Jessica's Friday Five

Hi Reader, Life continues to be life-y around here. A friend of mine has been missing for over a week, and we don't have any updates on her whereabouts or whether she's safe. It's wrenching. A pipe burst under our yard and cost thousands to fix; at the same time, we had to spend thousands on an unexpected (and unusually painful) root canal for me. Oh, and my bad - if you're a Jessica's Monthly Management Memo subscriber, there was a broken link in the issue I sent earlier this week (to...

Psst - over the next week or so, I'll be sharing more about The Society - what's inside, why I created it, what the new members are already asking about, and more. If you'd rather not hear about it, but you'd like to stay on my general email list for Friday Five and/or other emails, you can click here, and I won't email you about The Society anymore. No hard feelings! I respect your inbox. Hi Reader, Can I name something that I think you might recognize? You're not overwhelmed because you're...

Hi Reader, This week I've been busy answering a ton of great questions inside The Joyfully Managed Life Society - so many are about team leadership! Thank you to those of you who are members bringing your great Qs about starting the day with email, how to return from vacation and get back into work well, supporting your team with change management as you retire, handling constant interruptions during the workday, and what to do about all those tasks that never seem to get done on your list....

Hi Reader, The Joyfully Managed Life™ Society is officially open for you. And if you join soon, I've got some awesome "founding member" bonuses for you to help us get off to an incredible start together. More on that in a second. First, let me tell you what you're actually joining. The Society is a membership for busy professionals and leaders who want practical, expert-led support for both the work and home side of life — with me right there in their back pocket. Here's what's waiting for...

Hi Reader, I am having the BEST time getting The Joyfully Managed Life Society going - thanks to those who have already hopped in from the waitlist! What a dream come true. Today's the last official day of spring break for my kids, and we spent 5 days of it housesitting in Lake Tahoe - the kids got to try snowboarding, and we did lots of dog walks, board games, and movies, and we got our best-ever time at an escape room. I hope your week has been okay and that there is at least one tip in...

Hi Reader, When my kids were young, I told them that I'd take each of them on a solo trip with me once they turned 10. Though my youngest is still a few weeks away from that milestone, a deal for California residents to go to Disneyland and his school's spring break made it too fun to wait, and we headed down for 3 days at the parks. It was such fun, terribly exhausting, and you currently can't tell me that almost 1o-year-olds aren't the best humans. We were home most of this week and are now...

Hi Reader, It's been a weird week around here - the less-than-fun part is a root canal that did not go as expected and has resulted in a lot of lost sleep, pain, and three different antibiotics to get it under control. No fun at all. 🦷 The good part is that, between that nonsense, I got to make a lot of progress on The Joyfully Managed Life Society (I can't wait to start welcoming the first members - stay tuned, and a special surprise for those on the waitlist!). One aspect of this membership...

Hi Reader, Sunday is International Women’s Day! Since 1911, this has been a day to celebrate women’s achievements. Since Sunday is also when Daylight Saving Time ends (move your clocks forward an hour if you’re in a location where the time changes), you may lose an hour of sleep (bummer), but as a silver lining, we'll each have an extra hour of daylight in the evening to celebrate the women in your life. One more thing before we get to your Friday Five. The waitlist for my new monthly...

Hi Reader, Last night, my husband planned a date night for us at a virtual reality spot not far from our house. You'll be glad to know we saved the (pretend) world with 14 seconds to spare. We decided to get a low-cost dinner at Burger King while we were out. Jon enjoyed his whopper but I made the very questionable choice of ordering tacos (a bold choice for dinner from a burger spot). I give Burger King tacos 0 out of 5 stars. Let's get to your Friday Five! The Essence of Ramadan: As someone...