Don't blame your team if they're afraid to mess up

Dictating text messages is just the tip of the pencil when it comes to improving your work communication, writes tech adviser Kim Komando. Several software programs offer plenty of voice-controlled tasks, such as speaking your punctuation and saying "new line" to create space.

Put it into practice: If your software allows, say "select that" to nab the last thing you spoke and then "Caps" or "Cut," etc., to change it. Komando suggests using the same tip for increase font size or italicize words, and saying "Highlight" or "Create a bulleted list" work similarly.

Instead of a "retreat" or a trip, Anne Helen Petersen recommends an "absorption vacation" where you fully involve yourself in something that replenishes your spirit, whether it's reading, knitting, meditating or skiing. "What matters is that you create a scenario that allows you to do an abundance of it, a veritable profusion of it, a beautifully satiating amount of it, with as little thought to logistics or meals as possible," Petersen explains.

Twenty-five years ago, Dan Marfisi and Glenn Jordan wrote a song tailored specifically for a scene in a 1998 episode of "The X-Files." It languished in obscurity until Lauren Ancona saw a rerun of the show recently and tried, in vain, to find any reference to the song on the Internet. She posted a question about the song on X, to which Marfisi replied and dug around for the original CD of the tune, "Staring at the Stars," posting it on YouTube, much to the delight of the show's fans.

Anne Helen Petersen's suggestion about taking an "absorption vacation" has my full attention at this moment. What an incredible idea! This vacation isn't about seeing the sights around you but doing something that so absorbs your attention that it feeds what's missing within. It's a tour of the sights within that perhaps you haven't seen in a while or haven't noticed at all.

Petersen notes that this doesn't have to be a solo vacation, but you do need to choose your absorption vacation partner wisely. "Find the person who likes to be absorbed similarly so you can engage in what I think of as the adult version of parallel play: absorbed individually, together."

Have you ever taken an "absorption vacation"? Tell me about it!

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