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Every two weeks, I share thoughts and curated links on investing, career transitions, meaningful work, parenting, living intentionally, and other topics that interest me.

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The Open Calendar

In 1955, a British naval historian named Cyril Northcote Parkinson published an essay in The Economist that opened with a simple observation: work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

And thus, Parkinson’s Law was born.

Parkinson illustrated the point with an elderly woman who sets out to mail a postcard. What should take five minutes consumes her entire day. She deliberates over the card, hunts for her reading glasses, looks up the address, drafts the message, and considers whether she'll need an umbrella for the walk to the mailbox.

By evening, she's exhausted.

Last week, that elderly woman felt like a kindred spirit.

The plan was clear. I was supposed to be enjoying some time off between jobs. The prior week, I looked at my calendar late in the week, and acres of white space greeted me. Wide open. A gift.

So naturally, I filled it.

Before long, the following Monday looked less empty. A breakfast with a local friend was booked. Three catch-up calls scheduled.

Slowly, the white spaces evaporated.

When Monday arrived, I was relieved to see a few remaining time slots, which I immediately jammed with to-dos. A book skimmed before writing a document to organize my thinking about my new role. An hour on an AI coding course. By the time my son walked through the door after school, the day was gone.

The elderly woman in Parkinson’s essay stretched one small task to fill a day. I did the opposite. I stretched the day until it could hold every task I'd been deferring for months.

The result was the same. The time disappeared.

This was supposed to be the week I decompressed, and here I was, picking up the intensity.

But the anxiety passed quickly, replaced by something closer to a shrug.

I'm 55. I've been this way for every one of those years. At least the ones I can remember. The open calendar was never going to stay open. It never does.

Over the next few days, I scaled back my ambition. After a wonderful lunch with neighbors to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, I drove out with a friend to his cabin in the New Hampshire woods. Over a day and a half, we went for a hike, watched a Celtics game on TV, and I wrote for hours.

Before the new job begins on April 1st, my wife and I are sneaking off for some time in the sun. I’m not bringing a laptop or any work-related reading. I don’t trust myself.

Maybe Parkinson should have added a corollary.

It's not just that work expands to fill the time. It's that some of us can't stop offering our time in the first place. The only fix I've found is to leave the house entirely.

Stuff To Share

• The CEO Who Manages $1 Trillion: How to De-Risk Deals, Deploy Capital & Build Wealth | Connor Teskey Several insightful takeaways from this interview, Teskey's first since being appointed Brookfield's new CEO (at only 38!). If you don't already know, Brookfield is a massive investment firm with roughly $1 trillion in assets across real estate, infrastructure, power, private equity, and private credit. One interesting comment from Teskey, "Probably two-thirds, maybe even 70% of what we invest in today was not an investable asset class 15 or 20 years ago." LINK​

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• Stammtisch This short essay by Ted Merz describes a wonderful way to make it easy for groups to meet up. The term Stammtisch, which means "regulars table," refers to a standing plan to meet once a month or so on a rotating day and time. For example, on the third Thursday of every month, everyone just shows up at a certain bar area. There's no organization or communication. No host. No Agenda. If you can make it, great. If not, no worries. I love how it removes all of the stress and friction around planning. LINK​

• How the world’s first electric grid was built I liked this because it turns something that feels inevitable into a long stretch of mess, rivalry, and improvisation. In 1918, London had 50 different electricity systems operating simultaneously. It is a good reminder that infrastructure does not arrive fully formed. Somebody has to force a standard, and usually later than seems reasonable only in hindsight. Given the topic's significance, it's a relatively 14-minute read, written by Alex Chalmers for Works in Progress. LINK

And a Farewell Photo...