Stuff #109 - let me take you on a trip.

Hey from Sunnyvale,

I'm in California for a week of work meetings - so Stuff this week is being sent from my hotel room in Sunnyvale. I hope it finds you safe and well.

Thanks for all the love for the latest edition of the Stuff Mixtape - it's a great one this month, I'm glad that some of you are enjoying it.

I want to say congratulations to the Stuff readers that have completed the 30-day Stuff Journaling Challenge. The first sign-ups are just finishing the journey this week.  If you have ever wanted to try journaling, it's a simple (free) daily email with a prompt (and some encouragement) to help you get started.

If you're enjoying Stuff, I'd ♥️ if you would hit 'forward' and share this with a friend, if not hit 'reply' and tell me how I can make Stuff better for you.  

As always - thanks for being here - it's great to have you join me each week! If you received this from an amazing friend, get your own copy here.

1. Monday Motivation:   Let this week be the one where you level-up your management skills and become the best boss your team ever had.  To add to those four practical tips, I'd add the following - my free list of 1:1 questions that will really help you connect with your team members, and a guide to the art of the skip-level, one of the leadership superpowers you need to have in your toolkit.
2. Your new superpower:  Introducing you to Radical Prioritisation, a way to decide what gets done when time and resources are tighter.  We've spoken before about the Eisenhower Matrix, but Radical or Ruthless Prioritisation turns those principles up to the max and help you plow through your task lists or define what really needs to be done by you and your team.
3. Essential Reading: The news cycle feels painful at the moment, but there is proof that life is actually getting better on a global scale.   Steven Pinker wrote about the declining use of violence and force in his 2011 book, 'The Better Angels of our Nature'.  It pays to 'zoom out' and think of the world in this context rather than focus on the doomscrolling view that we can take on a daily basis.  
4. Take care: I had a sleep deprived night last week, and have some jetlag to manage this weekend.  I'm going to be using this lovely list of 33 ways to improve sleep for inspiration to catch up on the most important resource.
5. TWIL:  I was amazed to learn all of the things that bees make apart from honey, hat tip to the very lovely Handpicked, curated by Alex Steele, definitely a newsletter worth allowing into your inbox.
6. The happy hit parade: The twenty happiest countries in the world, I'm happy to be living in #13.  
7. Time for a short journey:  Short Trip is a beautiful, hand drawn (?) website that allows you to take a short, meditative, journey by tram.  Hard to describe, but a lovely thing to see.  Other works by the artist, Alexander Perrin, are just as extraordinary.
8. Joey, Chandler, Ross: RankADay asks you to rank the answers to a contentious question each day.  Like 'Who was the best Friends character' or 'What was the best Pixar Movie'.  Some good fun, even if EVERYONE is wrong.
9. Roast Chicken, of course:  The 25th of October (Tuesday) is 'Crisp Sandwich Day', a celebration of putting crisps (potato chips) between two slices of bread for a sammich.  This is basically every childhood Sammie I ever ate.  #crispsandwichday
10. Finally: Weak, just weak. The passive aggressive password machine is judging your poor choices.  This made me laugh out loud.

My aural treat for you this week is the fantastic new album from a Stuff favourite. Arctic Monkeys have released their seventh studio album, The Car.

Arctic Monkeys have come a long way from the Strokes-esque, garage rock debut of 'Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not' and have developed a lounge-y crooner style that reminds me a lot of Scott Walker.  There is a thread of longing and love throughout the album which is lush with strings and almost jazz style arrangements.

It's a terrific, album and highly recommended.