Happy New Year.
I know. Everyone is saying that right now. By the time you are reading this, you have probably heard it a hundred times. But I mean it. I hope this year brings you something good. Something you have been working toward. Something you did not even know you needed.
This is the first Friday Roundup of 2026. Same format. Same goal. Curated content that actually matters, delivered without the noise.
The inbox can wait. The notifications can wait. For the next few minutes, it is just you and some things worth your attention.
Here is what made the cut this week.
📚 Book of the Week
"Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes" by William Bridges
Link: https://a.co/d/0fZnttJ8
This is not a new book. It was first published in 1980 and has been updated several times since. But it landed on my radar again this week because someone in my circle recommended it, and the timing felt right.
Bridges makes a distinction that I think is brilliant: change is external, transition is internal. Change happens to you. Transition happens inside you.
You can go through a major change without ever completing the internal transition. You can get a new job, move to a new city, end a relationship, start a business, and still be living internally as if nothing has changed. The external facts shift but your internal orientation stays the same.
This is why people sometimes recreate the same problems in new circumstances. They changed the situation but never transitioned to a new way of being.
Bridges outlines a three-phase model: ending, neutral zone, new beginning. The ending is where you let go of the old. The neutral zone is the uncomfortable middle where you are neither here nor there. The new beginning is where you finally step into what comes next.
Most people try to skip the neutral zone. They want to jump straight from ending to new beginning. But the neutral zone is where the transformation actually happens. Rushing it is like pulling a plant up to check if the roots are growing.
Given that we are in a new year, which culturally is one of the biggest 'fresh start' moments we have, this felt especially relevant. The new year is a change. Whether it becomes a transition depends on what you do with it.
Worth reading if you are navigating any kind of significant shift in your life or work.
📰 Articles Worth Reading
"The Art of Productive Monotony"
This piece challenges the cultural obsession with variety and novelty. The argument: mastery comes from doing the same things repeatedly with deep attention, not from constantly seeking new approaches.
There is a section on what the author calls 'productive boredom' that I found particularly compelling. The idea is that boredom with a practice is often the threshold just before breakthrough. If you quit when you get bored, you never reach the next level.
This runs counter to a lot of current advice about keeping things fresh and changing your approach when something feels stale. Sometimes staleness is the gateway to depth.
"Why Your Goals Need an Expiration Date"
With everyone setting New Year's resolutions, this piece offers a contrarian perspective. The author argues that goals without expiration dates become obligations that outlive their usefulness.
A goal that made sense three years ago might not make sense now. But if you never gave it an expiration date, you are still dragging it along, feeling guilty about not achieving it, without ever asking whether you still even want it.
The practical suggestion: every goal gets a review date. When that date arrives, you actively decide whether to continue, modify, or release. No goal is permanent. That is not quitting. That is intentional curation of what matters to you now.
"The Hidden Cost of Optimization"
This one hit close to home. The piece explores how the pursuit of optimization can become its own form of inefficiency.
The author's key insight: optimizing requires constant attention, comparison, and adjustment. But good enough, once achieved, frees up attention for other things. Sometimes the optimized version costs more in attention than it saves in efficiency.
There is a concept in here called 'efficiency theater' which describes the phenomenon of looking productive while actually spinning your wheels. Worth a read if you have ever found yourself optimizing something that did not need to be optimized in the first place.
🎧 Podcast Worth Listening To
"The Knowledge Project" with Shane Parrish
Episode: "Learning to Think"
Shane Parrish is one of those interviewers who makes everyone better. He asks questions that get to the heart of things without being confrontational or clever for the sake of being clever.
This episode is a solo episode where Shane talks about thinking as a skill that can be developed, not just an innate ability you either have or do not have.
The distinction he draws between first-order thinking (what happens immediately) and second-order thinking (what happens as a result of what happens immediately) is something I have been mulling over all week.
Most bad decisions, he argues, are first-order decisions. They optimize for now without considering later. Most good decisions are second-order decisions. They sacrifice now for later, or at least consider the full chain of consequences.
Good listening for a commute or a workout. Or just while you are sitting with your coffee thinking about what comes next.
🎵 Music I Have Been Listening To
"Promises" by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and the London Symphony Orchestra
This is a single 46-minute piece that moves through nine movements. It is ambient, contemplative, and unlike anything else I have heard.
Pharoah Sanders was 80 years old when this was recorded, and his saxophone playing is sparse but profound. There are long stretches where very little happens. Then a phrase emerges that stops you in your tracks.
It is the kind of music that rewards patience. If you try to listen while multitasking, you will miss it. But if you give it your full attention, it opens up into something genuinely moving.
