Bits and Bobs

A roundup of random thoughts.

Apr 20, 2025

My random collection of candles brings me an outsized amount of joy.

Happy Sunday, friends. I hope wherever you call home is reaping the benefit of spring’s full force (minus the seasonal allergies).

The past three weeks have been a whirlwind on my end between family birthdays, solo trips with the kids, and scrambling for Easter baskets, eggs, dye, and vinegar.

I always forget about the vinegar.

I’ve also been scrambling at work, with multiple colleagues out for Spring Break. All this has put me behind on my writing schedule during a week I had penciled in to get ahead.

It got me thinking about that old saying about the best laid plans…

As a result, this week is a roundup of interesting things I read and listened to recently that you might like, plus random stuff rolling around my brain.

Because every so often, you have to roll with it.

So off we roll…

Random things I read you might like…

This newsletter from Gabrielle Feather at Holding Both explains how to navigate and orient yourself and your skill set during collapse events, which she argues we’ve been in for quite some time. This part gut-punched me:

I have to remind myself often: we’re not here to fix the world. We’re here to live well in it – truthfully, relationally, and in service to something greater than ourselves.

If there is to be life beyond collapse. It will be slower, smaller, and less certain – but also more connected, more grounded, more real. It’s not waiting for us on the other side of some heroic effort.

Our lives are not waiting for us. Indeed, they wait for nothing: no news cycle, no narcissist.

We get one life, and it’s happening now.

Live it.

“Favorable conditions never come.” - C.S. Lewis

In that spirit, I loved this values-setting exercise from The Good Project because it’s set up like a tournament of values. It forces you to categorize several value labels into a hierarchy of Most Important to Least Important, with a fixed number of openings for each spot in the rankings. This offers a twist on other values exercises I’ve seen, and I questioned myself more deeply in a forced-choice scenario like this one.

I encourage using a values exercise as a journal prompt or a quick self-check every few months to maintain life alignment. If you don’t like the forced-choice scenario, I like this alternative from Brene Brown.

Side Note: My Stress Less Life Lab opens with a module on setting your values and priorities. The program is open to anyone and will combine 30 days of emailed exercises of 10 minutes or less with five weekly 1-hour live group coaching sessions to go deeper into each week’s theme. Coming soon! You can join the waitlist here.

The Pathless Path by Paul Millard is a quick read I finished over Spring Break. It’s a great personal experience narrative and thought-provoking framework for those contemplating a career pivot.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*uck and Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope by Mark Manson. I also read The Subtle Art over Spring Break, and I finished the second book last week, which was heavier on philosophy than I expected, but right in my wheelhouse. Buddhism, Nietzsche, and Stoicism with a side of snark and swearing is my jam.

I also subscribe to Manson’s newsletter, which is incredibly actionable. I love the real-life testimonials he shares each week. It’s community at arm’s length, my preferred distance.

A final newsletter recommendation that is new to me, because I just discovered she writes one, is Real-Self Care by Dr. Pooja Lakshmin. I’ve found it to be a source of validating, evidence-based information I use almost daily. Her book of the same name is on my perennial recommendation list.

Yes, I did link to her post about midlife. Her perimenopause post is also fire.

Random things I listened to you might like…

I’ve recently started binge-listening to audiobooks. This never works for me UNLESS I’m walking in my neighborhood. If I’m walking, I can lock into an audiobook and lose myself in a flow state, which is how I finished this 7-hour recording of Healing the Modern Brain by Dr. Drew Ramsey (a recommendation from Pooja Lakshmin) in under a week. The chapter on sleep will Blow. Your. Mind.

How to Be Sanely Productive with Oliver Burkeman over at 10% Happier with Dan Harris. Everything Dan Harris does is worth listening to, but when it’s Dan Harris + Oliver Burkeman, it’s a no-brainer.

Julia Baird on Building Resilience and How Grace Can Change Everything on the Daily Stoic podcast with Ryan Holiday. This one is from last fall, but it’s how I discovered Julia Baird. What a treasure.

If you love insanely long biographies, read Baird’s 1,000+ page book on Queen Victoria. It’s like you’re in the moment with the queen. Baird unearthed some new primary source material in the period diary of a former servant (I think I remember this right) and published fascinating revelations about the queen’s relationships in widowhood. Read the footnotes for the gossip on how the royals tried to block Baird from publishing that part.

