Inspiration

Every week on Friday, I share a list of the most interesting and inspiring content I’ve read lately here on my blog. You can expect thoughts on productivity, happiness, balance, spirituality, politics, and more. Subscribe here to get updates. See archives here. 

A basic list of ways for men to help balance gender inequalities for women. This is a great place to start!

7 ways to look more put-together on an everyday basis. Yes please! I am focusing on my style this month, so this video was awesome to watch.

Thoughts on consuming information more slowly and intentionally. I also love the idea of working methodically to get a deeper understanding of the context of what you’re consuming. “It’s not a novel concept, but it’s easy to forget that wisdom and meaning aren’t necessarily found in the urgent amassing of ideas.”

Creativity is a renewable energy. You won’t run out of it!

Longtime readers, skip this one! But I re-watched This is Water this week after a really hard afternoon spent in consumer-hell-type situations like the ones he mentioned. This speech is so integral to the way I try to live my life.

Added every single one of these books to my reading list. Thank you, NYTimes, for featuring books by women! The ones I’ve read on this list have been highlights for me, so I’m excited to tackle the rest of them. I’m also such a huge fan of the photos they took of each of the books! So rad.

I used this tool so much this week that I feel it deserves a mention! If you ever need to test how a website will look on multiple devices but don’t want to actually use multiple devices, use this baby! Make sure to enable the scroll option (third from the right).

I also used Pixieset a lot this week to deliver photos of the Harvest Table Dinners to my friend Sonja, who runs them. I am just consistently impressed by how beautiful they make the galleries look and how easy it is to send photos.

If you’ve ever wondered why I love Oprah so much, this is one of the reasons why. She is the best.

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It’s been a good, busy week! The photo above was taken at this month’s TuesdaysTogether meetup at Provocateur Images, a really cool studio here in Toronto. I love these meetings as a way to get to know other creative entrepreneurs and talk about things that seem scary when you’re facing them alone – like taxes, for one! The rest of the week was taken up by work, mostly, but also some great belly laughs, Rupaul’s Drag Race and trying to get some reading done. This weekend I’m hoping to get a lot of sleep and record the first episode of my new podcast! Fun! I hope you have a wonderful weekend too. xo.

Every week on Friday, I share a list of the most interesting and inspiring content I’ve read lately here on my blog. You can expect thoughts on productivity, happiness, balance, spirituality, politics, and more. Subscribe here to get updates. See archives here. 

I think Jason Zook’s brain is so cool and interesting. His latest project is searching for a traditional book publisher *after* he has already written the whole book.

Relationship realtalk from Ask Polly, and I actually think this is a great read whether or not you’re in a new relationship. Surrendering to change is an important life skill.

Captain Awkward is doing some essential work in the world, I tell ya. This latest post about a seemingly trivial marital conflict ended up teaching me some big lessons about boundaries and happiness.

It’s no longer International Women’s Day, but I was really happy to see donor matching on all loans to women on Kiva yesterday. Kiva’s one of my favourite organizations – I feel like these micro loans make an enormous difference in people’s lives, and knowing someone’s story makes the act of donating a little bit more personal.

I had a mini style coaching session with my friend Rebecca Jacobs last weekend and it was so powerful! She is incredibly good at what she does. Tons of great tips on her YouTube channel too.

Loved the most recent episode of Hurry Slowly on sustainability, maintenance, and making room for competing priorities. Especially interesting because I’m working on starting another podcast myself!

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It was an amazing week for feeling inspired! Lots of great chats with friends, creative work, new clients, fun ideas, and things to look forward to. I am feeling super beyond happy these days and the sense of possibility is amazing. This weekend I am helping at this gorgeous dinner, reading books, making cookies, getting over this cold for good and going to yoga. I hope you have a wonderful weekend too. xo.

Every week on Friday, I share a list of the most interesting and inspiring content I’ve read lately here on my blog. You can expect thoughts on productivity, happiness, balance, spirituality, politics, and more. Subscribe here to get updates. See archives here. 

Lessons in how to be a good ally from Black Panther: be quiet, and know your place. Also, don’t expect praise.

In light of all the frustration and terror and anger, I thought that this announcement and decision was a huge step in the right direction. Yes please to more of this.

This writer spent two years trying to fix the gender imbalance in her stories, and it’s a good reminder that we often need to be more intentional and look more closely at our choices. When we don’t, we can kid ourselves that we’re doing pretty well with being unbiased.

Constantly working on accepting the lack of perfect, both in my business and in my personal life. Not everyone is going to like me, and that’s a good thing, considering the fact that I don’t like everyone.

Fellow notebook geeks, rejoice! So fun to see this photo and read more about his process. I have adopted Austin’s daily logbook idea this year and it’s my favourite recent habit by a mile.

Always working on being more straightforward and blunt, especially when other people are tramping around on my boundaries and expecting me to take it lying down. We all need to practice saying what we mean and meaning what we say!

We’ve all read these before, but it made me feel more grounded in my purpose to read them again this week. I think I’m doing a pretty good job with avoiding these regrets!

I loved this graduation speech. Most of society’s arguments are kept alive by a failure to acknowledge nuance.

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I’ve been feeling really run-down this week while fighting a cold that won’t seem to go away! In the meantime, I had lots of interesting calls for work about new projects I’m excited about, delicious shakshuka for lunch, lots of sunshine and smiles, a wonderful story-telling event, and puppy cuddles All in all, it’s been a great week. I hope you have a wonderful weekend! xo.

Every week on Friday, I share a list of the most interesting and inspiring content I’ve read lately here on my blog. You can expect thoughts on productivity, happiness, balance, spirituality, politics, and more. Subscribe here to get updates. See archives here. 

Since I am a person with a serious love/hate relationship towards technology, I loved this thread about apps that help people take breaks and do more self-care.

I just downloaded Flic after a recommendation from Happier in Hollywood. It’s an app that helps you manage and delete your photos in a fun way. It’s like Tinder for photos! I did one round today and can confirm that it’s more interesting than going through my photos one at a time.

This mini documentary series about the “Loving Generation” has been super interesting so far. There’s so much nuance here and it’s fascinating to hear all the stories.

I think I have found my freelance one true love in Bonsai. I’ve used the app before back when it did mainly contracts, but now it has time-tracking and invoicing and is everything I need to run my business! I will probably be upgrading next month.

I have now sent this podcast episode about creating love-filled relationships to a couple friends, so I figured I should share it here too! I liked the no-nonsense but spiritual approach here.

I went to see Black Panther last weekend and was so excited by it. It is full of such empowering representation for women and people of colour, plus is an amazing superhero action movie. It was also partially set in Busan, where I lived for a year, so that was fun! I loved this video explaining why Black Panther is so important.

Very most definitely cried and yelled when Tessa and Scott won gold. They were perfect, and it was so amazing to watch their reactions live when they won.

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The weeks are flying these days, and it didn’t help that this was a short work week for us here in Ontario – we celebrated Family Day on Monday! This weekend I have a pretty full schedule: Creative Mornings today, two book clubs, a Beyography class, lunch with friends, a birthday party extravaganza and a trip home! I hope you have a wonderful weekend too. xo.