Tomato Timers, Tasting Menus & Embracing the Chaos | 5@5

Happy Friday!

This week I’ve been thinking about focus, change, friendship, chaos and creating more space for the work that matters.

Apparently, that may require a timer, a dinner party and a little help.

Here we go...

1. 🍅 Set the Timer

I’m going to give the Pomodoro Technique a try.

The idea is incredibly simple: choose one task, set a timer for 25 minutes and work on nothing else. No emails. No texts. No scrolling. No jumping between twelve different things.

When the timer goes off, take a five-minute break. After four rounds, take a longer break.

That’s it.

The name comes from the tomato-shaped kitchen timer its creator used—pomodoro is Italian for tomato.

I’m going to use my watch. Pick the task. Set the timer. Put the phone down. Go.

What I like is that I don’t have to convince myself to finish an enormous project. I only have to focus for 25 minutes. It makes starting feel manageable and gives distractions somewhere else to wait.

Twenty-five minutes of real focus may be more valuable than an hour of being half-present.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

2. 🌊 Nothing Is Fixed

Something I’ve been thinking about from James Baldwin’s 1964 essay “Nothing Personal”:

“One must say Yes to life and embrace it wherever it is found—and it is found in terrible places. …

For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock.”

Wow.

Whatever you’re going through right now is not forever.

That doesn’t make the hard season easy. It doesn’t mean you ignore it or pretend it doesn’t hurt. It simply means that this moment isn’t the whole story.

The earth shifts. The light changes. The sea reshapes the rock.

And we change too.

Sometimes the best thing we can do is say yes to life as it is, hold on to the people we love and trust that the light will change again.

3. 🍷 Dinner at Dara

We managed to get a group of friends together for dinner last week—and wow.

My mind was blown.

I called Dara in Cumberland and asked if they would host a tasting-menu dinner with wine pairings. Bryan and Kelsey absolutely outdid themselves.

We walked out full, laughing and happy. Exactly how you should leave a great dinner with great friends.

It still amazes me that we have this level of talent tucked inside a small farmhouse in Cumberland. You don’t always have to head into Portland for an incredible meal. Sometimes the special place is right down the road.

If you haven’t been, hit Dara for coffee and breakfast in the morning or make a reservation for dinner.

And if you can get a group of friends around one table, do it.

The food matters. The wine helps. But the laughing is the part you remember.

4. 🥂 Embrace the Chaos

A friend shared a theory with me a few weeks ago, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it.

As you can probably tell by now, being around people I love fills my cup. I love having friends at the house. During my recent stretch as a single dad, I somehow invited about 25 people over.

Completely reasonable behavior.

My friend—who also likes to control things—pointed out that maybe I enjoy the chaos precisely because I can’t control it all.

When the house is full of kids running around, people laughing, food cooking and drinks being mixed, there are too many moving parts to manage perfectly. So I stop trying.

And maybe that’s why I find so much peace in it.

There’s something freeing about a room that is alive. Nobody cares whether everything is perfect. They’re too busy talking, eating and enjoying each other.

I also get an incredible amount of satisfaction from bringing joy to my people. Creating a place where everyone can relax and laugh fills me back up.

Maybe peace doesn’t always look like a silent room.

Sometimes peace is a house full of people you love.

Embrace the chaos.

5. 💻 Working on the Business

I think I’m going to hire a virtual assistant.

Life and business have become hectic enough that I’m struggling to make time for the things I want to do because I’m too busy handling the things that have to be done.

I’m working in the business so much that I don’t have enough time to work on the business.

There’s a big difference.

Working in the business is answering emails, managing calendars, updating systems, chasing paperwork and handling the hundred small tasks that keep everything moving.

Working on the business is thinking about where we’re going, building better systems, creating new opportunities and spending time on the relationships only I can build.

The goal isn’t to become less involved. It’s to become more involved in the right things.

Delegating is difficult when you’re used to controlling everything. But doing everything yourself eventually becomes its own form of chaos—and not the fun kind with friends, food and cocktails.

Sometimes growth isn’t about doing more.

Sometimes it’s about finally letting go of what someone else can do better.

Set the timer.

Remember that nothing is fixed.

Make the dinner reservation.

Fill the house with people you love.

And make room for the work—and the life—that only you can build.

Maybe we don’t need more time.

Maybe we just need to be more intentional with the time we already have.

See you next Friday,

Nick