Road trip coming up? Check out The Rest is History. The world’s most popular history podcast is hosted by two British historians, which I like because they have no problem telling it like it is regarding American history. My favorite series range from their 6-parter on the sinking of the Titanic to the wacky 5-part series on the life, death, and graverobbing of Eva Peron. If you’re circumnavigating the U.S., or if you are just a massive history nerd like me, dive into the combined 11-part back-to-back series on Gen. George Armstrong Custer and the Fall of the Sioux.1

Thanks for reading Stress Less by Emily Parcell! This post is public, so feel free to share it and hit the like or Restack button to help others find me here.

And some random thoughts…

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve dipped my toe into the creator world, focusing primarily on sharing anti-burnout content on LinkedIn because it’s not an open sewer of hysteria like X. I also prefer writing-based rather than video-based platforms.2

What I’ve learned so far is…

I love both short- and long-form writing. I had forgotten that I participated in a week-long creative writing camp many years ago and won a few essay contests in middle and high school. I also won a full-tuition college scholarship, where an essay contest was a significant component. And did I forget to mention that the central part of my job the past 15 years has been…writing? Sometimes, it’s the thing directly in front of your face that you can’t see.
LinkedIn has a world of helpful and actionable information. I had no idea. Before January, I considered it “the Facebook for the professional space.”
The creator space is incredibly supportive. It would be an understatement to say there’s no competition. It’s actively anti-competitive. Everyone is working to help each other build and grow together. I’m still wrapping my head around it. It’s like I’ve stumbled into an alternative and alien culture.
There are many resources to learn the ins and outs of content creation and how to grow online. Doing some homework on the front end is worth it, and it’s important to learn who the industry leaders are in your lane. I’ve also found it helpful to set a budget because you could spend a small fortune on the number of courses, masterclasses, and webinars floating around out there.
That said, I’ve learned more from the courses and webinars I’ve taken than I would have gotten through a significantly more expensive MBA. Many of the best offerings are from creators who have been at it for 8-10 years and are incredibly generous with the knowledge they share. In my opinion, they dramatically underprice their materials.
It’s a truly global community. Some of my favorite content comes from creators in the UK, Austria, the Netherlands, and Australia. I love waking up in the morning to see what my creator cohort colleague in the Netherlands has been doing while I slept.

Within my chosen focus of battling burnout, I’m in the first stages of developing content and training geared directly at managers.

The more content I write and research I do into this area, the clearer it becomes that individual actions are just one side of this equation. We can train people to manage the symptoms of burnout, but if we want to reduce its prevalence, we’ll have to tackle Hustle Culture from the top down.

Look for future posts on that, and follow me on LinkedIn if you want daily content. I post there seven days a week between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. CT. If I can handle the workload, I may use Substack notes to crosspost content here. The last thing I want to do is put myself into burnout by posting about burnout.

A final random list…

To wrap up this week, I’m leaving you with a list of true randomness from my brain and one of the most important research findings I’ve learned in my last three years of self-education.

Random List: I’ve started thinking of things in a “better than/greater than” framework recently, and have been texting myself notes as new match-ups occur. Here’s the latest from my self-text chain.

Consistency > Intensity (my #1)
Focus > Distraction
80% > 100%
Intention > Reaction
Slow > Urgent
Finishing > Perfection
Wise > Busy
Peace > Money

I’m working on embracing that last one. It involves getting a handle on my finances and cash flow, identifying costs I can cut in an emergency,3 and where I’m getting nickel-and-dimed by subscriptions and recurring payments (cough, donations) I’ve lost track of.

I have enough years of therapy under my belt to know this is a bid for control in a world spiraling out of control, but it still makes me feel better (and sometimes worse when I add up the manicure tab).

Why?

Behavioral science has shown no correlation between increased happiness and an annual income above ~$102,000 per individual. Essentially, once someone has enough cash flow to meet their basic needs and a modest amount of discretionary income, the cost of accumulating more wealth becomes a law of diminishing returns. This finding comes from the Harvard Study on Adult Development, which I’ve referenced in many of my newsletters, and which you can read more about here.

TLDR, my goal is to find the equilibrium between things that light me up and things that pay to keep the lights on. That starts with knowing how much I need to survive (keep the lights on), how much I need to thrive (get my nails done), and at what point saying yes to another project or client isn’t worth the trade-off it might cost in time I would otherwise spend on my health and relationships (two critical components of happiness).

I feel close to balance on this front, but nailing the details is always good.

If you feel stuck on a treadmill chasing “success,” but aren’t quite feeling the payoff, the exit ramp might lie somewhere in this week’s randomness.

See you next Sunday!