Morning Brew - 🍪 Gandalf

Anxiety goes hand-in-hand with adulting these days—especially now that we have to worry about finding shrimp tails in our Cinnamon Toast Crunch. The good news is, we’re seeking out ways to cope. Demand for anxiety management classes increased almost 4,000% in 2020, according to Udemy for Business.  

In a recent TED article, writer and podcast host Morra Aarons-Mele shared six tips for managing anxiety while working from home—where boundaries are in a thief knot. Start by giving yourself permission to set your Slack status as “away” and close Gmail when you break for lunch or end the workday. 

Moving on to the tasks that make you anxious, author and psychologist Alice Boyes makes a key point in the TED piece: We tend to “overdo” the time spent on this work. Instead, use heuristics—mental shortcuts geared toward decisive outcomes—to complete these tasks efficiently. Aarons-Mele suggests applying heuristics to your to-do list by 1) making it reasonable (“No writing up a list based upon an imaginary 240-hour day”) and 2) “scheduling upward” when estimating the time it will take to finish each item. Once everything is crossed off, close your computer. End of story. 

Managers, you may want to check in with your more anxious employees more often. Here are a few ways to make them feel supported (ex: Make sure you know all the mental health resources and benefits made available by your company, to ensure your team does too). 

• In this Vox piece, Rebecca Jennings argues that The Lord of the Rings is the perfect late quarantine binge. I’m not trying to make you feel old, but it’s the 20th anniversary of The Fellowship of the Ring movie. 
• The best part of Passover: Melissa Clark’s apple and walnut haroseth. It’s so good that I eat it out of the bowl, which is how I like to eat most of my favorite foods. 
• If your plants survived the winter, here’s how to prep ’em for the spring. Bonus: For plant care rookies, download the PlantIn app to get daily reminders on watering and advice from professional gardeners. 
• One year and ten sourdough loaves later...these are the cooking tips NYT editors, writers, and contributors swear by. I gotta order that Takii Umami Powder, stat. 
• Notion is one of my all-time favorite productivity tools, but the hardest part is finding the setup that works best for you. Instead of creating your own pages, check out Ella’s Notion templates for a daily planner, 10 minutes journal, and a business planner bundle. 

Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt like you’re not good enough, you’re not ready enough, or you’re not “insert [blank] here” enough. It’s normal, and better known as self-doubt. 

Best-selling author Mel Robbins (no relation to Tony) teaches a video course on How to Break the Habit of Self-Doubt and Build Real Confidence on CreativeLive. Even better, it’s on sale for $29 instead of $149 right now. In the course, she tackles the myths of confidence, the four self-doubt symptoms, and the five habits of building self-confidence. And it wouldn’t be a Mel Robbins project without the five-second rule, something I love and use on a daily basis. 

I’ve struggled with self-doubt my whole life, and in addition to Mel’s words of wisdom, my favorite way to conquer self-doubt is my life mantra, PMA (Positive Mental Attitude). You can read my Twitter thread about it and how I use it here. 

Feng shui is on the way.

And it looks a lot like HAY’s Spring Sale. 

With 15% off everything and free shipping on accessories, there’s never been a better time to unleash your inner interior designer. 

Spring into the season with furniture that makes your home feel lighter and brighter. From everyday essentials to storage and shelving, you can elevate your space or redesign your home office without breaking the bank. 

And as the weather warms up, spruce up your outdoor patio space and smell the roses in style with HAY’s alfresco pieces. 

Shop the Spring Sale today. 

• If color-coding is your love language, these Zebra Mildliner creative markers will make you swoon. They have two ends (a bold chisel tip and a fine tip) and won’t bleed through the page (a bullet journaler’s nightmare).
• I keep a stockpile of Frontier’s Adobo Seasoning in my pantry. When I don’t feel like cooking an elaborate dinner but don’t want to settle for frozen veggies, I toss a bag of broccoli with olive oil and Adobo seasoning and roast it in the oven. The spice elevates your boring roasted veggies to a bona fide side dish.
• I have a collection of art posters sitting in a corner of my bedroom waiting to be framed. I recently sent one to Framebridge, and it was a seamless, no-hassle process, and now I have a way cooler Zoom background. They offer free design help, and the frame is high quality.