenance activities. Products get sold. The website gets fixed. The clients get serviced. The money gets accounted. The roles get backfilled.

• You hit pause on anything with the faint perfume of “initiative”. Essentially, will the business keep running if we don’t do this? Yes? Ok, next quarter.

• Would some teams have an easier quarter than others? Yes, definitely. Equity is not this model’s strong suit. But also I don’t think the answer is everyone needs to burn out if some people are. Who knows, maybe the insights team can pause their work and go cover a few retail shifts. (Also, this would be an amazing L&D experience). Maybe the marketing team delays their new campaign and instead rides shotgun on sales calls and even takes a few leads. Maybe the chief of staff handling all “special projects” becomes the company barista for the quarter.

• Maybe there’s a “I need a hand!” marketplace where say a recruiter can say, “Hey, can someone take some screening interviews?” and a product manager can say, “I got you!”

Ironically, you know what would happen if you did this? People would come up with new ideas! And might actually feel bummed they have to wait to work on them. Creating slack in the system, breathing room for your brain, is exactly what a long shower does (the home of all great ideas): it allows you space to imagine.

After all, spring is lovely in its own right—blossoms and all that—but what makes it magnificent is that it follows a period of dormancy.

You can’t re-awaken if you haven’t slept.

(a personal reflection for paid subscriber friends)

MAYBE HUMANS SHOULD JUST CHILL SOMETIMES TOO (or, WHAT’S MY NEXT CAREER ADVENTURE?!)

I am 100% writing this for myself, because I am cocooning. Not the version where I’m cozy with a blanket and a Netflix binge. I’m the version where I’m molten bug juice and really hoping there’s a wing in here.

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I’ve been in the market for emotional support lately. On the macro level things are fine. I am happy and healthy. The fam is okay. And yet, when your dog has diarrhea all over your 700 sqft apartment for days, life becomes kind of a bummer!

The laundry. The middle of the night wake ups. The poop. Feels like I’m back in the throes of early parenthood. You know what’s getting me through? The joy of morning coffee and then the joy of my little phone mount in the kitchen which lets me watch Seinfeld reruns while I cook dinner.

Which brings me to this musing: Maybe adults need security blankets just as much as kids. Little tokens of comfort and reliability. Reminders that joy is always within reach. Just like a parent might buy a new “Mr. Bunny” to replace a lost one and try to pass it off as the original, if Brad ever broke my phone mount, I’d indeed enjoy it if he sneakily got a new one and replaced it telling me, “Oh it I think it always looked like that!”

Years ago on one high-stakes consulting engagement, I was on-site with the CEO for the day conducting interviews with him and his people. I had a mug of coffee I had picked up from their office kitchen that morning and I took it with me to every interview through the day. Of course, by 11am it was cold and mostly empty and I could have easily dropped it back in their kitchen but didn’t. At the end of the day I reconvened with the CEO and he said, “What is that, your emotional support mug?”

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If you’ve said (shouted?) to yourself, “I’m SO over winter,” I get you. My numb ears get you. My slightly pulled hamstring from when I almost wiped out on ice last week gets you.

And yet, if you’ve read Today Was Fun or followed this publication for a while, you’ll know I have an aversion to wishing away any day, any month, any season. Because when we wish away a season, we wish away our lives—and we only get so many winters.

So over the past week I’ve been musing on what, exactly, is worth savoring about February. And then I challenged myself… what mindset would I need to hold to actively want to hold on to February? This was Mission Impossible territory.

It always helps me to throw some existential dread into the equation, so that’s what I tried first. My mom died years ago and doesn’t get to enjoy this February. Our dog died last week and I’m devastated that Charlie doesn’t get to enjoy this February. So I’m going to enjoy the fuck out of it for both of them and all the other dead people an animals too. Want to join in my questionably morbid, endlessly hopeful quest? Please enjoy these reasons to love February, and in the comments add your own!

1. FEBRUARY IS AN INTROVERT’S DREAM

I’ve barely said yes to evening plans this winter. I have a chorus of tiny voices in my head telling me “you’ll never know who you’ll meet at the event and what opportunities might arise!” but one of my favorite things about my 40s has been getting really good at the rebuttal: “But I don’t want to.” When it’s dark out my inner bear just wants to be inside the cave. February, for me, is less about other people “forgiving” a declined invitation, but more about me feeling confident that a lot of staying in is what this season is for. Essentially:

2. THE AIR OFTEN FEELS GREAT

I remember moving to Washington DC in August years ago and realizing that my new look was going to be “sweaty.” Bangs stuck to my forehead. Flushed face. The drop of sweat you can feel running down your back. I’m not saying the brick air we have at the moment isn’t dehydrating and frankly rude. But if I’ve bundled up properly, it can also feel wildly invigorating. A cold plunge for your face! And not a mosquito in sight.

3. YOU CAN FEEL THE RUMBLINGS OF SPRING

New Years should absolutely not be January 1st. That’s lunacy. For thousands of years, in cultures across the world, New Years was aligned to the spring equinox. Tell me: WHAT BEAR IS PUTTING ON HIS FITNESS TRACKER IN JANUARY?! It’s like what… we toil all summer farming, reap the harvest in the fall, prepare for the deep freezes of winter, settle into the long, cold nights marked by the winter solstice on December 21st, and then just TEN DAYS into winter proper we’re jolted awake by some kind of masochistic societal alarm clock that tells us to start running, eating low carb, and seizing life anew? No.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a gentle, playful resolution but I’m saving the awakenings for the season when things are actually supposed to awaken. I’m finally now, in February, in a place to think about the shape of my portfolio life more proactively. I got a haircut and new jeans this week. I love feeling the seeds of a new beginning unfurling.

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4. IT’S NEVER MORE GLORIOUS TO STEP INTO A SHOWER

I mean, come on. You’re cold in your bones and then you enter that waterfall of warmth… all chills and ecstasy! Who needs drugs.

5. YOU’VE GOT THE WHOLE YEAR TO MAKE THE NUMBERS

February is in that delightful little pocket of the year when you’re not racing to “make your numbers” in Q4 and you’re past the “strong start” of January. Sure, a lot of companies insist on monthly numbers to try to single out innocent little months like February and make them perform, but if you’re not in one of them, then enjoy this cozy closet-under-the-stairs of a month.

6. PEOPLE SOMEHOW SEEM UNUSUALLY KIND

This is a big thing to say as a New Yorker, since we are not known for our friendly nature. But just yesterday two strangers on the street insisted on showing me pictures of their dogs on their phones. Arden and I made friends with two pre-school teachers who were standing outside our corner deli. Even my email exchanges this week have been uncommonly personal, delightful, human. Are you all feeling this too?? I loved this piece from on Underrated ways to change the world and it seems others are too. With news of murders in Minneapolis and the US if not the broader world in shambles, I think people are just like, “Well shit. If there’s nothing else I can do, I’m gonna be nice.”

Ok, so maybe this is less about February and more about the state of our collective psychology, but I think the sentiment remains: the colder it is out there, the more we have to bring the warmth ourselves.

7. IT’S TOTALLY ACCEPTABLE TO HAVE BAD HAIR

In the spring, if you show up to a meeting with bedhead you might get some looks. But in the winter? “Oh, they surely were just wearing a hat!” As someone who perpetually doesn’t know what to do with her hair, I’m into it.

