Kim Levings

There is a rock bird bath in my garden that I built as a copy — as close as I could manage — of the one that stood in the garden of my childhood home. I sourced the stone. I got help from a friend, and we built it. When it was finished I stood back and felt that particular satisfaction of having made something that mattered to me. Then winter came to Colorado. Water freezes. Ice expands. Concrete cracks. So every year I am back out there with sealant and a putty knife, working hairline...

Why your best ideas die before breakfast Recently I had one of those a-ha moments — a genuinely brilliant, almost a breakthrough, idea, pushing its way into my thoughts just before I was fully awake. You’ve probably had that happen too. Of course, I regret not having the habit of keeping a notebook on the bedside table. A few hours later the idea was gone. Not fuzzy or vague. Gone. I couldn’t even reconstruct the concept I had been so excited about. (It did eventually come back several days...

There's a particular kind of tired that has nothing to do with hours worked. It's the tired of a leader who's been "in it" so long they can't remember what "it" was for. You know the state. Diary full. Fires everywhere. Every decision feels urgent because in the moment, it is. You're not lazy, you're not disengaged — you're handling things. Constantly. And therein lies the problem. Your brain isn't built to think creatively or even objectively, in the middle of the unrelenting noise. It's...