I love having things no longer be my problem. I love having things no longer be YOUR problem. This is the beauty of being done--it's over! Gone! Bye bye! That email is sent, that box is recycled, that tear is shed, that meeting is over. You did it! (It's the best!)

If you're in the US and keep gesturing vaguely at the world when asked how you're doing--it's not just you. I feel it and I hear it a lot professionally. It's okay to need and want time to process it all and take action. It's also okay to decide you need a hot dinner and clean clothes.

I realized that I'd inadvertently become the quiet, sensory booth in the dealer's area by having fidgets and a puzzle that anyone could work on. This was great! People could and did slow down just a tad and come rest a moment and talk (or not) as much as they wanted.

Arisia folks, you are the BEST group of people to give free fidget toys to. I saw so many variations of glee, from the kid amazed at my giant stash to "I don't nee... ooo! an airplane!" People also showed off the fidgets they already had. Rings! Coins! Twists! Plastic dinosaurs!

I'll be vending at www.arisia.org this weekend. Come say hi!

A client today mentioned that their preferred thrift shop was so full that they stopped taking donations. Yeah! Take the stuff you don't want out of your house and let it go have adventures somewhere else with someone else. You won't miss it! You can get other, better, more fun stuff.

Be nice to yourself today. (It's not lazy.) (It's not pointless.) (You have limited capacity because you are human.) (That may be annoying because limits are annoying.) (So: ...) Be nice to yourself today.

Doing something you don't like is: a. sometimes necessary b. a genuine skill c. something people legitimately minimize Why spend your life doing things you hate? Make those things small, optional, or outsourced; if you can't, apply liberal self bribery.

I bet at least one of you made a New Year's resolution to exercise more. Great! Awesome! Please take all your exercise guilt and throw it in the metaphorical trash. If you need to write "Good people exercise" on a piece of paper and throw it into the literal trash, do that, too.

Genuine coaching advise for today: be nice to yourself. You might have been doing all kinds of things (fun and ... not) at the end of the last calendar year. Today does not somehow include resetting and restarting all of them. Try doing one. If you have more energy, try doing another one.

Happy New Year! I hope it's a good one for all of us.

Pst! Don't overdo your new year's resolutions. Pick one thing that you can actually do in January, and leave yourself a note to see if you want more goals in a month. I love habits! I love using transitions to develop new ones! I do not love the slump that follows being over-ambitious.

You're really accountable to yourself in coaching, not the coach. www.youtube.com/shorts/CMqmP...

A reminder: you don't have to do things all the time! This is, I swear, a real thing that I really coach people on. Fundamentally, resting is about pacing yourself and giving yourself permission. It's also something hard, not coincidentally.

I'm super excited to announce new subscriptions available at www.gourdincoaching.com/services! You get a 15% discount, special body-doubling sessions, and the ability to ping me throughout the week. I'm really looking forward to working with people long-term.

Hey, look! We're past the solstice! For everyone like me who hibernates in winter: we're halfway done! Time to replenish the ol' fat stores and sleep until March. (Wait, why is that not a thing? I feel like the eating, at least, should be nationally recognized.)

If you're looking at having too much to do, try these questions: What problem am I trying to solve? (Being clear helps choose what to do.) What are my actual degrees of freedom? (You can adjust what you're doing.) What are my supports? (Yay! Help!)

A friend once observed that it's better to pick your consequences than to just let them happen to you. I really valued it as advice because it includes a wider range of things than "prioritization" typically covers. For example, if your boss gives you three things to do by tomorrow...

One of my clients wanted help on writing to their boss to ask for a regular monthly meeting so they could get more consistent feedback. We worked on that message together during their session. The boss came back proposing a weekly one on one, and a weekly team meeting on top of that! Yay!

My clients recommend books faster than I can read them--it's the best! It's also really nice to recommend a book to someone and have it be just what they needed. (Especially when they already owned it, and just hadn't gotten around to it.)

Wow--this is a better and funnier summary of the problem than I'd ever come up with. Those first steps are SO frustrating and unrewarding. Who on earth likes remaking passwords and getting texts with codes and signing back in and accessing their email for 30 minutes?

