Every now and then, I get the urge to rejigger some of my productivity methodology.

I've got the urge right now and I'm trying to take advantage of the fact that I am an Inbox Zero person. I can't stand when there are items in my inbox. I really can't stand when I "flag" those items as urgent.

I'm jumping on this reaction as a way to help me to tackle monthly tasks that I put off constantly. For example, cleaning my makeup brushes. That should happen monthly. (Probably a lot more often, actually.) But, I always put it off because it's one of those needle tasks that doesn't seem all that important in the moment.

Now, for tasks like this, I create a recurring calendar alert. Not only do I see the task on my calendar, it sends me an email as a reminder. I then flag that email as urgent. My itchiness at having things linger in my inbox has kept me on top of these small to do items. Plus, I get an extra burst of joy when I delete the reminder email once the task is done.

What productivity tricks work for you?

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I’m nearing the end of Murder Lo Mein. I will say, Vivien Chien does a great job of keeping the whodunit mystery alive. I’m still not sure who the murderer is. Also, when I read these kinds of books, it’s rarely the murder mystery that keeps me reading. I just like the characters and their community.

*Books shared here are affiliate links for Bookshop.org

• What kind of perfectionist are you? [NPR]

• A remarkably tender essay on cooking, feeding, and familial love. [homeculture]

• Tools to help you write. [Super Library Marketing]

• The problems of protectionism. [The Atlantic - may be paywalled]

• How to find lunar time. [Nature]

• The many different styles of book journaling. [Book Riot]

• "Car brain" is a real and measurable thing. [Greater Greater Washington]

• I feel this episode about the problems of the American daycare market in my bones. [Planet Money]

• Concerns about data collection and sharing science. [Short Wave]

• This week, I learned about how much I don't know about music history. [99% Invisible]

• What are we going to do with the empty downtowns? [The Daily]

• Language, history, and whiteness. [Throughline]

• Lacking any desire to watch a particular film, we settled on The Gentlemen. It's a Guy Ritche flick headlined by Matthew McConaughey with a marvelous supporting class. McConaughey plays a drug dealer in England trying to get out of the game. Those who want his empire use whatever means necessary to try to replace him. Since it's a Ritchie film, it's very, well, Ritchie. The filmmaking overtakes the narrative (and said narrative includes some unnecessary racist tropes). [Netflix]

• What do you watch when you don't want to watch anything new but, also, you want to watch something you can sink your teeth into? Why, the Lord of the Rings extended editions, of course! Over three days, we watched each extended cut film in the trilogy. The acting and storytelling all hold up. Shockingly, the CGI is less good than I remember. Still love this ent scene. [HBO Max]

• While the husband was out of town, I watched the Harry and Meghan limited series. It's exactly what you'd expect from people trying to regain control of their narrative. I don't mean that in a good or bad why. This just seems like the result of crisis communications. [Netflix]

• I love egg rolls. This week, I made spicy shrimp egg roll in a bowl to try to recreate the flavor at home. It was a very tasty, but not too filling. I probably would have needed to double the size to make this a true entrée. But, the flavors were spot on. The spicy aioli has quite a kick. [Paleo Running Momma]

• It's been ages since I cooked anything tortellini based. Spinach tortellini skillet is an easy weeknight meal that made quite a lot of leftovers. It reheated quite well for lunch the next day, too. I accidentally bought too small a can of tomatoes so I added some water to oomph the amount of sauce. I don't think that diminished the flavor in any way. I also used an entire bag of spinach because what am I going to do with half a bag of spinach? [Budget Bytes]

Saw this and went, “Woah!” It’s like something out of a fantasy novel or video game. In reality, it’s an abandoned chapelle in France. [@culture_crit]

One thing I like to do at the start of each year is take a hard look at my finances. That means balancing out my Mint account, reviewing my yearly credit card reports, and using Nerd Wallet’s retirement calculator. I know it’s more of a blunt force tool, but it’s a nice gut check to see if I’m on track.

My calendar is a lot of meetings with weird gaps in between. I feel like I’ll be randomly hopping around a lot of projects.