“At least once a day your head should be where your feet are.”

The holiday season is around the corner now and all the busyness it brings so these words have been my mantra lately. I was listening to a podcast a few weeks ago with Elizabeth Gilbert where she shared this thought and it’s been on my mind ever since.

It just feels like the perfect reminder for this time of year. It’s harder than it should be but I’m trying to slow down, pay more attention to the tiny magic moments and at least one a day allowing my head to be where my feet are. Hope you are too.

xx

Crafting. 

Walk through the aisles of any store these days and the amount of stuff being sold in the name of Christmas feels a bit excessive. So many sales and SO much plastic.

I swear I’m not a total scrooge, I love Christmas! I just don’t love marketing companies shoving it at me. But some good old fashioned Christmas crafting? Yes please! Stringing popcorn, drying oranges, using borax to make sparkly bine boughs, so many fun things, but I’m most excited about recreating this adorable Christmas villages on our living room windows.

I also really love these advent calendars. Yes it’s something to buy but it’s also so sweet.

A Simple Practice.

I get really overwhelmed by unorganized spaces. I don’t like a lot of clutter, I’m not a collector and I have a general distaste for stuff. And turns out I’m not alone, a recent study of Macaque monkeys (whose visual processing systems are similar to ours) found that visual clutter impacts how effectively our brain stores information. Essentially the more there is to distract us visually the less information our brains actually receive correctly.

Other studies have found that the act of decluttering helps to decrease stress, anger, and overwhelm. And we could all use less of those, right?

Buuuuut I am also not the only human that lives in my house, and some people, particularly the small ones tend to accumulate a lot of “stuff.”

One simple thing I’ve been doing lately to find a little more balance with this is practicing “out of season out of sight.”

It usually requires me to sacrifice at least one full weekend day every quarter, and living in Oregon, it’s just not always possible. Sometimes we experience all 4  seasons before noon, so we usually need at least a few pairs of hats and gloves to be accessible, but we’ve been working towards it to help free up some space in drawers and closets and it’s helping to free up a little more space in my brain too.

Thinking About.

This.

Life is full of trade-offs. Every choice has a cost. When you say yes to one thing, you say no to others. This is how the world works. It’s like gravity. You can’t escape it.

Opportunity cost is what you give up when you make a choice. It’s the thing you can’t have because you picked something else. Say you have a free evening. You can work on your startup or go to a movie. If you work, you miss the fun. If you go to the movie, you miss the chance to make progress. Every choice has an opportunity cost because you implicitly say no to many other things every time you say yes to something. You need to know your opportunity costs. This helps you make good trade-offs.

A trade-­off is giving up one thing to get something else. It’s choosing between options. Each has good and bad points. Trade-offs are about priorities. When you make something, you face trade-offs. If you want it fast, you might lose some features. If you want it cheap, you might use lower-quality materials.

In life, we face ­ trade-­ offs all the time. Do you take the high-paying job with long hours? Or the low-paying one with more free time? Do you spend money now or save for later?

Making good trade-­offs is about weighing the opportunity costs and benefits of each option and choosing the one that aligns best with your goals and values. It’s not always easy, but being conscious of the ­ trade-­offs you’re making can help you make better decisions.

Wisdom is anticipating the consequences of your choices. In life and business, success is about making good trade-offs. It’s not about having it all. It’s about having what matters most. We all value different things. That’s what makes life rich. Opportunity cost is what you give up when choosing; trade-offs are the balancing acts you perform when deciding between competing options. They’re two sides of the same ­ coin—whenever you make a ­trade-­off, you incur an opportunity cost for the options you didn’t choose. The key in both cases is to be thoughtful and intentional about your choices.

— Source: The Great Mental Models v4: Economics and Art

And also this. Unworthy gets me every time, and this thread about people remembering random acts of kindness from strangers is so good.

In health news.

Feeling guilty about serving leftovers? Here’s a really good reason you don’t need to! Foods like bread, pasta and rice (and yes the mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving) may actually be even healthier as leftovers, here’s why!

Reading.  

A good reminder that play really is our purpose.

Tis the season for gathering and this list of simple and fun family rituals has some great ideas to connect and stay present with the people you love.

And because my brain is always trying to dream up the next place to visit, here’s Wanderlust’s 2024 reader travel awards for all your daydreaming pleasure.

Hope November is treating you well!

xx

Ashley