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Living to Deadline
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9 Ways to End Your Workday: Tips By an Inveterate Starter

9 ways to end the work day well and set up for success at home and at work

Beginning a day, a project, a new phase of life carries its own energy. We looked at the idea in the ‘reset on the long weekend post. Today we look at rituals, or habits if you like, at day’s end. You’ve read about my dedication to fresh starts as a long weekend reset; today I present you with the magic of the end-of-day options.

Your daily fresh start is dictated by your priorities and responsibilities to others in your sphere at home, work, gym or community. You’ve no doubt noticed that even if you lost control of your bedtime, you have dominion over your day’s start, and with these tips, its glorious end.

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Signals You Send Your Biology (Part 1 of the long weekend reset)

Consistent, small steps blended into our daily routines satisfy many wellness needs and rejuvenate out body and our brain.

Labour Day Weekend signals time to be done with things as the year ages. Festivals, summer foods, and style, summer loves and footloose freedom turn to school and office schedules. A caveat for Living to Deadline: strive not to send signals that say you are done in life. Avoid loss and lack in nine key areas. The categories appear in social posts by an alleged 100-year-old Japanese doctor. While the character is likely a fictitious aggregate, the principles are worthy of action and are backed by science.

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The Decision You Can Make Today (So Someone Else Doesn’t Have To)

When you want it all and can't let go of clutter, or evidence of your work identities, you may be stuck in the abyss of indecision

I’ve relied a lot on Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer’s five decades of studying how our minds shape our bodies and our lives. Decisions and hoping to make the best ones is a topic she is often asked about, and it appears in her writing also. If you’ve read any of my ‘gettin’ ready to act’ posts, then you know that a decision, almost any decision, might be the step towards meaningful action.

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Standing in the Clutter and Lessons (re)Learned

Where have I been for weeks now? Alternating between home decluttering to downsize and digging through my digital and hard copy archives. When moved to do so, I write about what I find, so there are plenty of posts ready to be published. I just haven’t actually pulled the trigger on that… inexplicably, given retirement now affords me all the time to write what I want and post on my own website. But then, that is how clutter robs you of energy and rational thought.

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Headspace After the Family Day Long Weekend & Valentine’s Celebrations

A blue cup with coffee in it to reflect taking time to just be instead of do

Each day of this mid February calendar week holds a different celebration. So, how do we handle the time between social calls to duty on the day?

Today is Lunar New Year with all the gallantry and power of the Year of the Horse. Ramadan begins shortly with shorter fasts as it returns to winter months, Black History Month continues and many more on the Canadian calendar alone. 

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February Rituals of Happiness for Home-Based or Desk-Bound Workers

rose lying on open book with tips for office worker or home-based business during February, the love month

Break out the reds and pinks, February has arrived.

A picture of red shoes with bow ties to signal the 5 sustainable rituals to revisit to care for ourselves at work or at home and to nourish the sparks of energy, calm and creativity during 'the love month' and beyondIn North America, it heralds declarations of love through greeting cards, chocolate, jewelry, flowers, gourmet dinners, and reservations for spa treatments. You’d get the idea that happiness if not full-blown authentic capital L O V E is something exchanged, gifted, and celebrated outwardly. But what about those of us, well most of us now, that are deskbound alongside our automated calendars as we get closer to ‘the official day’ and all that is commercial romance?

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Writers’ Routines to Nurture Creative Work and Healthy Longevity

Routines can enrich creative productivity and energy for writers and speakers and anyone seeking healthy longevity going forward in their lives
Life Interruptions and the Call for New Routines

small changes towards an energy and productivity boosting routine, one step, one word at a time Less than 8 years into the launch of my writing career and public relations practice, I had to deal with divorce and, on its stress-bound heels, a diagnosis of chronic illness. Both came with fatigue and frustration. In today’s post, we explore the care and feeding of writers with the practical routines that sustain us into our senior health and working years. We’ve looked at some rituals of writing. So, now we continue with some of the habits of living strong, independent, and creative lives, up until life’s ultimate deadline.

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Dark Side of Deadlines

Deadlines: Are they a pressure or a productivity assist for you?

In the last post, we defined deadlines and agreed on their value. They help us get things done. I always tell people to give creatives, in particular, a deadline. Where their mind goes without one will be the stuff of a future post. Today, we explore the dark sides of deadlines, and there are many.

Ways to work with deadlines

I tackle deadline stress and success through the lens of my greatest body of experience – 40 years of writing for the communications and public relations needs of clients in varied industries and work settings. It yielded a great deal of observation that has been useful.

Like many folks, I can often have more clarity and certainty in my work life than navigating even my ‘pro-level’ personal phases.

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What Is a Deadline and How It Applies to Living to Deadline

Let’s explore the accepted definitions of “Deadline”

 What Is a Deadline, Really?

defining the deadline for writer and in life Traditionally, a deadline is defined as a time or date by which something must be completed. But the origin of the term is much darker. It came from American Civil War prisons, where a “dead line” marked the boundary prisoners could not cross without being shot. From literal life-or-death consequences, it evolved into something more psychological—yet still stressful—applied to the world of publishing, journalism, and the arts.

Today, a deadline is a finish line. A marker of commitment. A line in the sand between “someday” and “done.”

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