Calling It Fall + Q5 Personal Retreat

Our weather seems to have shifted a tiiiiiiiny bit! It’s noticeably less humid and I daresay I might even describe it as pleasant, though when the sun beats down it still feels pretty hot.

Today’s low was actually in the 60s (67!!!!) — I don’t think I’ve seen a number that low in many months! So I’m just going to call it: SoFlo FALL HAS ARRIVED!!!

Truly, this is cause for rejoicing.

(I am probably conjuring up a late-season hurricane with all of this celebratory banter, but please no.)

In other news, I made the executive decision yesterday to turn November 2nd into my own personal retreat/planning day! I will be spending lots of time with many others helping them plan 2027 just a few days after that (yay!) but have not dedicated a significant chunk of my own time to seasonal/monthly planning in a good bit, so I am excited to now have that blocked on my calendar.

Basically this means:

• I will do something relaxing for myself to get in the mood (massage is booked!)

• I will make sure I’ve already pre-recorded the next week’s BLP so there aren’t any deadlines

• I will avoid scheduling any meetings / interviews / course sessions for that day

• I will spend some time just dreaming/scheming/brainstorming about ideas for next year on the business side

• I will complete my seasonal + monthly planning, since November is a month where I do both. (Monthly will go quicker having just completed seasonal, so this shouldn’t be too overwhelming.)

I think it would be great to do this every season (quintile) next year — cordon off the day for goal setting and also thinking more deeply about what I want to do with my business. It is cliche but very true that we can spend a ton of time working on things from a business standpoint, but far less time thinking about direction (plus, taking time to iterate/make things better). I spend a lot of time in worker bee mode, but I need to have a few “CEO” days built in too, you know?

(Note: I feel lucky that Nov 2nd was looking pretty empty at this juncture – next time I would probably want to block things off a bit farther in advance! But the stars did align.)

WORK CLEAN

I finished this book yesterday! I really liked all of the restaurant vignettes. The last section fell a little flat for me — the author was trying to put everything together in his own productivity system and as much as I LOOOOOVE a good productivity system, I found his hard to follow. It seemed like a GTD mashup with culinary terminology?

That said, I totally agreed with:

• the need for a Daily Planning Session (he calls it “Daily Meeze”, short for mise en place)

• the concept of interspersing “process work” with “immersive work” (similar to the idea of responsive work and input processing vs deep work)

• the importance of focus + avoiding rushing, because something done carelessly that needs to be redone ends up taking far more time

• . . . and balancing that with the real time boundaries around our tasks + work, which are often fairly extreme in a culinary setting

AND it did make me want to eat at a super fancy (ie Michelin-starred) restaurant, something I haven’t done in a while. Still hoping for Inn at Little Washington in the spring though!

ALLLRIGHHHHT onward and upward to the rest of this (very interview/on-stage heavy) day!