8. YOU DON’T HAVE TO SUCK IN SHIT

JK. I’m actually not into sucking anything in any time of year, though if I’m wearing a fitted jumpsuit in the summer, I might stand up a little straighter and pull my shoulders back to approximate posture. But in February? It’s the season of the comfy slouch, the fetal position, the little spoon. Most zoom meetings I have a blanket or hot water bottle on my lap. I’m typing this now from bed because why not?

9. VALENTINES DAY CAN HAVE YOUR BACK IF YOU LET IT

I’ve always been amused by the selection of holidays we celebrate: a holiday where a man in a tophat asks a rodent if it’s sunny out; a holiday about death where you dress up like sexy healthcare workers. Kinda quirky! But somehow, I find holidays take care of us right when we need them most. Romance feeling lackluster amidst the slush and chill? BAM here’s your excuse to spice it up. Not partnered and not interested? Forget the romance, eat the chocolate. Are you tired of your introverted friends canceling all your plans? It’s a perfect excuse to give a little love to a family member or child in your life. Bonus holiday if you’re in the US: this Sunday it’s totally acceptable to have wings, nachos, chili, sliders, and onion dip in the same meal!

10. THERE’S SOMETHING DELICIOUS ABOUT BEING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BOOK

Do you ever finish a book and wish you were back swimming in the middle of the evolving plot? Or feel nostalgic for season four of a ten-season show you loved? It’s a sort of safety mixed with hope with a through line of comforting banality. I’ve been watching Outlander since its inception and I remember one scene when they were trying to explain a bunch of time passing and the voiceover went something like, “The days went on much the same, with Claire tending to the land and the people of the ridge…” I love the action scenes, but something about that description made me just want to watch her like… roast some vegetables, fix a doorknob, mend a scrape. That glorious “stuff of life.” Well February is prime “stuff of life” season. It’s just us, hanging out in the deleted scenes. It’s not glamorous, but it is lifey, and that can be beautiful too.

11. TRY TO BEAT WAKING UP ON A SATURDAY MORNING TO CHILLY AIR IN A WARM BED

It’s why half of NYC opens their windows in the winter because a lot of buildings’ heating is controlled centrally and in order for that one person in the drafty apartment not to freeze the super jacks the heat up for everyone and everyone sweats and opens their windows to achieve the aforementioned bliss and it’s no wonder we have an energy crisis.

12. ANTICIPATION IS WHERE IT’S AT

There’s nothing like a good “will they/won’t they” story arc, and February is the perfect moment to lean into some meteorological foreplay. For example, my weather app told me it was going to be 40 degrees one day next week and I swooned! Only to check again and now it’s only 38. The drama! The desire! And when that first 40 degree day finally hits and I delight in the balmy air, it will be all the sweeter for having fantasized about it.

So there you go. Tell me which number is your vibe!

Because yes, I absolutely wrote this post as much for myself as anyone else. It’s cold out there!!! And yet, what a day to be alive.

When I was 23 years old and living in LA I tried to make it as an actor. It didn’t work out (obv), but I’ve never lost the love of performing arts—especially improv. So imagine my delight when my friend Nate who runs content at Nectar asked if I wanted to do a “man on the street” style interview series with them. It was very scary, and also exhilarating. Luckily that year of auditions in LA really prepared me for rejection!

I asked people in NYC to tell me about their work bestie and then call them to say thanks. It’s totally heartwarming if I say so myself. Watch and share!

My dear friend Sue, who is an immensely talented designer, has created the most important sweatshirt in the world. She’s selling them at cost. Get yours.

Our dog, Charlie, died last week. I wrote about my best trick for getting through the days prior. This one is a bonus post for paid subscribers but you can read the first part for free. If you’re so inclined, come join the paid crew in our cozy and kind corner of the internet.

(The five words are not “I’m having a terrible time.”)

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I’m having a terrible time.

Last week I learned my dog, Charlie, has cancer. Probably, anyway. That’s what the vet thinks with the mass in his throat “quacking like a duck, walking like a duck” and all. We’ll find out the test results this week.

He’s also not exactly my dog. Maybe spiritually he feels like my dog. See he was my parents’s dog, and I remember when they got him, all wild and full of life. My parents were in their 60s and I’m sure never considered that Charlie would outlive their ability to take care of him. But my mom died three years ago. And my dad has Alzheimer’s. So my in-laws adopted him as well as Sadie, who was my grandfather’s dog but he died in 2020. It was honestly heroic of them—giving a home to these two creatures I loved so dearly at a time when my caregiving was at an all-time high. Lucky for us and conveniently for all, when my in-laws travel (which they do a fair bit of in retirement) the dogs come stay with us, often for many weeks at a time.

So, you see, not only do I love these good, sweet, big-hearted dogs immensely, but they also represent for me my duty to my parents and grandparents—to do for the dogs what they can’t do themselves. They represent an era of my life that is, and has been, ending: that time when I had my parents, alive and well; when we were all together in what now feel like “the good old days.” They also represent allergies because in a very fucking rude twist of fate, my eyes go nuts whenever they’re here, and that’s not even because of the crying.

They say “the body keeps the score” but you know what else the body keeps? The instruction manual for crisis. Certainly a terminal diagnosis for your mother is different from a possible diagnosis for your dog, but nevertheless, my body said, IT’S GO TIME and I immediately went into triage mode: canceling plans, imagining different scenarios, securing resources, entering a state of hyper vigilance. For example, right now as I type this, I can’t help but glance up at the dogs every 10 seconds to make sure they’re breathing and okay. Is this necessary or helpful? No. Does my body think it is? 1000% and won’t let me get away without it.

And with all hard experiences, there’s the pain of living through it, and the extra helping of self-inflicted pain of wondering if you’re living through the pain properly or if you could be doing it better and WHY THE HELL AREN’T YOU.

For example, I actually had a good bit of time today while the dogs were sleeping, but instead of 1/ being so productive working or 2/ being so kind to myself curled up watching TV and enjoying a reprieve, I 3/ did ten little unimportant tasks nervously and looked for the next shoe to drop.

I think: Shouldn’t I be exercising more this week? The dogs don’t take up every minute. Arden’s friends’ families seem to be doing all these fun and enriching activities on the weekends, shouldn’t we? I should take advantage of these days and cook! And will we ever move abroad? At least write this week, Bree. I mean, I guess I’m here.

Is there a lesson in all of this? Other than death is inevitable and life is just managing decline?

Ugh, nobody take me to a party this week.

If there’s any wisdom I can pass along, any strategy of making it through the hard times (even if that hard time is just it being January), it’s that I say these five words to myself, on repeat:

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Oh boy is there a lot written about New Year’s Resolutions. Plenty about capturing the increased motivation that comes from the “fresh start” effect. Plenty about debunking our ability to reinvent ourselves on a whim.

Where do I fall? I like resolutions, but I like ‘em fun. I wrote last year about how resolutions can be less shame-induced transformation, and more invitation to play with some new identities. Perhaps you have already picked a word for the year, created a vision board, or set some intentions, but if not, here are a few playful resolutions to consider:

Want a more peaceful start to the day?

Read all about Grandpa Mornings here. In short, make picking up your phone the 14th thing you do in the morning. This was my resolution last year and I loved it. Did I do it all year? Of course not! But I did it and enjoyed it once in a while and that’s once-in-a-while more than I would have done it without the resolution.

