The Weekly Wrap #52

03.27.2022

​Earlier this week, some colleagues and I were brainstorming ideas for webinars we want to host. I manage this part of our work and, to keep things feasible, I set a limit of six sessions per semester. The sessions themselves are only an hour, but the content creation, marketing, and event management logistics eat up a lot of time. Plus, we have to do all the other aspects of our job.

During our brainstorming, we kept coming up with far more things than we could feasibly do in an academic year. (Some of them weren't even webinars.) I don't know how it is in other jobs, but I've found that librarians (myself included) have this awful tendency to want to do all the things all at once. Instead of saving some projects for later, we try desperately to DO IT ALL NOW because we think it's essential. That results in a lot of overwork and burn out.

In this particular instance, I told my colleagues that I was banking all of the ideas for future webinars and recorded videos. That helped rein things in. The problem, however, is that this desire to do all the things never seems to go away. Every time we work on something, we find more that we want to do.

My work Trello board is so full it's absurd. At this point, I just dump every idea I have onto themed boards, then I move the three(ish) projects I can actually do in a given time period over to my Priority board. To assuage my desire to DO ALL THE THINGS, I add some more ideas to my On Deck board. It's not a perfect system, but it's the only way I've been able to wrangle my desire to do all the things at once.

How do you manage idea overload?

This issue marks a full year of this newsletter. I’ve had a lot of fun putting issues together each week. If you enjoy what you’re reading, please consider sharing it with others who may get something out of it.

I’ve got about 150 pages left in The 1619 Project. It’s still an amazing book but I am hitting the point where I am ready to be done with reading non-fiction. As the weather warms, I find that I am in the mood to read some light romance. Hopefully, I can balance out the rest of this book with some episodes of Bridgerton.

• A list of recommended cookbooks you can read cover-to-cover. [Stained Pages News]

• Watch your step. [Atlas Obscura]

• This bread is too pretty to eat. [Colossal]

• How long champagne lasts. A topic that is highly relevant to my interests. [PureWow]

• This is just flat out brilliant. Someone needs to make it real. [Buzzfeed]

• The race for cobalt in Africa. [The Daily]

• This mash-up of your favorite 600 songs from the 90s is simply glorious. [The Hood Internet]

• The power of non-violence. [Hidden Brain]

• We've force-evolved bulldogs to be unhealthy. [Short Wave]

• The chewing gums of yore. [Gastropod]

• When can I eat these? [@omer_yaskil]

• This week, my husband and I had a lot on our plates, so we opted to watch more MythBusters instead of polishing off Succession. Our binge started with two countdown episodes about their favorite places to conduct tests and favorite water related myths. Normally I'm not a big fan of clip shows, but these were an exception. [Discovery]

• We also watched a few episodes of House Hunters and House Hunters International this week. It's so very hard not to be a little judgy while watching this show, but we all have our opinions. We saw one episode where a buyer was quick with the one liners and dead panning his opinion. It was hysterical. [HGTV]

• This week, I made one pan cinnamon pork chops. I spiced the pork and dropped it in the sous vide for about two hours. After I got the apples and cinnamon cooked down a bit, I added the pork to finish things off. It was a pretty tasty recipe but I overdid it on the clove. We had a box mix of pearl couscous as a side. [SkinnyMs]

• There were the remains of a bag of pepperoni in our fridge that I wanted to use up. I made pepperoni pizza pasta bake. Nothing fancy. It's an easy recipe that probably has endless variations. I may add some veggies, like sliced green bell peppers and mushrooms, next time. [The Kitchn]

I read a lot of newsletters and I think many of them are worth sharing. In this occasional section, I shout out a newsletter you should consider reading.

I can’t remember how I came across The Department of Salad, but it’s a newsletter I love getting in my inbox. The author’s definition of salad is… expansive… but I don’t care. This is a great mix of recipes, photography, personal narrative, and thoughtful exploration.

I love flowers. Every spring, I end up posting tons of pictures of flowers on my Instagram because I can’t help but share something that makes me so happy. While I’ve gotten pretty good at identifying blossoms, I don’t know all of them. A few days ago, I discovered that the latest Apple iOS added a great tool for me. The AI can now identify things in photos including plants. All you need to do is pick the image, swipe up, and click the info button. Game changer!

The past two weeks have been crazy. This coming week isn’t looking any better. I am very ready for my calendar to open up a little bit.