Blog
A Letter to the Worst Year of My Life
There has been a theme in the last year of my life, and it has gone like this: Character: CLAIRE Diaz-Ortiz (Type A / Planner / INFJ / Enneagram 3) with desire to do all the things in the way she wants to do them. Action: CLAIRE plans all the things. Stage...
How I’m Using Morning Pages to Write My Way Through
A couple years ago, I heard about a thing called Morning Pages. Julia Cameron is the brainchild and the concept is pretty simple: Morning Pages are three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning. *There is no wrong way to do...
Things We Don’t Say: On Avoiding Conflict
With tons of little kids in the house these days (my own, typically, although occasionally others drop by to join in on the circus), I’m now doing a lot of my work in a co-working space. This has been a radical change in my work life, and one I’m embracing so far....
We Need a New Word for Busy
Oh hi. It's Claire, author of a new book and mother of #3under3 who is traveling and speaking and writing and fighting with health insurance about preemie vaccines and cleaning up asking my husband to clean up the mess the neighbor's dog makes of our trash every...
Is Hustle a Dirty Word?
Recently there’s been a revolution of sorts around the word “hustle”. Long the mantra of entrepreneurs, “hustle” has started to get a bad rap, and some folks have started waving a big white flag calling for a cease and desist. I’m considering throwing my hat into the...
Run YOUR Race
Hello from an increasingly autumnal Southern hemisphere. In a few days, I’ll be flying up North. North being a place I haven’t been in a year, because, amazingly, I haven’t been on a PLANE in a whole entire YEAR. (There is a lot of capitalization in that sentence.)...
Announcing My New book: One Minute Mentoring!
Alongside my co-author, Ken Blanchard, I'm thrilled to announce our new book from Harper Collins is now out in hardback in the USA! (Look for 10 other languages/lands coming soon!) One Minute Mentoring: How to Find and Work with a Mentor, and Why You'll Benefit from...
Why Movement Isn’t Progress
I’ve been thinking a lot about movement of late, because in some areas of my life it feels like I’m not seeing the progress I want to be making. I look at my annual goals list, for example, and I see a whole lot of nothing happening in a few areas of my life six weeks...
My 2017 Word of the Year Is…
Hello from twin central. After seven weeks in tne NICU, we brought our preemie twins home last week, and they're growing like bean stalks as we speak. This year my end of the year goal-setting was a bit different than most, as I was full up in the craze of being a new...
How to Have a Healthy Relationship with Your Smartphone
This weekend, I had the bizarre impulse to text my two year old to tell her something. Although it would be an effective way to communicate important updates (“Emma’s mom is picking you up at preschool!”), I clearly don’t want to rush my daughter’s childhood. I know...
Great Links this Week
We spend a lot of time in this space chatting about productivity and how to work well. I thought I’d start something new here, shift gears a little bit, and have some fun. A lot of you want to know what I’m reading online. Some things make me think. Some things...
I Haven’t Blogged in Two Months and Here’s the Crazy Reason Why
Oh hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! It’s me, Claire. Your long-lost blogging buddy. Generally I love me some good ole’ regular blogging. But things happen, you see, and this year THINGS HAPPENED and it has taken me more than a couple of months to get my groove back. Here’s the...
What I’m Reading {2016}
I've said before that for six years or so I've set a goal with my reading. For many years that goal was 100, and I'd usually exceed it by a dozen or so. In 2012, I decided to up the goal to 150, and in 2013 I upped it further to 200 (and exceeded it!). In 2014, I had...
All the Things You Cannot Plan
This weekend, a dear friend who is expecting a baby was telling me about her planning woes. She is one of those people who KNOWS things, and even though I have a two year old, and she hasn’t had any children yet, she hands-down knows more about babies, labor, and...
How to Listen to Your Life
I have a thing about twins. I’ve always had a spot in my heart for them, and so, years ago, when I read author Emily P Freeman’s first book and got to the part where she is surprised to find herself pregnant with twins it pretty much sealed the deal for me. I already...