Closing Out the School Year

There are some ideas I come back to year after year. This short blog post by Seth Godin is one of them.

The core idea is simple: the experience of “now” fades faster than we expect.

When we’re tired, stretched thin, or overwhelmed, we tell ourselves, I’ll remember this next time.
But months later, when decisions need to be made, we often don’t.

Seth offers a practical workaround: write a note to your future self—and put it somewhere you’ll actually see it.

His examples are everyday ones:

• If someone close to you got the flu and it was awful, write yourself a note to schedule your flu shot for the fall.
• If you left work early to be with friends and felt lighter for days afterward, drop a reminder into your calendar for a month from now to schedule your next gathering.
• If getting outside in bad weather felt surprisingly good, jot that experience down as encouragement for your future self.

I want to offer a version of this idea that’s especially relevant right now.

As you close out this year, you’re likely holding a lot. So here’s my prompt for you:

What are you experiencing right now that your future self will benefit from remembering?

• Maybe it’s how much easier things felt once new team members had shared language and clear framework.
• Maybe it’s the moment when people finally got on the same page about the purpose of your leadership team, and your meetings became much more purposeful .
• Maybe it’s how much more powerful PD was when you chose to go deep on one topic, instead of jumping around every month.

Take five minutes today and write a note to your future self. Then put it somewhere you’ll see it—in your calendar, your planning document, or your August prep notes.

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‍Keep Learning:

• Subscribe to my Weekly Wisdom Newsletter to get content like this sent straight to your inbox
• Facilitate a conversation that celebrates growth and builds forward momentum by listening to this episode of the Bright Morning podcast
• Check out these reflection questions to consider your ways of being at the end of the year

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