Happy Wednesday, let’s clear out those cobwebs! To finish spring out strong, the next few weeks of newsletters will be part of the Spring Cleaning series. It’s not going to be a few quick tips to pare down your wardrobe, or mop the floors. We’re talking inner work that will lead to meaningful change down the line, because as you know…

But before that, get a first look at the latest episode of Great Things at Holywater.

If you were forwarded this email, you can subscribe and join the Great Things Take Time Community to get content from me (and Frankie) every Wednesday.

You said this gumbo will do WHAT?!!

Episode 10 of Great Things takes us to Holywater, a hidden oyster and cocktail den in Tribeca, where wild nights on boats and bars set the stage for this New Orleans-inspired spot.

Watch below to see what went into Alex Pincus opening eight restaurants, gumbo that does more than fill your belly, and that time Adrian was forced to eat out of the trash.

We tidy up our homes and closets, but what about ourselves?

We partake in spring cleaning because of all the extra baggage we’ve accumulated over the year. Fun Summers lead to the ramp-up of work and obligations, which then feed into the non-stop holiday season, which finds us all a little emotionally taxed and hibernating come the beginning of the year. Suddenly, the golden hour of sunlight is hitting your home just right, and you realize, oh boy, I’ve got to get things in order.

All of this is usually taken on in a physical sense: you clean out closets, get rid of excess, wipe down neglected corners, and FINALLY repot that ficus. Decluttering becomes a magic task to rid yourself of the collection of stuff that has been impeding your movement, dirtying your space, causing you to trip, and weighing you down. When surrounded by clutter, you misplace things, you forget you had things, and there can be not-so-fun surprises hidden in the piles.

But what if we took this spring cleaning energy and instead focused on ourselves? This means reaching into the deep, dark corners of our minds and hearts to find the clutter that’s been holding us back and impeding our growth.

For the next few weeks, we’ll do just that in this newsletter: get into some personal spring cleaning of our own. If you’ve already cleaned out your closet, GREAT, now let’s work on you. Along with some special guests, we’ll spring clean your time, your mind, your relationships, your expectations, and your environment. 

Skip the broom and instead take a deep breath; it’s time for some Spring Cleaning...

Spring Cleaning your time starts out with a confession: There’s a part of what I’m about to share that I’m not ready to do yet. This means we’re going to be in the work together, or perhaps you’ll beat me to it and have some pointers to give. 

But first, let’s start with what I know and love (said in the deepest layer of sarcasm): being busy. I’ve talked about the idolization of suffering and burnout, and it still holds true in the simplest form, which is being busy.

Being busy is the gateway to suffering and burnout. It starts innocently enough: you’re taking on a new activity, going to a few extra events, starting some projects, and then you start to hear yourself in conversations boasting about how busy you are. Because you are busy and have no sleep, you must be important, right? If you aren’t hustling nonstop, you must not care about building a legacy? The more on your plate, the more value you hold, right? 

I see so many caretakers struggle with this because it happens due to wanting to offer the best possible support for someone. Whether it’s kids or another family member, you don’t want to let anyone down, this is even true across other environments like work or community organizations. There is a good chance that as a kid you were also the one who took on the group project when there were a few people not pulling their weight.

You can’t do everything, and believe me, I’ve learned that the hard way. 

Today’s newsletter is the perfect example of what happens when you put too much on your plate: things slip through the cracks. And just like a beautiful vase holding flowers that Nana loved so dearly slipping through your fingers and crashing to the ground in a million pieces, being busy can be messy. So why is it so cool?

Think about Monday’s Instagram post from the @greatthingswithadrian account, pointing towards maintaining your energy as the topic for today. But meanwhile, the first week of Spring Cleaning was slated for today. 