New YouTube short! www.youtube.com/shorts/4hFvo... tells you what a typical session with Gourdin Coaching is like.

I love update season for Ask a Manager! As a reader, we've already heard the set up--the updates are the punchline.

I swear--no really, I promise--that the work involved in getting yourself to do something is real. That's a part of starting the work. It matters. It can also be hard. Sometimes it's the getting started that's the hard part. Setting a specific time or getting a friend to keep you honest can help.

One of the most interesting things that happens when I work with people is the unexpected successes that pop up. We'll set goals and see successes there. And then there will be this bonus success! Something got done naturally--it showed up and got taken care of and resolved. It's the best!

Medical paperwork: the worst. You already feel bad, you've gotten as far as wanting help, and then you get a packet of paper that assumes you know your social security number and your relative's health history. Have fun reiterating every annoying thing about your own body!

If you have something small to do, see if someone will talk to you while you do it. It's a very small way to make things both more fun and more accountable. (The cat counts.)

I spend most of my time encouraging people--it's really a nice job to have! Many people are really hard on themselves (maybe you're one of them) and they pay more attention to failures than successes. I have an easy time catching those successes, and they're a really positive thing to point out.

If you've had enough of this week, I recommend entertaining yourself with goblin.tools/Formalizer. I just put in "i work with a bunch of poop slinging monkeys and i need to upgrade to actual humans."

Okay--I've been here, and you probably have, too.

Bird of the day! linktr.ee/daily_bird

I'm a big fan of being done, not for abstract moral reasons but as a way to empty my head. I can't and don't want to worry about everything forever. That means that I need a way to handle the things on my mind in a way that lets me be done, finished, free. (Knowing what "done" looks like is key.)

Trash lives in the trash can. Recycling lives in the recycling bin. The objects in your life can and do get used up. They served their purpose and need to go. Yup--it's annoying that you have to pile them up and tote them around. But then they leave! They are literally never your problem again!

Where do I start on coaching sessions? Usually it's "how are you?" and "how was the week?" followed by checking in on the goals we set last time. Those open ended questions are important--sometimes the week isn't about what did or didn't get done. It might be about how hard the week was.

As a follow on: most people really don't need heavy supervision most of the time. People routinely do dangerous things with real impact, and when I say that, I mean "They drive to work." You can and should trust them to have that much impact at work, and intervene only when there's a problem.

This matches my experience--trust your employees to be adults, and they'll act like it! www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/07/t...

Look, we have this cultural idea that people do work in a linear, step by step way. We don't. That's not to say that we don't have to do things in order--it's hard to cook without ingredients, say--but we don't sit down and do each little piece of everything all in order. That's what robots do.

I also have actual, physical business cards. My clients often love tangible objects, especially as reminders. They also often love electronics, but electronics can hide information--I'm just one more email in a full inbox. A card is present and tactile. (And we can clean up that inbox together.)

I now have gift cards available at www.gourdincoaching.com/gift-card! If someone you know wants to be living a more exciting and effective life, send them my way.

So many thoughts... so little time! #ADHDAwarenessMonth

Yes! You can learn executive functioning skills. Over simplified a bit, those are the skills that let your organize yourself to get something done. You can absolutely work on ways to remember goals, build good habits, take one step at a time.

Why do people come to me for coaching? As a simple summary: it's easier to get things done with someone on your side. There's a gentle social nudge to complete work if your coach is going to ask you about it. If the work didn't get done? Then you get support and encouragement.

Finally, I have 6 completely free half-hour sessions available through my sponsorship program. I'd love to offer these to someone who is unemployed or has a lower income--if you know someone, please send them my way at www.gourdincoaching.com/contact.

Secondly, I'm looking for clients at my low introductory rates--they are in play through Halloween. If you or someone you know would like support in reaching their goals, reach out at www.gourdincoaching.com/contact and I'd love to talk to you or them this week.

Hello, everyone! I'm excited to be joining you all here. The first and biggest news is that Gourdin Coaching is live! You can find it at www.gourdincoaching.com. I specializing in helping people with executive function challenges bring their goals into reality.