This one is a bit of a departure from my typical article topics.
Recently I wrote a book about what I call “good-enough contentment.” It’s an allegory about a forty-something man who is unhappy with his life. After a magical train ride, he learns to define what contentment means in nine areas of his life: career, family, health, friendships, finances, leisure, spirituality, giving, and legacy. Writing the story caused me to look back at my own life--the things I did well and the many mistakes I made. It inspired me to write about nine nuggets that I wish I could go back in time to tell my younger self. Some I would have done the same all over again, others radically different. All, however, are worth putting down in writing to spur your thinking about things you need to start, stop, or continue. Here they are:
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 The Sustainable PM series focuses on four drivers for a holistic, long-term career:
In my first article of this series, I shared three essential pillars of career sustainability. This article focuses on the second driver: a sustainable lifestyle. In 4 Ways Your PM Career Sustainability Can Go Wrong, Trish is a hard-charging project manager who seems to always be working. She believes she has balance because she takes time to eat and go to the gym. She works hard and plays hard. She has opportunities to dial it back a bit and not run so hard, but when she collapses while leading a Zoom meeting, the decision to dial it back is made for her. Read more at ProjectManagement.com. 
In 2004, my wife Patty and I decided to team homeschool our autistic son because we knew he would need more help as he entered middle school. I had spent 20 years in corporate America, working for both Accenture and Microsoft, but in the Fall of 2004, I became his part-time math and science teacher, spending the remainder of my time doing business consulting and writing books.
Up to that time I always had either a client or office to go to. With the change to homeschool teacher/author/consultant, I now had no place to go each day. My office was either our playroom where we homeschooled, our home office, or local coffee shops. It was definitely an adjustment and I learned a lot about how to be effective without going to a workplace. Now I can’t imagine it any other way. Make Better Life Decisions Using the Nine Crucial Elements to Achieve Good-Enough Contentment7/21/2025 
In Behind Gold Doors-Nine Crucial Elements to Achieve Good-Enough Contentment I discuss how to achieve what I term "good-enough" contentment in your life. The book is a story about Ty, who seemed to have it all, then one day it all changed. At the end of his rope, Ty had a chance encounter with a quirky old woman who brought him on a journey to discover the nine crucial elements of good-enough contentment and helped him put a plan in place to fill his contentment gaps. His outlook on life changed forever as a result of him thinking through each of the contentment areas, re-aligning his expectations to think in terms of good-enough, and creating a prioritized plan to work towards good-enough contentment. If you haven't read the book yet I recommend you pick it up :-).
 In my article How to Flex Your Quadrant II Muscle, I discuss Stephen Covey’s four quadrants of time management which categorizes your tasks:
The model, also known as the Eisenhower Matrix (thanks to some readers for pointing that out!), was foundational in helping me minimize time-wasting activities and not get distracted by non-important tasks. More importantly, it helped me to allocate time to focus on things that are important but not necessarily urgent. It was groundbreaking for me and has helped me immensely ever since I implemented it over 30 years ago. Because I feel this is so important in how we all manage not just our careers but our lives, I want to share with you my quadrant II (Q2) list and give you a boost on how to think about your own Q2 items. Read more at ProjectManagement.com. 
Typically, career choices are made based upon responsibilities, compensation, or prestige where a businessperson makes a change to get a higher salary, more responsibility, or greater prestige. What about the situation, though, where the driver behind a career choice isn’t any of these; where it’s the needs of a child that drive the change? My choice was precisely that.
Trevor was a happy, normal, active baby. He was able to laugh, coo, cry, and do all of the other normal things that his big sister, Briana did at that age. To my wife Patty and me, everything seemed to be just fine. At about age two, we noticed that Trevor was hardly saying any words and was very into his own world with puzzles, coloring, and videos. 
With the vacation season in the rear-view mirror, many of us are going to get back to the grind of working too much, not getting enough sleep, eating poorly and not getting enough exercise. The concept of work life balance to most is just a bunch of theoretical baloney espoused by a bunch of talking-head motivational speakers and organizational leaders. There’s simply no way out of the imbalance, right?
BZZZZZZZZZZZTTTTTTT. Wrong.
As a parallel to the book, I developed an excel spreadsheet to help you define good-enough goals and work towards those goals. The Nine Crucial Elements to Achieve Good-Enough Contentment Assessment includes an annual goal setting tab to help you identify what you'd like to achieve by the end of the year for each good-enough contentment element and put steps in place to do it. You can download the spreadsheet which you should use after reading the book.
 Recently I read a Forbes article about navigating leadership challenges in a rapidly changing world. The article highlighted 10 areas of focus for survival.
Nothing on the list was an earth-shattering surprise for me. Things like building a robust network, cultivating emotional intelligence, and embracing continuous learning can be found on most lists of focus areas for leaders. What I found interesting was what the article listed as number one: Prioritize mental and physical health. For some, this might not make much of an impression. For me, it brought back a trajectory-changing time in my life that happened more than 30 years ago. Read more at ProjectManagement.com. 
Several years back I got into a conversation with a colleague about our kids. He told me of how he took his daughters to the circus. He wasn't able to afford it, but decided to go anyway. While they were at the circus, he looked over at his oldest daughter. The look on her face was one of utter contentment and delight. Seeing his daughter's face caused my colleague to get all choked up. The price of admission was redeemed through a priceless moment that my colleague shared with his daughter.
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