Want health but make it practical?

Aim for health, not health aesthetic. Full description here. Invite your friends to your messy house because friendship is healthy. Join the meeting with wet hair because you exercised, showered, and didn’t trade your sleep for a blow dryer.

Want that dolce vita?

Eat as many different pasta shapes as possible in 2026. Like a carby scavenger hunt. -@Songofsaraneth

Want joy and want it now?

“The best New Year’s resolution I ever made was to start devouring all my nicest things, and save no small pleasure for an unspecified future. Now I burn the good candles, wear the expensive perfume at home, scribble imperfectly in pretty notebooks. You can’t pin joy like a moth.” -

Want to appreciate more of what’s already around you?

We live in a world that rewards paying attention to the signal over the noise. It’s a good way to run a business, but a bad way to run a life. This is my year to pay attention to the noise—small textures of my day: how my coffee shop smoothie had more banana than usual and what a lovely variation, or how certain songs have just the right tempo for walking to the beat. Could I just drink the smoothie and walk without a soundtrack? Sure. More efficient. But the texture of our days is what makes them rich.

Want a mini digital detox?

When you wake up, reach for your partner or pet to say Good Morning before you reach for your phone. No other fleshy entities in your bed? Look out the window and greet the sky. This is one of mine this year! A subset of a Grandpa Morning. Normally I’d be sucked into some email or scroll before I realize Brad is also up and I say good morning like, “Oh, you’re there.” No longer!

Want to enjoy your colleagues more?

Learn the names of every one of your colleagues’ pets. Much harder to think Bob in communications is an asshole if you know he has a fluffy cat named Plume. If you need, keep a pet name journal. People’s pets are usually dear and personal to them, and getting to know their pets (ask for pics!) is a quick way to bypass the business mask and humanize the workplace.

Want to appreciate just how great you already are?

What’s something healthy that you already do? Declare that your resolution! Feel great about it. Just imagine a world where you fell off that healthy habit… ugh now you have to resolve to get back to it. Now just skip the falling off part and simply not stopping your healthy habit is a win!

Want more whimsy and fiber in your life?

Every time you see a fruit you have never eaten, get one, eat it, and then read the Wikipedia article about it -@Songofsaraneth

Want more ease in your days?

A colleague once said to me, “Imagine you walk in the woods every day, and every day you have to walk around a rock. Eventually, it might be time to move that rock.” What’s a small daily annoyance you could solve for yourself? For example, today I went on Amazon and deleted the 13 expired credit cards from my account that are always offered as options. Throw out your expired spices. Pick a few and complete, say, one a week.

Want more belly laughs?

Skip the exercise sticker chart and just play more actual games! This is a great one from my friend Uri Bram. Over the holidays I made up a new game that we played with the help of Claude. It’s called “Face it” or, my preference, “Do It With Your Face.” Same idea as Pictionary and Charades, but instead of only drawing or only miming, in Face It, you can only use your facial expressions. Put these instructions in your favorite AI and enjoy: “Let's play a facial expression guessing game. When I type 'category', announce a random category to the group which I’ll show everyone. After I pass my phone to someone, they'll type 'word' and you'll give them one secret word from that category to act out using only facial expressions.” There is no winning or points, just hilarity. We told Claude to make it 25% harder after a while. It gave me “Philosophical concepts” as my category and “Existentialism” as the word. We got it!

Want to be the main character on your own movie set?

Swap your blue fluorescent bulbs for warm glowy ones. Get a candle for beside your bed. Get a vanity mirror for your bathroom that has an “evening light” mode and use it instead of the overhead when you’re winding down. There’s nothing a little cinematic lighting can’t make better.

Want more efficiency without becoming a robot?

It takes me forever to write thoughtful emails. Did I use too many exclamations? Is that sentence weird? Sometimes the word-smithing is worth it. Other times, definitely not. But instead of writing fast & expressionless which comes off curt, I like to go fast & awkward. Type the weird sentence and let it fly. Too many exclamations? Oh well, I’m excitable. Proofreading is for the humorless. If you want to be more efficient in 2026, skip the organization schemes and go for Fast & Awkward.

Want to go easier on yourself?

This morning I was talking to someone and only after the conversation did I realize I was maybe slowing down their morning. I was tempted to ruminate over it, but instead I just said, “Whoops!” and told myself that was the end of it. No “I had better reflect on this lesson for the future” or replaying the scenario in my head (well, except for writing this). This resolution is not for the selfish jerks who could use more self-awareness. It’s for anyone who is already hyper self-aware and could use to let some things fucking go. Say Whoops! and carry on.

Want to have more fun?

Decide this is the year for it! My friend, Alicia Grimes, is doing it and I think you should too. Having written a book about fun, one of my greatest insights is that to have more fun, you have to expect to have more fun. When we say “work is called work for a reason” and “work is a four-letter word” we excuse ourselves from even trying to find joy in the experience. If I instead expect to have fun at work, it makes total sense that I would take two minutes to DM my work bestie something funny, that I would share an idea that’s lighting me up, that I would put effort into making my project plan real good lookin’.

In short, resolutions should work for you, not the other way around. They should make you excited to experiment. They should feel like play! And remember, our society is real weird about insisting you do something forever or it’s a failure. You can 100% try a resolution, stop it, and still bank the win of having done that thing 5 more times than you would have without the resolution, not to mention the interesting life experiment of having tried it.

What would you add?? Any fun resolutions to add to the hopper? Share with us!

Do you ever feel like you’ve been sowing seeds for a million years and could really go for some reaping? I will take a harvest, please!

Well, after toiling in the book publishing field for two years now, I can’t express how fun it’s been to see the accolades and orders coming in:

Kirkus Reviews named Today Was Fun a Best Indie Book of 2025!

If you don’t know it, Kirkus is a huge industry player in book reviews. They called TWF “An entertaining and trenchant case for humane workplaces and enjoyable jobs.” Yes, embarrassingly, I did need to look up what trenchant meant.

The Next Big Idea Club named Today Was Fun one of the Top 10 Business Books of the Year!

The list is curated by bestselling authors Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink.

TWF made its way onto “Best Books of 2025” lists from lots of people I think are cool!

InsideOut Design Leader Community, Allison Stadd, Netta Kivilis, Todd Boucher, Alyssa Towns, Kathy Oneto, and Mary Kate Stimmler who named TWF “The Most Radical Business Book of the Year” in a post that made me guffaw with joy.

AND… next year TWF will be even more global!

I sold the Korean rights and we’re doing a print run in India. I loved getting a message from a reader who spotted it in a bookstore in Indonesia.

I’m also really proud that 900 more books are shipping to people who have approached me to send them in bulk to their clients, colleagues, or book club.

Lastly, I have a shop!

I’m shipping out tomorrow (December 19th) and then when I’m back in January. Know someone who could use more good days at work? (Maybe you?) The Kit for Ever-Better Days includes a 6-week one-a-day calendar (Far Side vibes, fewer cows) that will help you start the year right, not to mention babka.

What follows are my unvarnished (and if I say so myself, counterintuitive) reflections on how we process endings. These essays take time and love and a few heaps of emotional vulnerability, and therefore are for my merry band of paid subscribers. Come join us?