In the past, I’ve thought that skipping someone’s party was the ultimate failure no matter how tired I was, or that saying yes to every single opportunity was the only way to grow my career, but while I was prioritizing things that I thought would lead me to a happier life, I realized that I had gotten so busy I was missing out on the things that could make me happy RIGHT NOW. I didn’t have to wait 5-10 years for things to magically fall into place; there were things I could experience now, during the growth period, that were in line with what I care about.

Being busy didn’t make my life better, it just made me miss the moments that mattered most

My biggest failure with being busy was when I lost my grandmother. Instead of going to see her for the regular Sunday dinners at her house, I told her how exhausted I was (from being so busy) and that I needed to skip to prepare for the week ahead. On the phone, she told me,

“You know Maurice, I really want you to start thinking about a life where you can make time for the people you want.”

She had the aneurysm that led to her death sometime that night after dinner.

During the grieving period, it caused me to sit with what I was currently doing with my life and where it was going to take me. It made me realize I had to cut out the in-between things, the clutter. I had to figure out what was really, truly, important to me, and start trying to push aside the things and people that didn’t serve that. It sounds cold, but it’s far from that because it gave me the ability to pour more of myself into the things I really cared about and break into new levels of relationships. I could be a warmer individual filled with love and joy that could be absorbed by others. (The exact opposite of when you’re in a terrible mood and people can feel the snark oozing out of you.)

I don’t come to you with what I learned on the other side of successfully decluttering my schedule; I come as someone who is in it. There have been many times I’ve caught myself back in my old patterns, burnt out and tired, and I feel like I want to throw in the towel, move down to North Carolina, and reassess everything. So if what I’m sharing below feels overwhelming, take it one step at a time and remember that if it were easy, everyone would be doing it. 

Days can be filled with clutter, and I’m not talking about the pile of clothes in the corner of your bedroom that are too dirty to be put away, but too clean to be washed and not be worn again. This clutter comes in the form of some of the obvious ways: scrolling social media, binge-watching TV, and gossiping, but also in other ways that you might not think of, like obsessively cleaning, spending money, or impulse shopping in the name of buying something to make you feel better. The clutter is a quick dopamine hit meant to distract you from what’s really going on. 

Sometimes, that’s like training for the sake of training hard, not with a goal in mind, just to get a feeling.

Does anyone else feel that when we are at our busiest, most overscheduled, most exhausted, that we tend to spend the most time doing something absolutely useless? Sure, I need to get to bed early since I’ve been up since 4 AM, but also, three hours of YouTube videos seem like the right idea.

This stuff is the invisible and useless time clutter we don’t always realize is happening. You don’t think back on your day and always remember the 30 minutes you spend on your phone, or the deep clean of the drawer because there was something you took away from it: learning about the birth of a friend’s baby or a tidier drawer. But all these things are adding up, and by the end of the day, you’re feeling like you ran a mental marathon.

I’ve learned that I can keep some of this clutter, but only if I’m being smart about it and not sacrificing things that feed my end goal. I like having the news on and knowing what’s going on, but if having it on all day in my home makes me feel anxious, cranky, and distracted, I’m going to cut it back to be intentional. Social media is not all bad, 7 hours of it in a day probably is. Go hug someone (my therapist has asked me if I’m getting enough hugs.)

If you feel exhausted and busy, evaluate what is taking up your time and if it really helps with building your Great Things. Don’t look for the big things; those are often there for a reason (your job, your family, your workout), but try to find the small pain points that add up over time. If we’re focusing on small tangible things to build something Great, then we also need to focus on small tangible things that are holding us back.

Time is weird for me. At 1 PM on a Sunday, I think I should throw in the towel because I feel like the day is basically over. On the other hand, I am also very optimistic about scheduling. Of course, I can take back-to-back meetings, drive into the city, grab a coffee, and be ready for class within an hour…. Right…?

Part of Spring Cleaning My Time is reevaluating how I’m building out my schedule and allowing for underscheduling.

