Issue #75: How I Get Everything Done (Without Sacrificing Self-Care)

9 tips for productivity without the breakdown. ⚡️

Morning Person is a weekly newsletter packed with obsessively-curated recommendations and ideas—let’s get to it!

📺 “Poker Face” on Peacock: This new series, written by the writer/director of ‘Knives Out’ is comprised of ten self-contained episodes that draw inspiration from episodic crime classics like “Law and Order.” In it, Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) is on the run, in part due to her unnatural ability to tell when people are lying. The first four episodes, out now and releasing each Thursday, already boast an impressive cast of guest stars (Chloë Sevigny, Adrian Brody, Jameela Jamil). It’s more fun than I expected it to be and actually worth a Peacock subscription (or, at the very least, a free trial)! A fun, easy break from the norm.

🎧 “Land of the Giants: Dating Games” Podcast: The latest season of Vox’s podcast on leading tech companies (I also loved their pilot season on social media giants) tackles the multi-billion dollar dating app industry, and ask if apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge actually have their users’ romantic lives in mind. Or, are they simply dangling the carrot of a “soul mate” to secure hours of swiping? I’ve never used a dating app, and after listening to the first few episodes of this season, I’m not sure I will since they fall into a similar category as social media for me (dangerously addictive, where the cons outweigh pros). Curious to hear your thoughts in the comments!

🎥 ‘You People’ on Netflix: In 1967, Katharine Houghton, a white actress, and Sidney Poitier, a Black movie star, starred as a couple in ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.’ Marketed as a “love story of today,” sparks and racism fly until love, finally, wins. In many ways, ‘You People,’ is a remake for 2023 that confronts racism, faith, and virtue-signaling head-on when Ezra (Jonah Hill), who is white and Jewish, and Amira (Lauren London), who is Black and Muslim, fall in love and must introduce their families. Though many of the movie’s cringey moments go overboard in conveying stereotypes and culture clashes to the extent that most of the characters end up as tropes, there are plenty of heartwarming moments and funny lines, especially between Ezra and his podcast co-host, Mo (Sam Jay) that make it worth a watch.

Liked, but didn’t love: No surprise, I was intrigued by “Shrinking” on AppleTV+, which stars Jason Segel as a therapist who goes rogue and skirts ethics to help his clients. While there were some fun nods to the field I’m getting my Master’s* in—Carl Jung is quoted in the pilot and CBT gets dragged—the tone leaned too sitcom-y for me.

*I know I repeat myself, but it’s to keep new subscribers (hello, welcome!) in the loop. Speaking of, I’ll also be sharing a reintroduction and AMA later this week for paid subscribers! Keep an eye out!

Balancing school work, all over Portland’s best coffee shops

“But what if you gave 90%?”

The question came from my therapist and struck me as so foreign, I asked him to repeat it.

“What would you lose,” he clarified, “if you gave 90% instead of 110%?”

Everything, I thought, incredulous. How could he not see it? I was twenty-five at the time, and everything I had ever accomplished could be traced back to my self-discipline. Sure, I was stressed, but loosening the reins meant risking the loss of everything I had labored to build. Right? (Wrong… though it took me another five years to figure that out.)