Meat cups are in and I'm back from Hawaii

You opened your email on New Year’s Eve Day? I’m impressed. Missed you last week (hope everyone got all the gifts they wanted). I will keep this one short and sweet because I know we’re all trying to minimize screentime and/or limit screentime to non-email entities (yes, my TikTok screentime is wayyy up).

A couple quick, newsworthy highlights from the week:

Chipotle introduced a “meat cup,” which is exactly what it sounds like; a pirate group scraped more than 99% of Spotify’s library, so I guess we’re about to hear tons of AI-ified versions of all our favorite songs; and female authors were way more popular in libraries this past year than their male counterparts (go gals!).

Back next week with more news, as per usual!

Pro tip: go on vacation the second week of December, and you will basically only work one week of the month! I’m just back from Hawaii with my family, which was a great way to soak up some sun after spending Christmas regressing into my teenage self at my parents’ house, eating an alarming amount of sweets, and answering questions from relatives that felt oddly similar to my last performance review. I’m now back to (pretending to) work and deciding if I want to commit to 10k steps a day in 2026 (unlikely!).

This is the perfect outfit to wear to a coffee shop date with a high school friend in your hometown, where you will inevitably run into some guy you kissed in ninth grade! Chunky sweater, relaxed layers, and loafers that scream “you may have invited someone else to freshman year winter formal, but I am now successful and smart and have good taste in shoes, hope you’re well, I never think about you!”

Very easy New Year’s hack: skip resolutions!! Set defaults instead.

Instead of big goals you have to remember, build a few background rules that make life easier.

1: define a “good enough” week.

What counts when you’re busy? Maybe two workouts, one social plan, inbox reset once. This is the bar on tired weeks so you don’t go full all-or-nothing by Wednesday, which is the surest way to abandon your resolutions altogether.

2: pre-decide the boring stuff.

Lock in the same breakfast, workout days, or go-to dinner for Q1. Fewer decisions = more energy for work and real life.

3: add a monthly reset.

Block 45 minutes once a month to cancel what feels heavy and schedule one thing you’re actually excited about. The goal is NOT a new you on January 1. Instead, think about this like setting better defaults so you don’t have to try / think so hard!

Thanks for reading!