AN EMPTY CALENDAR BLOCK IS A GOOD THING!!! (Sorry, was just looking in the mirror and yelling at myself this little reminder)

In fact, my dream is to have a day with nothing on my calendar and just decide what to do as I get the urge… maybe someday.

When I underschedule, I have less of a mental load and more time to focus myself before each event of the day. I’m walking into things more present and with an understanding of what needs to get done. I try to factor in the unpredictability as much as possible so that I’m not stress-sweating that I’m running late. This means allotting extra transit time (yes, it says it takes 25 minutes to get there, but maybe I should factor in 45), planning to take longer walks with Frankie, and actually preparing for a coffee stop to be 20 minutes (not assuming it will take no time).

If you want to be intentional about some of that clutter, you also can find intentional times to let it take up your attention. If you’re sitting in the car in the school pickup lane, that’s when you can start the social media scroll. It might be the perfect time: you know you have a strict limit of when you have to put down the phone so that you can drive, and you might only have 10 minutes (so what else will you fill that time with?). You could always try a brief meditation, or catching up on texts, but there is going to be that hard cut off which might not be conducive for seeing things through. Plus, maybe you learn some lingo to keep up with the kids, or does the idea of that have you feeling all six seveeeeennnnn?

Time is a very real thing, and something we don’t get back, no matter how much money we make. I can’t control the pace at which it moves, but I can control the number of things I try to fit into a period. Sure, it may feel like I’m getting less done in a day, but in reality, my quality of what I’m doing is better, and quality wins over quantity every time.

Recently, I learned about Sahil Bloom’s Energy Calendar. My first thought was “Oh! I need to do this!” My second thought was, “Nope, not yet, I’m scared of what this is going to show.”

If you’re not familiar, the gist is that you color-code your calendar with three colors: green for when something creates positive energy for you, orange for when it’s neutral and doesn’t have much of an impact on you, and red for when it’s draining. 

When you look back on your day, you can see how your time was spent and what kind of impact it’s had on you. If you’ve had a busy day, it could be filled with things that make you feel so alive and amped, or it could be things that have left you feeling drained. It’s truly an amazing idea.

But I’m not ready for what it’s going to reveal for two reasons: one, because as soon as I see it, I know I’m going to want to make a change, and there are a lot of things I see as non-negotiables, and two, because I’m in a period of transition. A handful of things are changing in my life, and I know it won’t be forever. It doesn’t make sense to review my calendar when I know that this is happening for a limited time and any changes I make won’t be permanent.

But reading this all back, it sounds like I’m just making a lot of excuses and really just scared of taking what might be a big step forward and re-evaluating my time. Perhaps I need to suck it up; being scared is no excuse. Maybe after I do this, things I thought were non-negotiables weren’t actually so, and I’ll discover a way to make my schedule work for me so that it’s tipping more towards creating energy than sucking it.

How am I going to know if I don’t try? I can’t just like the idea of something. If I want to build Great Things, they aren’t going to come by being avoidant! 

Sounds like I have some spring cleaning of my own I need to jump into. Will you join me?

Drop the broom, we’ve got better things to clean!

If you’re just in the mood for dipping your toe into the work, I get it, so let’s start small. I will say the same thing until I’m old and gray(er), small, tangible actions will build up over time to make something Great!

Your turn! Journal your answer, or if you find yourself sharing the progress of your Great Things on social, tag me at @greatthingswith_adrian so I can join in on cheering you along!

Because no matter what, there is always something to smile about.

This weekend was the annual Dumbo Bimmer Cruise. If you read the newsletter from a few weeks ago, then you’re totally in the know and know exactly what a Bimmer is. 😉 This was another chance to be around humans and stock up on joy that you can only get from being around people.

I also got a chance to see the unveiling of the BMW 7-series update at Grand Central. Sleek and beautiful, I’m impressed.

Food is my happy place and this week I found it in a homecooked meal, lunch at Berimbau, and an afternoon spritz with La Croix.