Also, the thing about the wand up your butt will make sense if you subscribe. Tempted? :)

Subscribe now

You know, I really needed to itemize all those wins. Thanks for indulging the parade. So many people asked me before the book launch how I would define success in the end. I was all over the map really, from saying “I know most books don’t sell, BUT I WANT TO SELL A MILLION COPIES AND DON’T TELL ME I CAN’T” to “I made art, and that’s enough.” I still toggle back and forth but where I’ve landed is this:

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Hi! I’m Bree, author of Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously), company culture consultant, speaker, and generally happy human. Here I write about how to have better days at work and in life. We all deserve more than “getting through the week.”

We are here! The time of year when it becomes ever-more reasonable to ask “Is this a December problem? Or a January problem…” The time of year when we’re toggling between “finishing strong” and “What is enough?”

Seems to me, ancestrally, that Thanksgiving was supposed to be the pinnacle of “We’ve harvested! Let’s eat, get the jammies on, and call it a year.” Somehow the modern corporate world missed that memo and like some kind of overworking groundhog has declared “Three more weeks of working winter…” Alas.

Still, the month of December can be a beautiful month. Here are a few posts that I hope will brighten these shorter days.

Posts you might have missed

Come join us in the land of paid subscribers! The water’s fine <3

Easy-reading posts for better days

Fresh pep for your step

What I’m thinking about this week

What if schools taught a “Tools for Happiness” course. We talk so much about preparing kids for their futures, and yet we never explicitly teach the one thing most people say they aspire to above all else, the one thing parents say they want for their kids above all else: happiness.

What good is it to be successful if you’re not actually enjoying your life? Ooh I have all sorts of ideas for curriculum, for guest lecturers, for projects. Given most schools don’t even teach basic personal budgeting, we’re not exactly killing it on the life skills currently so this is a stretch. But given the wild popularity of programs like Stanford’s Life Design courses and NYU’s Initiative on Purpose and Flourishing, not to mention THE ENTIRE SELF-HELP INDUSTRY, seems like knowing how to enjoy your days should be up there with knowing the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

What’s on your mind this week? Tell me in the comments!

Hi! My name is Bree, and I write about how to have better days at work and in life. Subscribe for posts on everything from 20 short rules for better days at work to Grandpa Mornings. And order my new book, Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously)!

There’s nothing my overachieving Millennial soul likes better than the idea of being in the “advanced class.” So when I started thinking about gratitude this week, I decided to go hard:

What would Advanced Placement Gratitude look like?

We teach kids the basics. Across the US you can see 5 year olds making Thanksgiving turkey handprints with things they’re grateful for like family, friends, food, fun.

Solid, but also, so Gratitude 101.

AP Gratitude would be non-obvious. Much more interesting. I’d have to work for it. So what sort of things are hard to be grateful for? I’ll tell you what: Terrible things. Today I give you five terrible things that I’m in some weird way grateful for. And I invite you to share your own!

Wonderful things about terrible things:

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Hi! My name is Bree, and I write about how to have better days at work and in life. Subscribe for posts on everything from 20 short rules for better days at work to Grandpa Mornings. And order my new book, Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously)!

CEOs are passing out AI mandates like they raided a hammer factory and need everyone to have one, regardless of whether their employees work with nails.

We see big headlines about AI-enabled mass layoffs. About meteoric gains in efficiency for the corporate heavy hitters. I even hear from clients, “AI has transformed how I work” and I have to wonder if that’s really true or if they’ve gotten so used to talking about the emperor’s fine garbs that to do otherwise feels traitorous.

Here’s what I honestly think: AI is massively changing how software engineers build, and others in tech for that matter. I’m sure there are some other roles that are being revolutionized. Hammers are, indeed, incredibly useful tools. But for most knowledge workers, life is not radically different.

Leaders would have you believe that if you’re not heavily leveraging AI that it’s your fault. You’re resistant to change, not willing to put in the work, simplistic in your understanding of AI’s capabilities, and generally becoming a relic in your profession. You’ve likely heard the quip, “AI won’t take your job. But someone who knows how to use it will.”

I hate that quip.

For a lot of people I think it feels like working as a masseuse, being handed a hammer, and then when you don’t use it told you’re not creative enough to figure out the efficiencies.

I mean, sure, crack someone’s skull and they won’t mind their lower back pain so much?

While I usually identify as an early adopter and lover of change (my master’s degree is in organizational learning and change), I see too many leaders who are not thinking with their brains—they’re thinking with their bottom lines. They’re angry people aren’t more grateful for their bouquets of hammers.

Instead, I offer you an alternative to the proclamations of our scantily clad emperor:

Four ridiculously human principles for using AI at work

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I was going to write about Grief Debt today, but that two word combination is about as enticing as Colonoscopy Taxes, and I’m just not in the mood.

I am in the mood for treats.

In fact, I think the cold snap in NYC has done something to my ability to resist sugar because although usually I will take chips and salsa over dessert any day, I’ve been craving pancakes, chocolate, cookies. Not to mention the cravings for Only Murders in the Building which we’re watching as a family, my flannel pajamas, and new home goods. I like to think of it as Beast Mode… if that beast were a bear gorging itself in preparation for a very cozy hibernation.

I thought maybe you, too, were in the mood for treats. So here are 10 things to enjoy, get excited about, and try out as we enter the coziest time of year together. (With apologies to my southern hemisphere friends… bookmark this post?)

1. Bunnies have long tails! Did you know this? This fact never ceases to delight Brad. Maybe it will delight you too. That puff ball I pinned to my butt that one Halloween? Lies!!

2. Try an 1800s evening. That’s what I call the nights we entertain ourselves with the technology/vibes they had in the days of yore. As a family we love to do a jigsaw puzzle while we listen to a podcast. Well, mostly I love to do it and then Brad and Arden get all up in my business when they see a puzzle section that looks fun and that’s how I trick them in to my old school ways.

   

3. My recent nightly treat is reading my friend ’s brilliant, soon-to-be-released, short-form memoir about her year of burnout recovery: A Year of Nothing. She has such a wonderful way of gently, generously bringing you into her world. A cozy, reflective delight.

   

4. My favorite is to read it by candlelight, and I’m aware that candle holder makes it look like I should own a nightcap and be eating porridge. I dunno, it really brings me joy. I love the flickering light on the page. Our cat has only singed her whiskers once. Also, that’s magnesium tea because now I think about my magnesium levels like a proper middle-aged person. Candleholder from Stella in NYC. They have the dreamiest things.

5. This Chicken and Rice Soup is now on regular rotation. You can even skip the whole make-the-garnish bit and the soup recipe is basically: put it all in the pot. Arden made it by herself this weekend was was so proud. It’s nourishing and comforting but still bright with all the lemon.

6. My friend just launched this gorgeous hardcover version of his cult-following book, The Pathless Path. Such a good gift for anyone in your life who is rethinking if the “work 40 years, retire” model is for them. And more broadly, anyone thinking soulfully about what it means to create a life on your own terms.

7. I am very excited about this felt bin we recently acquired. Typing that I realize just how far away I am from my 20s. This is not an affiliate link situation, I am selling felt bins to no one. But it makes me really happy that instead of the junk bowl situation we had near the door, now all of our junk is hidden in felt. Do any of you look at your little piles of crap (←❤️) and wonder: “Here is a nickel. What do I do with this nickel? I haven’t used change in forever, and if I were to use a nickel, I can’t just spend a nickel, I’d need to acquire other cash and bring it to a store which would only result in more change. Do I drop it on the street and wish it well? Throw it away? I’m sure as hell not going to my bank to deposit it. I guess I will live with this nickel forever.”

