Before we begin: If you’re also feeling enraged at the violence, racism, and xenophobia being enacted by ICE and by the U.S. government, I invite you to join me in donating directly to an individual or community GoFundMe via the Stand With Minnesota site, which I learned of from Ann Friedman. The site is kept up to date with folks who haven’t yet met their goals. I invite you to donate and/or circulate Stand with Minnesota and other mutual aid resources for folks to support people directly on the ground.

Quick Announcements

• The wonderful Dr. Katy Peplin and I are running a new workshop in February called Will That Work For Me? Experimental Approaches to Scholarly Life. You can learn more and sign up here!

• Co-Working for Success & Accountability Coaching clients and premium newsletter subscribers will take place this coming Sunday January 25th from 1-3pm EST. You can learn more and get the Zoom information here.

• I’m increasing my rates for single Productivity & Strategy Coaching Sessions from $195 to $220/session starting February 1st. If you’re curious about trying out coaching, I invite you to schedule in for a call here.

As I shared in my first newsletter of the year, I’m curious about measured approaches.

I burnt out a few times last year and I don’t want to do it again. I know something wasn’t lining up quite right with my ratio of work and rest…but I’m not sure yet where the negotiation with myself needs to happen.

I’m curious about what a measured approach would be when it comes to my productivity:

• What would it look like to not do too much but also not do too little?

• What’s too much anyways? What’s too little? Is too little just less, and I’m judging myself?

• Can I give myself permission to do less? To reduce my output and not hurry to fill the space because it feels uncomfortable?

• What amount of scaffolding do I need in order to soothe my nervous system and feel confident while not tipping over into a rigidity, obsession, and overwhelm?

I don’t know the answers to these questions yet, but my hope is that using measure as a touchpoint will help me discover more about myself and my practices this year.

My first foray into productivity research was my blog The Tending Year, which was active from 2018-2022. The first two years of The Tending Year, I researched, practiced, and wrote about a different productivity or personal development tool every week.

Fun fact: I started The Tending Year in January 2018 as an ultimatum with myself—if I could research and write about productivity every week for a whole year and still felt interested in it, I would give myself permission to shift away from a career as a professor (something I’d been building towards since I was a teenager) and explore self-employment as a Productivity Coach. Obviously it went well!

Inspired by the big questions I shared above, I decided to return to a blog post from April of 2018 called “Habits 101,” both to see if any of it still rang true and to share any developments to my thinking about forming habits…particularly because I think building rest and play habits could help me stave off burnout.

I had a few reflections after opening the time capsule.

Wow, I’m so proud of past me for doing something new! I was only a few months into my exploration of personal productivity, and I can tell that I was having fun and feeling confident about doing short-form writing.

I also have compassion for 31-year-old me, who was coming to terms with the realization that she was a workaholic and the old ways wouldn’t work anymore. By the time I wrote this blog post, I’d been living with undiagnosed chronic back pain for a year and was experiencing symptoms of chronic Lyme Disease and reactivating Epstein Barr Virus (which wouldn’t be officially diagnosed until 2020). Eight years later my back pain has vastly improved and I have a system in place to manage my chronic illnesses, but I remember how devastated I felt back then. Writing my blog was a big part of my self-care practice at the time.

After many years exploring the world of personal productivity, my thinking on habits has evolved. At its most basic level, yes, I still believe that “doing” a habit means following the pattern of a experiencing a cue, which prompts us to complete a routine, which is motivated by a reward. Habits are generally defined as repeated behaviors that become so rote that we can complete them without needing to harness a ton of willpower.

When I first started learning about habits, I liked the X+Y=Z logic of these approaches, but over time I’ve become more skeptical of the language of “willpower” or “self-discipline.” If you want to read more about this, I invite you to check out my two-part micro-review of the use of the phrase “self-discipline” in personal development articles after hearing multiple folks share that they “just needed more self-discipline” if they wanted to achieve their goals (part 1, part 2).

Okay, so what would a measured approach to habits be?

Is the answer some blend of strategic efforts and erring towards doing less but also holding myself accountable to show up when it counts? And who’s counting?

Well, I am, by using my 2026 sticker habit tracker. It’s going well and I like how many stickers I’ve stuck the last couple of weeks, but I have to admit that when I skip days and don’t see a line of stickers, I feel a little bad. And…maybe feeling bad is okay because these are good things I want and need to do for my mind and body. Also, I have meditated almost every day the last three weeks and I did my first 20-minute (!!!) meditation recently after starting with the single digit ones, so I’m trending where I want to go. Is this soft habit building? It feels soft.

I want to close us out with something tangible that you can bring to your own habit-building practices.

If they feel helpful for you, my 2018 Habits 101 blog post prompts were:

• What habits do you already have (What comes naturally to you? What do you do without thinking about it?)

• What habits would you like to build?

• What habits would you like to stop?

And in mid-January 2026, inspired by my theme of exploring measured approaches, I’ll add:

• What rituals do you already do? Why those—does something about them feel soothing, encouraging, or scaffolded? Which are hard to do but you do them anyways?

• What habits would you want to build even if you couldn’t tell anyone you did them or ever get external recognition for doing them?

• How do you measure success with a habit? What regularity of action do you expect from yourself? What would it look like to take a softer approach?

Thanks for coming along on the journey with me to reflect on habits and shifting perspectives. I hope you have a cozy time as you explore your own practices!

Curiosities

• I finally watched Heated Rivalry and I am truly obsessed. It’s taking everything in me to not add “PS: Have you seen Heated Rivalry?” to every email I send. Sorry/not sorry.

• I like to share dog names that I come up with, in the hopes that maybe you’ll find inspiration for your new dog. I’ve had a creative streak recently, so I’ll share three: radish, bubble, and Grandma.

• I’ve been using the Insight Timer app for meditating in the morning and I’m enjoying meditations by the teacher Hayley Rose. She has meditations that focus on different stages of the menstrual cycle, which is helpful for someone like me who can experience an emotional rollercoaster during PMS.

• I finished reading a novel! My sister-in-law got me a copy of Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang for Christmas and it was a great read. If you liked Babel by Rebecca Kuang, you’d likely enjoy this one, too.

Take care and talk soon,

Dr. Kate

Email: kate@katehenry.com

Website: katehenry.com

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