Good for a quiet evening. Or a morning when you want to ease into the day rather than attack it.
📺 Something to Watch
"The Alpinist" (Documentary)
I know I am late to this one. It came out a few years ago and I never got around to it. Finally watched it this week.
The documentary follows Marc-André Leclerc, a young alpinist who climbs some of the most dangerous routes in the world, often alone, often without telling anyone where he is going.
What struck me most was not the climbing itself, though that is genuinely jaw-dropping. It was his relationship with risk and with what other people think of him.
Leclerc does not climb for recognition. He does not post his achievements online. He does not seek sponsorships or build a personal brand around his accomplishments. He climbs because climbing is the thing he does. Everything else is noise.
There is a purity to that approach that I found both inspiring and challenging. How much of what we do is for the doing, and how much is for the being seen doing it?
Worth watching even if you have zero interest in climbing. It is really a film about purpose, risk, and living according to your own values regardless of what anyone else thinks.
🛠️ Tool I Am Using
Littlebird
I have been testing a lot of AI tools over the past year. Most of them promise to be your assistant but end up being just another thing you have to manage. Littlebird is different.
It is part assistant, part coach, part research tool. But what makes it actually useful is that it does not try to do everything. It focuses on helping you get organized and stay organized without adding complexity to your workflow.
Here is what I have been using it for:
Research and synthesis. When I am working on content or client strategy, I can feed it information and it helps me make sense of it. Not just summarizing, but actually connecting ideas in ways that move my thinking forward.
Task management that thinks. It does not just hold a list of tasks. It helps me prioritize based on what actually matters. It asks the right questions. It pushes back when I am overcommitting.
Coaching without the fluff. This is the part that surprised me. It acts like a coach who knows your context. It reminds you of what you said you were working toward. It holds you accountable without being annoying about it.
The interface is clean. The responses are fast. And it integrates into my workflow instead of requiring me to build a new one around it.
If you are drowning in tools and looking for something that actually reduces friction instead of adding it, this is worth trying. Use my link and you will get a free 30-day premium trial to test it out properly.
🔨 What I Am Working On
This week was less about output and more about infrastructure. I spent most of my time reorganizing how I work so that Q1 does not turn into the usual chaos of good intentions and scattered execution.
Reorganizing my calendar to work ON the business, not just IN it.
I blocked out time for the work that actually moves things forward. Strategy. Content creation. Systems building. The stuff that gets pushed aside when client work and daily fires take over.
The difference between working in your business and working on your business is not just semantic. It is the difference between staying busy and actually building something that scales. I have been guilty of letting the urgent crowd out the important. This week was about fixing that structurally, not just motivationally.
Creating an experience calendar for the quarter.
This one felt indulgent at first, but it is actually critical. If you are not living life, what is the point of building a business?
I mapped out experiences I want to have this quarter. Time with my kids. Trips. Moments that matter. Not as rewards for hitting goals, but as non-negotiables that the business has to work around.
Too many entrepreneurs build businesses that consume their lives and then wonder why they feel empty when they hit their revenue targets. I am not doing that again. The business serves the life I want to live, not the other way around.
Planning out Q1 with clarity, not just ambition.
I have a bad habit of overcommitting in January. The new year energy hits and suddenly I think I can do twelve things at once. This year, I forced myself to get specific.
What are the three things that matter most in Q1? What has to happen for this quarter to be a win? What can wait until Q2 without derailing anything?
The goal is not to do more. The goal is to do the right things well, and to build systems that make Q2 easier than Q1.
This is the work that does not show up on social media. It is not sexy. But it is the difference between a business that runs you and a business you actually run.
💭 Quote of the Week
"For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning."
T.S. Eliot
Eliot wrote this in "Little Gidding," one of his Four Quartets. It is about the relationship between endings and beginnings, about how every ending contains the seeds of what comes next.
What I love about this quote is the recognition that change requires new language. The words that described who you were do not necessarily describe who you are becoming. Sometimes you have to find a new voice, not just a new direction.
As we step into a new year, I think there is wisdom in asking: what language from last year no longer serves me? What new words do I need to find?
Take what resonates. Leave what does not.
The new year stretches ahead. It is full of possibility, which is another way of saying it is full of uncertainty. You do not know what is coming. Neither do I.
But we can be intentional about what we consume, how we spend our attention, and what voices we let into our heads. This roundup is one small attempt at that. A weekly pause to gather things worth knowing, things worth considering, things worth sitting with.
See you tomorrow for reflections.
Until then, go easy on yourself. The year is just beginning. There is plenty of time.
Resources Mentioned