8. For an evening treat, try showering in the dark. I’ve been doing this for over a year now, most nights of the week. This isn’t my shampoo, exfoliate, etc shower which I do in the morning. This is a recreational shower. We have a small vanity mirror which has an “evening light” mode that I turn on that gives a warm, moody glow. And then I just stand under the hot water letting my muscles relax and brain unwind. It’s like a DIY sensory deprivation tank.

9. When I’m all wrapped up in my own world, feeling overly important and huffy-puffy, the best thing for me is to travel—to walk around a new city realizing nobody knows me or cares about me, feeling small and unimportant in the best possible way; in the way that frees me to simply enjoy myself. The second best thing I’ve found to induce this feeling is WindowSwap. I hope you enjoy it too.

10. I might have had a bit too much fun creating my website with my friend Chris. For fun and relaxation, try minimizing, expanding, or closing the main window… (Oh, you found yourself on a page where you can buy Today Was Fun? Look at that! How funny. Might as well get it while you’re there?)

I like it here

Of all the things I do (speaking, consulting, etc) my favorite is writing to you. It makes me happy. I hope it makes you happy. My goal is to share a perspective or idea or nugget of joy that helps you have better days at work and in life. I’d like to do more of it, and I hope you’ll support me in putting ever-more love here.

Writing is a weird profession in that it’s often expected that you’ll do it for free, for “exposure.” Or that it’s the “top of your funnel” to get people to buy your course or consulting or coaching. But I’ve always said of the book and of this site, that to me, the writing IS the point. It’s the beautiful part. My way of throwing thought seeds into the world, hoping they might take root in your neck of the woods and grow into something magical and sustaining.

I love this corner of the internet we have. And, I think I need it to love me back so it makes sense to pour ever-more into it.

Would you, could you, become a paid subscriber? I promise to delight your inbox. To read your comments. To do my best to inspire ever-better days. And if a paid subscription clashes with your financial sitch, email me and I’ll comp you one—no questions asked. todaywasfun@breegroff.com

Soon I’ll transition to once-a-season public posts and weekly-ish subscriber posts. I plan to not write for a month over the summer, for two weeks in the winter, and to skip a couple other weeks too. But most weeks, I’ll be here, having a lot of fun.

I hope you will be too?

Hi! My name is Bree, and I write about how to have better days at work and in life. Subscribe for posts on everything from 20 short rules for better days at work to Grandpa Mornings. And order my new book, Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously)!

Last night before bed, Brad said, “How was your day? How are you?” For some reason I responded:

“I’m having a great time.”

Like, in life. Which is true.

But also, unexpectedly, it stirred up all sorts of internal voices that I had to quiet down like a bunch of 5th graders being told recess was cancelled. “Settle down! All of you!”

Amidst the cacophony, I could identify a few voices:

• Ugh, Bree, it’s so unrelatable to be happy. Misery loves company, remember. You’re going to make people feel bad and roll their eyes.

• Obviously people will think you’re lying. With everyone presenting shiny, Instagram-friendly versions of their lives, authenticity = messiness, cynicism. No one ever follows “Just keeping it real” with “I’m so happy!”

• If you dare to think you’re happy, just wait until the God of Hubris finds out. Instant bedbugs.

• And what happened to your ambition? Happiness feels far too close to complacency. So what, you’re just… satisfied with your life?

• It’s also not cool. Happiness isn’t interesting, isn’t complex. It’s not artistic or deep or intriguing.

WHO ARE THESE VOICES?! There are enough problems in the world and my life that will do a great job of keeping me down. Why should I also join the ranks as a gatekeeper to my own joy?

Yesterday I took my dad, who has Alzheimer’s, to the doctor. Couldn’t get blood pressure—he wouldn’t stop moving. Didn’t even try getting his shirt off. But somehow, miraculously, between me holding one arm and staring him in the eyes and singing and his caregiver holding his other arm, this ninja of a nurse was able to get a blood draw. Now getting blood from someone with Alzheimer’s is a zero-stars, would-not-recommend activity. But I felt AMAZING after. So proud. I banked all the joy I could get. And then we took him home and watched Seinfeld together—the one with the shrinkage.

It was one reason I reported to Brad I was having a great time. It was a hard afternoon, though it wasn’t without joy, and I imagine that’s true for many people, many days. I wondered how much we keep ourselves from feeling joy for any number of reasons… for fear of it being indulgent or hubris-tempting or uncool or simply a waste of time. And even if we do feel it, I wonder how much we dare to tell others.

I also wonder, in a work setting, how much being tired or unhappy is a conscious or unconscious strategy for finding support and fending off overwork. Like how when Arden was little Brad and I always competed for who was the most tired so the other person had to get up and change the diaper. Is there a part of us that worries the happier and stronger we are, the more people will try to extract from us?

This all intrigues me because of how much more joy might be possible if we could nail the final leg of the happiness process: feeling it. It’s like failing the “last mile” of a delivery service—a package makes its way across the world, through endless distribution centers and ships and trucks, all to be FINALLY delivered to your door. And then it gets kicked under your porch.

Similarly, I went through the whole ordeal of the afternoon, and I did not need to revel in the joy of helping my dad. I could have easily kicked that joy under the porch on my way to the next task of the day. But I’m glad I felt it. It made it a good day.

This post is not a “try to be happy” post. It’s more a “maybe life would be better if we didn’t try to be anything” post. It’s okay to be authentically stressed and down. Okay to be authentically happy. Okay to both have a bad day AND a moment of joy within it. As someone said to me recently, “Grieving people can still laugh.”

Care for some friendly homework this weekend? Here it is: Revel in something. Take thirty seconds to roll with delight in… (to get you started):

1. How nice that one corner of your house/apartment looks.

2. How much you love some part of being your current age.

3. How good looking you are.

4. How nice that text was that your friend sent you.

5. How nice it feels to step into a hot shower in the fall.

And then, tell us about it! Or maybe you already had a revel today. Tell us all here. Going through hell at the moment? Tell us about a nice lava rock you found. We’ll cheer you on.

Want to come to a reading party in NYC?

I’ll be the featured author at Reading Rhythm’s reading party next week! A reading party is exactly what it sounds like. People get together, but instead of aimless mingling, you bring your book and read in comfy chairs. This all really scratches my introverted soul’s itch to gather but not have to think of things to say all the time :) Come with friends or come alone!

Tix here | Monday, October 27th, 7-9pm, Tribeca

Hi! My name is Bree, and I write about how to have better days at work and in life. Subscribe for posts on everything from 20 short rules for better days at work to Grandpa Mornings. And order my new book, Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously)!

Plan A: I don’t do “busy”

I hold deep values around ease, sustainable work, and savoring my time on the planet. I prioritize and plan and don’t over-schedule. I reject the notion that being busy equates to being important, needed, valuable.

I know: Bree, what wellness cult are you trying to start? Do you live in the real world?

