Jessica's Friday Five: Turn any PDF into calendar invites + declutter trick
Published 23 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader,
The world continues to be a tough place to navigate as of late. If you need a little joy, here's your reminder that I share my favorite memes of the week on Insta and Facebook every Friday morning.
Let's get to your Friday Five, shall we? 5 tips to make your life a little easier or more joyful.
To help you declutter, ask this question: I've been on a bit of a decluttering spree the last few months, picking at least one small project per weekend to spend 10-15 minutes organizing and purging (examples of this are a single drawer, a bathroom counter section, or a category like sheets). Here's a question to ask yourself when deciding what to keep: "If I didn't already own this item, how much would I pay to get it?" If the answer is "nothing" or "not much", you can probably donate it and feel confident you'll be fine without it.
Do you love or hate threaded conversations in email? Did you know that you can turn on and off the "threaded conversations" feature in Outlook and Gmail? This is entirely a preference thing, but I've noticed that many folks don't know it's an option to have it on or off (I personally keep the "conversation view"/threaded convos feature turned off, but like I said - it's just a preference thing). Curious what I mean? This person wrote a great blog showing what it looks like both ways, so you can figure out what you prefer. If you want to switch your settings, in Gmail, go to Settings > General > Conversation View. In Outlook, go to View and Show as Conversations (and check or uncheck that box). You can easily switch back and forth to try out the two approaches and see what fits your brain better.
Easily Make Calendar Invites from a PDF: My friend Alexis made this great tool that turns PDFs full of dates (like school calendars, gym class schedules, community organization meeting dates) into calendar invites for you. If you have a list of dates that isn't in a PDF, this Chrome extension works super well, too. What a time saver!
Science-proven background music for work: I have been using brain.fm for background music on their month-long free trial, and I recently decided to pay for it because it helps me get into the focus zone. It turns out that rapid modulation in music supports attention (especially in folks with attention difficulties), and EEG studies show better brain activity with this kind of music. Pretty neat. It might be worth trying their free trial if you think it could be helpful (it's under $6 a month after the 30 days free if you like it).
Open a Roth IRA for your kids. This might sound a little out there, but if you have kids in your life, hear me out. As long as they have earned income (babysitting, dog walking, etc.) and you keep a simple paper record, they qualify for a tax-free retirement account. You won't need to file taxes unless they make over ~$14,000/year, and the compound interest magic over decades is incredible (and what you put in can be pulled out early without penalty, though not the interest earned). Plus, you're teaching them to save early – a habit that'll stick for life. We have done this with my kids with a custodial Roth account at Fidelity.
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Last Friday's Most-Clicked Link:Alexis's democracy-defender ChatGPT bot!
