You don’t simplify by adding things.

The urge to complicate things is almost endless.

There is always the hope that adding another layer will make it cleaner, easier, smoother. That if only you did this other thing, it would all magically work. We want there to be a shortcut. There has to be a shortcut.

There is no shortcut.

Simplify

February is the most expensive month in my little publishing empire. My hosting all comes due. My domains renew. My bookkeeping subscription renews. My Evernote subscription renews. My Microsoft 365 subscription comes due. I’m sure I’m forgetting something. (Edit: I…

Self-Compassion

Sometimes, you do everything right.  You exercise. No caffeine after 3PM. Have a hard end of the work day at 5PM. Eat a leisurely supper with your spouse, followed by a quiet night of reading a physical book on the…

Rain

It’s raining. Not a thunderstorm, not the edge of a hurricane or tropical storm, nothing to get The Weather Channel interested, but just a good, old-fashioned rain, the sort of rain that happened when I was a child, before the…

Change

When you are 21, your head is full of ideals. Your future is unlimited. Your options seem open-ended. You can change the world! But 30 years later, things have changed. If nothing else, you have changed. Your back hurts for…

Sitting for Ideas

From the vault: Today I am going to share a secret with you – my superpower, if you will.  I sit for ideas. A mentor once told me, “Hugh, lots of people in this world are going to tell you…

The stories we know

“I don’t know how you live in such a shithole state”, they said. I was sitting at a sidewalk table in a college town in New England a few years ago. I had been invited up because this church thought…

The blinking cursor

Sometimes, you do everything right, and it still doesn’t work. You get 7.5 hours of sleep. You eat a high protein breakfast. You drink your large cup of coffee. And you sit at the desk, turn on the classical music…

Fed is best | Weeknotes 5/6/23

I’ve been really swamped at my day job for the last few months, and, surprise, my routines have suffered. But a huge project I was working on just ended, and things should revert to something like normal. But the end…

Hugh's Blog

Hopeful in spite of the facts

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