Obviously, Plan A isn’t always favored by reality. So what happens on the days when I have 18 things to do and time for 12 of them? My first strategy, my Plan A, is to prioritize or strategize or find a workaround to save me from my busy day so I can live in accordance with my values. But when that doesn’t work? When my dad needs me to get his prescription AND I need to send the client contract AND I need to work on Arden’s middle school applications, AND AND AND… When I’ve conceded that there’s no prioritization or workaround that’s going to save me from the busy day, I simply adopt different values—as heretical as that may seem. I say, “Ok brain, get our Plan B values off the bench. It’s game time!”

Plan B: Busyness is a sign of life!

• How lucky am I that I’m needed by my family and friends and clients and partners.

• I think of this clip from comedian Mike Birbiglia where he asks Bob Odenkirk who he’s jealous of and Bob responds, “Anyone who still has kids at home.” I realize how much I will one day miss wrangling Arden out the door.

• I think of the Calvin & Hobbs comic my grandparents had in their home that read, “God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I’m so far behind, I will never die.” To have things to do is to have reason to live!

• The busy bee. The busy beaver. They are building, working, changing the world around them for the better.

• I think of my years in consulting and how the opposite of being busy—being under-contracted—is far worse!

• And I remember busyness can be invigorating. It’s cool to feel like a sniper, a fixer, a powerhouse who knows how to Get Shit Done.

I do this mental trick because after I’ve decided I’m going to have a busy day, I figure I have two options: 1/ Feel like shit about it, or 2/ Feel awesome about it.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not always a natural flip of the switch. I do spend some time in the land of, “But if I don’t berate myself about mismanaging my time, how will I ever learn? I MUST feel like shit if we’re going to prevent this from happening again.” And then I remember that I tried that most of my life and somehow I still ended up busy, so maybe it wasn’t that effective after all.

Here are some other Plan B Values:

Plan A: I value my health and I know regular exercise is perhaps the greatest contributor to it.

Plan B: Whoopsies. Did I wake up and 0% of me wanted to exercise and so I didn’t? Today I value REST. The pure delight of playing hooky. I value doing “most things, most days.”

Plan A: I value exploring the city with my family, having adventures, being out in the world and astonished by it!

Plan B: Oh, did we just do laundry and grocery shop today and not one other interesting thing? Where did I put those Plan B values… ah here they are! I value the simple things in life. The few seconds of putting on clothes fresh from the dryer and letting the heat sink into my skin so immediately it gives me the chills; the joy of a well-stocked fridge.

You get the idea. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote:

I mean, not to tout my first-rate intelligence or anything. Because sometimes I DON’T function. I just stand there in my exercise clothes not knowing whether to rush out the door to a class or give it all up to finish things at home—all while looking like I’m staring down the countdown clock attached to some TNT.

But eventually I pick a lane. Plan A or Plan B.

No one does, or should, live only by one set of values. Because, frankly, there are so many things to value! Perhaps the best we can do is decide not to feel bad about adopting different values when the moment calls for them.

What are you all valuing today? Endurance? Play? Intellectual depth? Friendly gossip? Expression? Ease? The power of being an expert? The delight of being a novice? Is it a Let’s Fucking Go day, or a Let’s Fucking Go To Bed day? Tell us so we can discuss in the comments :)

Have you read Today Was Fun yet?

If you haven’t because you were waiting for the Korean translation DO I HAVE NEWS FOR YOU. We sold the first TWF translation rights!

And if you have read it… could you, would you, leave a review? It would fill my heart with cookies. Amazon is here. Goodreads here. Thank you, truly.

You’re here! I’m here!

It’s been too long. Which is all me, obv. We went to Ireland and Greece and then I spent some time with Arden cleaning out her room and back to school shopping. Now I’m in San Francisco speaking at the Responsive Conference.

And I’ve been thinking about computer screen wipes. It’s a theory of change…

But let’s back up and walk into this one. Things I love:

• Not equating difficulty with value

• Discovering a gap between what leaders/consultants think people want at work and what they actually want

• Pleasure at work

• Demonstrating thoughtful care for each other

• Computer screen wipes

I’ve been in consulting for ages, and if there’s one thing that sells, it’s the notion of BIG STRATEGIC SYSTEM-WIDE CHANGE. And look, sometimes that’s exactly what the moment calls for. But I wonder if other times that big restructuring, the new platform rollout, the process overhaul, is more for the leaders than it is for the work, the employees, and the impact.

Understandably, leaders feel much more comfortable sharing 50-page decks with root cause analyses and 5-phase rollouts than they do little tweaks. A CHRO might question their worth and the deservedness of their paycheck if their grandest plan presented to the CEO was “let’s put computer screen wipes in each conference room.”

Similarly, there’s been so much written about meaning and purpose at work over the last decade. And of course, I like to feel my work is meaningful. Purpose is a beautiful thing. But I’m always a tad skeptical of any solve that excites, most of all, the executive team. Call me curmudgeonly. Executives have gotten really into their talk tracks about changing the world, about the depth of purpose of their organization—expecting it will light their employees up like fireflies. But I wonder if we dove so deep we forgot what it means to splash around at the surface in the sunlight. Forgotten what it means to simply… have a good day.

The Guardian did a piece about the book recently. One of the pull quotes they highlighted from the interview was this:

Do you ever feel that tension?

Back in my grad school days I remember learning about the two different ways humans understand their own happiness: “experienced” happiness and “reflective” happiness. You’d measure experienced happiness by say texting someone asking them to rate how happy they were in that moment. You’d measure reflective happiness by say sending an engagement survey once a year.

Oh, look at that, companies do exactly ONE of those. It’s an important one, but it leaves a LOT on the table in terms of actually improving people’s experiences. Even pulse surveys often focus on reflective happiness, albeit over shorter timeframes.

My friend and host of argues that all experiences are…

1. Local—you may read about something happening far away, but you’re reading it a foot from your face

2. Immediate—you may think about the past, but you’re thinking about it now

3. Mediated—they pass through our own filters and preferences

4. Embodied—we take in the world with all of our senses

Or in other words, when thinking about employees, how often are we considering the daily, lived experience? As in, Alan is at his desk at 2:43pm answering a Slack. What’s making him feel energized and impactful? What’s pissing him off? Did he laugh today?

Which brings me to computer screen wipes.

On the plane from NYC to SF I opened my computer, and somehow, with fresh eyes or that 36,000 foot sunlight, I saw just how dirty my computer was. I thought back to when I was consulting for one client who had computer screen wipes in every conference room. I used one almost daily when I was at their offices. It was such a simple, low-cost offering that made a big difference to my day. I felt so satisfied, put together, fresh. Similar perhaps to the “make your bed in the morning” and you’ll win the day advice.

I understand the instinct not to throw cheap hacks at a problem. But I also wonder what has a bigger impact on the quality of an employee’s day, today: A new performance review platform? Or computer wipes in conference rooms? Certainly a small wipe is not going to forgive feeling frustrated at the opacity of the promotion process. And I’m not saying a fix for that is not warranted. But things like clear promotion processes are “hygiene factors” or elements of an organization that, when absent, make an employee unhappy, but when present, don’t leave anyone singing. They’re important—to be sure—but our aim should be higher than to make employees “not mad.”

Understandably, executive attention tends to go where the employee survey directs it, and as we’ve structured (most) employee surveys, they 1/ neglect experienced happiness, 2/ orient leaders to shoring up weaknesses, and 3/ are sometimes the sole forum for anonymous employee feedback and therefore quickly fill up with frustrations. And when it feels like there’s so much to fix, why would we focus on delight?

