Jessica's Friday Five: Rainbow Walks & Thriving Through "Maycember" Chaos
Published 2 days ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader,
Over here, this "Maycember" season is kicking my butt. If you've got friends with kids in school who aren't being responsive to your outreach, it's probably because they are overwhelmed with way too many events and requests coming their way as the school year and sports seasons end. I shared on LinkedIn one thing I'm trying to help make Maycember a little less intense next year. Hang in there if you're in it with me.
Rainbow Walk: I'm in a coaching program with the incomparable Julia Mullins, and the other day she shared an excellent idea of going for a "rainbow walk". The concept is simple: go outside and look for something red. Then orange, yellow, then green...you see where this is headed as you find all the rainbow colors. It is a simple mindfulness practice that is welcome for me amid busy days. If you can, leave your phone and its distracting audio and screens and pings behind while you go for this walk to stay present. Let me know if you try it!
iPhone Audio Messages: I just saw this week that you can speed up the playing of iPhone Audio messages. I had no idea! So helpful. My favorite free audio messaging app (Voxer!) has this feature, and I use it all the time, so I'm happy to know it also works in the native iMessage.
A "Decide Once" Idea for Dishes: I was emailing with one of you after a Tuesday Tips issue about deciding once (hi to that fellow Jessica!) about the dishwashing time of day. In our area, the electricity is at its cheapest in the middle of the night, so as I'm starting the dishwasher in the evening, I always delay the start of the dishwasher by 5 hours. No matter what time of the evening I am doing the dishes, five hours make sure it starts during the very inexpensive electricity hours. Before, I was doing calculations in my head each night at the sink: "Ok, so how many hours from now until 1 am?" until I realized I could make it easier on myself and do 5 hours every single evening.
Teaching Kids How to Declutter: A reporter asked me this week about how families can help children build the skill of decluttering when there's too much physical stuff. I shared two tips for her article, and I wanted to share them with you, too: "One of the best ways to help kids build the skill of decluttering and to make progress as a family is to do the process in very bite-sized pieces. Here are a few ways that have worked in our family. 1) During our weekend reset, where we prepare the house for the upcoming week, we do one micro-decluttering task. This might look like cleaning out one drawer in the kitchen, or looking through our shoe cabinet to see if there are any shoes ready to be donated, or going through a single shelf of a bookshelf to find books we no longer need. 2) Another strategy is to gamify decluttering: we sometimes hand each member of the family a laundry basket and set a 7-minute timer. Everyone finds as many items as they can that belong to them, and they are ready to donate. The winner is the person who finds the most items ready to be passed on to charity.
5 Tips to Reconnect with Friends: I wrote this blog with ideas you might never have heard about reconnecting with your friends. The research is clear that friends matter so much for our health (even more than family, which surprised me), so don't let another month go by without putting in some intentional effort to keep those relationships strong.
Bonus Sponsor Resource: Desktop/Travel Air Conditioner. So many of you loved this when I shared about it a few weeks ago. I asked the team at EvaPolar if we could get a code for us, and they said yes. I've had this evaCHILL thing for over a year now, and in the warmer months, it sits on my desk to keep me cool during warm afternoons. It helps me keep the air conditioning in my office running at a lower level because, just like a space heater in the winter, it helps my small area stay comfortable. It's portable, too, so you could also bring it with you camping or to the sidelines of a sports game or to your bedroom to help you sleep if the power goes out on a hot night. Use code 10JESS for 10% off. This resource is from one of our Friday Five sponsors - thank you to them for keeping this newsletter free for readers!
