How I found a finish line when there were no start lines. There are people who delight in goals and new years resolutions, and then there’s me. I live for them. …

I’m highly opinionated about keeping an analog notebook. Here’s how I do it. — A fellow notebook junkie noticed my highly specific notebook practices in a meeting this week, and asked me for my best notebook hacks. Here’s what I’ve got: 1. Every meeting in my notebook is indicated as [Name of meeting] → next line → [Date] — whole thing in a box…

Your most recent project is over, and there are wins and misses. How do you create a retro that gets to the heart of the matter? — Your most recent project is over, and while you’re celebrating completion, there are questions left unanswered. You want to know what happened to delay that launch, why we missed a proposal deadline, or how we released a less-than-lovable set of product features. …

What I’m Learning from Teachers: Sometimes, the big stuff is easier than the little stuff. — As we descend the small staircase to her basement level classroom, Erin remarks with a smile, “you know, in 25 years of teaching, I’ve never once had a window in my classroom!” It isn’t stated as a complaint, but rather a badge of honor. She says it like a battle-wise…

A1 | Jan. 24. 22 | What happens when your OKRs give you 64 important projects for a single quarter and the top 20 of them are kind of boring? — Be careful what you wish for, I guess. I’m doing a little planning for my week on Sunday when I get a text from Aaron, my A1 meet-up partner, who says “tomorrow’s topic is this: what happens when setting OKRs produces a multitude of mission critical projects that are perfectly…

When you’re starting something new, everything feels important and nothing feels real. How do you think about where to focus? — A1 | Jan.3.22 | Today’s A1 is about starting things, which feels appropriate for the first Monday morning in January. First, What’s A1? For those not familiar, A1 is my standing weekly mentoring meeting to frame up and focus my week before it truly begins. Every week on Monday at 7 am, I…

Yes, I start my week with a meeting named after the first cell of a spreadsheet. — Is there anything more promising than opening a fresh new spreadsheet? Oh, the possibilities! In every spreadsheet, the top left cell, A1, holds all of the promise. It’s the beginning point of every model, and it’s what you do with A1 that counts. You’ve got to be a little bit…

If you’re lucky, someone will pass your pitch deck along to someone else. If you’re not in the room to explain it, will people understand your business? — I’m staring at a pitch deck and I don’t know what to make of it. I’m having coffee in one hour with the entrepreneur, and this startup looks really smart and well thought out. I’m excited to learn more. …

How to use Garmin Workouts and a Pace Calculator to run a great marathon, avoid The Wall, and hit big goals, even with a little bit of walking. — When I first started training for marathons, I couldn’t run the whole long run, so I walked for a minute at each mile. But as I got closer to race day, I didn’t think that it “counted” if I walked during the actual race. So for a few races, I…