But I wonder what would happen if we cultivated organizations and culture primarily with the simple question: “What could we do that would help one person have a great day, today?”

You might…

• Find one process with a questionably necessary gatekeeper and experiment with removing a step. Do people’s expense reports really need to be reviewed in three layers?

• Place “spray me” bottles around the office. Jancee Dunn of the New York Times shares, “For instance, I have a bottle of rose water on my desk at work. Sometimes when energy lags in the afternoon, I’ll ask a co-worker: “Do you want to be sprayed?” (TWF is also quoted in the article!)

• Smatter a couple company-wide holidays throughout the year. Call them “Take a Hike” days.

• Send out a “pet peeve” survey to find out what daily annoyances the company might solve. Maybe some company-wide tech has an annoying glitch. Maybe one coffee maker is wonky. MAYBE EVERYONE’S SCREENS ARE DIRTY.

• Send out a “reverse pet peeve” survey to find out what parts of people’s work bring them disproportionate joy so you can amplify them. Does everyone love when the CTO whips out a pun? Get that CTO some airtime at the next all-hands! (H/T to Pip Coburn for the reverse pet peeve concept)

• Create a “rent-a-joy” station in the office (or your home!) filled with cozy blankets, umbrella picks (why shouldn’t coffee be an umbrella drink?), space heaters, foam rollers and massage guns, small bars of fancy chocolate, and whatever else sounds delightful. Maybe have a suggestion box too.

• Have a “that is so thoughtful!” brainstorm session. Have you ever gotten a gift that made you say, “They noticed! / They remembered! / How did they know this is exactly what I needed?” Could you imagine what trust would be built if employees felt that way about something leaders did? For example, I dined in a fancy restaurant once and within minutes someone noticed I was left-handed and they came over and reversed the place setting. Simple. Free to execute. And won me over immediately. That sort of thing.

I find suggestions like these sometimes make people uneasy. They feel frivolous. Like the sprinkles, not the batter. But maybe it’s only frivolous if you do all of this once and forget about it. What happens when a company creates a habit of making employees’ days 1% better? When the good moments compound into good days and good years?

I also imagine the objection, “Isn’t it tone deaf to focus on delighting employees when you can’t even guarantee their jobs? People want job security, not computer wipes.”

My rebuttal is this: Jobs are never safe. Let’s not pretend like they are and no employer can or should guarantee otherwise. So do you want to work at your insecure job with a dirty computer, or a clean one?

Also, leaders can just… say this: “We know we’re living through a lot of uncertainty. We have strategies and scenario plans, but still we can’t guarantee we won’t have layoffs at some point or need to pivot our business. And, yet, we’re here today. And it’s worth making our days—today and tomorrow and the next day—good ones. We have some ideas.”

In the Agatha Christie mystery I’m reading one of the characters tells the story of fighting in a war but the thing that bothered him most was the blister on his foot. Is it important to end the war? OF COURSE. But if ending the war is not remotely in your sphere of influence and is not happening today anyway, then maybe it would be nice to have better shoes in the meantime.

And with crises all around us, maybe it’s empowering—even hopeful—to focus on the local, the daily, the ordinary, the beautiful. On doing our best to take care of each other.

It might just get us through the war.

—

Notes

1. For any leaders thinking “YES! But still won’t fly in my org…” consider calling this theory of change “Systemic simplicity” and rolling out a strategic, self-reinforcing composition of interventions. Maybe there’s even a fancy deck.

2. What would make your day at work? Tell me!

3. This video made my day better immediately and it might make yours better too. Let’s call it the official music video of this post: Quite Simple (Choreographed by my brilliant friend Kanon Sapp, starring her partner Olivia Reid!)

Have you read Today Was Fun yet?

Inspired by , some book marketing fun :)

Hi! My name is Bree, and I write about how to have better days at work and in life. Subscribe for posts on everything from 20 short rules for better days at work to Grandpa Mornings. And order my new book, Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously)!

It’s T-8 hours until Brad, Arden, and I are off on vacation. One week in Ireland, one week in Greece, and one week to Marie Kondo our apartment. A big post-book-launch exhale.

Back when I was working as a salaried employee I would have called this PTO. Paid Time Off. But you know what I really hate that.

It presumes that you’ve sold your whole life to a company. They pay you an annual salary for you to “get the job done.” Often that includes nights and weekends. And as a reluctant nod to humans needing rest in order to perform, they will offer some “Paid Time Off.” It’s as if the time is still theirs and they’re paying you for it, but on this occasion they’re allowing you to use some of it for your own purposes.

It’s actually wild to me that people have to request PTO and that, in some situations, it’s denied—wild that you would go to your employer and ask to have some of YOUR OWN LIFE and they say no.

The whole thing is icky. It’s also so strange that for salaried employees it’s not clearer in employment contracts WHAT EXACTLY WE’VE SOLD. Have I sold you 40 hours a week? A set of outcomes? A set of activities? My life?

If we’re using terms like PTO, then it sure as hell feels like “my life.” No thank you. Instead, we should say:

“I’m taking my TINS—my Time I Never Sold.”

Practically it’s the same: an annual salary with an upfront agreement for say 20 business days when you’re not working. But instead of thinking of it as the company so generously gifting those days back to you, we should think of those 20 days as days we never sold in the first place.

After all: PTO is JUST OUR LIVES. Is the glorious day I spend jumping in the ocean waves with Arden and reveling in the amazing dad Brad is and getting sand all over my book of Mary Oliver poetry… an “allowance” from my my employer?

Bleh. Ick. Get out of here corporate tendrills THIS IS MY JOY!

It’s a question of who owns the most beautiful parts of ourselves and our lives. As a related note, brava to Taylor Swift for buying her music back. As she says, “I want it because it’s my handwritten diary entries.”

Some things were never meant to be sold.

I won’t be writing the next few weeks, but if you feel like swimming in the TWF waters while I’m away, jump on in! The water’s fine.

• I was on Getting Better with JVN and omg I loved every second. We talk toxic bosses, colonoscopies, and for the love of god why we’ve normalized getting 117 emails per day.

• The ever-inspiring hosted me for a Creative Ways of Living interview! A peek behind the curtain.

• And then so many other good ones!! ’s The Hyphen! ’s Thrive Global! Vogue India! Financial Times! New York Times! Fast Company! House of Beautiful Business! Work for Humans! ’s Hello Monday! ’s The Intersect! Great Mondays Radio! Lead with Culture! The Courageous Podcast! And so, so many others but this is probably plenty to shout at you for the moment.

Have you read Today Was Fun yet?

She’s a beach read and looks real cute next to an umbrella drink ; )

I’ve been pretty inefficient lately, and I’m trying to decide how I feel about it. Want to come on a little intellectual stroll with me? Perhaps we’ll figure some things out together?

The physics of efficiency

When I need to ground myself in first principles, I always head to physics. It’s judgment free and there’s usually a cute formula. In this case, Efficiency = Output/Input * 100. It’s only once we place a judgment on the formula—that higher efficiency is better—that it’s clear that output is the hero and input is the evil denominator to be minimized.1

But is input always evil?

Minimizing input is good when we’re trying to “get through” something—when we find no value in the process, only in the outcome. I’m very happy for my dental hygienist to be efficient with my cleaning. But what happens when we start to adopt efficiency as the orientation to our entire lives? When we try to cook efficiently, return messages to friends efficiently, read efficiently? There’s the obvious benefit of doing more in a day, but I also wonder how much we internalize the premise underlying efficiency that this is a thing to be gotten through—an input/experience to be minimized. Am I not only minimizing, say, the time I spend cooking, but also the joy that might accompany it? I’m reminded of this post. As they say, “You don’t sing to get to the end of the song. You sing to sing.”

Adventure is the opposite of efficiency

In my 20s I did a lot of backpacking around the world. When I reminisce on my favorite moments, it’s always the misadventures that make me smile most. There was the time I was briefly stranded with a friend in the frigid Andes because the bus driver decided he was going home for lunch in this remote village and wouldn’t drive the bus back to Santiago until that evening. He said, “go to this woman’s house down the road, and she’ll probably take you in and make you some food.” And she did!

Or there was the time after 16 hours of travel I was in the Toronto airport crying because my next flight wasn’t until the morning and I had accidentally exited security and there was no place to sleep or get food. A kind customs agent saw me and invited me to her home where she cooked me dinner with her sisters and let me stay in their guest room.

Both of those stories are highlights not just of my travels, but of my life! And they were anything but efficient. In fact they were born of inconvenience, of extra input gifted to me by strangers.

As our world becomes ever-more frictionless, I worry what will become of adventure. And further, what will become of the opportunity for us, as humans, to need each other? If Chile had driverless busses that operated like clockwork, or if the Toronto airport had 24-hour fast food by their baggage claim, these adventures—and the glorious human connections that accompanied them—would never have come to pass. When everything becomes more efficient because companies are trying to be the most-needed entities in our lives, our need for each other is diminished. Why would a neighbor knock to borrow a cup of sugar when they could just order groceries online?

Which, oh god, brings me to the question of whether we’ve defined the act of living as an inconvenience to be minimized

I’m an introvert through and through so the idea of booking a restaurant reservation online rather than calling and talking to someone is truly relaxing. But the dose makes the poison, and I wonder if we’ve gone too far. Perhaps technology’s greatest strength is also what makes it a threat—that it scales where humans don’t. What happens when I order groceries or self-check out and miss the smile of a stranger? When I order back-to-school clothes for my daughter online instead of spending the afternoon shopping with her? When I shoot a quick text to a local friend and then realize I haven’t seen them in person in months? Of course sometimes done is better than thoughtful. But what happens when efficiency is more than sometimes? When it’s just the way of life? And what’s next! Efficient grief? Efficient dancing? Efficient sex?

Maybe the input is the point

I’m often asked on podcasts how I see AI affecting work and life. In a world where things “get done” more efficiently, what stands apart? What do we choose to value? I usually joke that what I hope happens is—just like we have organic stickers for pesticide-free produce—that we’ll one day have “human made” stickers for AI-free products. For some things, we just want the right answer (e.g., a medical diagnosis), but for other things, the simple fact that human hands, or a human brain or heart was involved in the making, is part of the value.

The value of a kind note from a friend is not in the paper and words. It’s in the assumption that our friend took the time to think about us—with the output/evidence being the note. And I should hope that the experience of writing a note to a friend was also, in and of itself, joyful. Because what are we doing in life if not taking the time to care for each other—and enjoying it?

Welp, I’m feeling better about my inefficiency

Thanks for coming on that wander (crusade?) with me. I hope you take the time to enjoy the shit out of something or someone today. Revel in the input! Sending you off with a little James Clear:

If you’d like to wander a bit longer…

• Some pieces I wrote/podcasts I appeared on you might enjoy!

  • The “Most Days” Theory—my guest post for the one-and-only on cutting ourselves some slack. It went a little viral!

  • The Business Case for Employee Engagement Should Offend You—my guest post for the . One of my spicier pieces.

  • I was on LinkedIn’s Hello Monday podcast with the brilliant and thoughtful . One of my favorite podcast conversations.

  • Ok this one is a teaser because I’m swooning and needed to share it with you: I was on Jonathan Van Ness’s podcast Getting Better and it will drop soon!

Just the thing you need!

Are you ever like: What am I in the mood for… going for a walk? having a little snack? writing an Amazon review? AH! Yes, that was it. I’m in the mood to write an Amazon review for Bree’s book, Today Was Fun.

Well by all means friends, scratch that itch! I got you!!

(And seriously, I’m very, very grateful <3)

Hi! My name is Bree, and I write about how to have better days at work and in life. Subscribe for posts on everything from 20 short rules for better days at work to Grandpa Mornings. And order my new book, Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously)!

DID YOU KNOW… promoting a book—even if it’s a book about having a healthy work/life balance—is a lot of work?

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind and my inbox has exploded with all kinds of interview/speaking/byline requests, kind notes, and blasts from the past. It’s lovely and overwhelming. I have reply-time anxiety. It’s far better than the alternative of crickets, but also I’m having to work to find some balance.

They say you write the book you most need to read, and I’m no exception: “Bree, you kind of wrote a book about what to do if you’re overwhelmed at work…” Below are five things I’ve been doing, along with quotes from the book, to re-regulate (and yes, some I’m faking til I make it). I hope they’ll help you too!

1. I don’t wait until I’m “not busy” to prioritize my relationships.

I blocked my calendar on Monday morning to see my dad. I was temped like seven different times to schedule over it, but I resisted. I went. I visited. We danced. I will never regret it, even though I worked late that night.

2. I cry.

I told Brad I felt like I was showing up for the people in my life left right and center and it felt overwhelming to do that while also trying to prioritize the launch. Brad said, “You really are doing a lot,” and just being seen made a big difference. Not to mention him then cleaning the kitchen.

3. I remember I’m not that important (in a lovely way).

This book has been my focus for years. It’s my art. It’s my tribute to my parents who aren’t able to read it. It’s a huge time and financial investment. And yet, as important as it is—as much as I hope it will change lives—it’s still not worth me burning out. Not worth me skipping exercise. Not worth me losing track of my own mental health and daily joy. That’s actually the point of the book.

4. I take the time I need to work unrushed.

Truthfully, I’ve been working a lot of nights and weekends the last couple weeks. It’s okay because it’s not the norm. It’s the launch. And I actually dramatically prefer it to running around like a maniac to try to get it all in during “working hours”. I want to work at my speed. I want to take the time it takes to write a lovely response to the lovely note I received. I want to be my most brilliant when writing bylines. If that has to happen on a Saturday afternoon on my balcony drinking my smoothie in a wine glass, so be it.

5. I remember, “Most things, most days”

A real bright spot of the book launch was the one and only inviting me to write a guest essay for her Substack. The post is about exactly this: The “Most Days” Theory. It’s a motto I hold close to my heart, and I hope it will help you, too. Check it out!

Wishing you a lovely weekend. I hope you’re holding on to your hat and enjoying the wind in your hair <3

HELP!

Felt like this ask needed some drama… Before you go, could you, would you, be a cape-wearing, gratitude-sparking friend and write an Amazon Review for Today Was Fun?

It would mean SO much to me. It helps people who stumble across the book know it’s legit, and it helps Pavlov the Amazon robots into recommending it. (You don’t need to have bought on Amazon to review!) I’ll dare to be presumptuous and say thank you, thank you, and thank you some more <3