Thanks for checking out the Weekly Learning Roundup. These bite-sized, weekly posts are designed to give you a quick hit of interesting learnings and articles I came across this week.

It’s a motley assortment of tips, resources, and links that will hopefully give you a bit of inspiration for the upcoming week. Enjoy!

What I’m reading —

4 Ways to Control Your Emotions in Tense Moments by Joseph Grenny

A lack of emotional intelligence might be one of the biggest career-limiting (or perhaps even life-limiting) habits we can have. I know I’ve struggled with it in my career. Step 1 in handling a difficult emotional situation is to own it. In Grenny’s words, “You can’t change an emotion you don’t own. The first thing I do when struck by an overpowering feeling or impulse is to accept responsibility for its existence.” In other words, it means to give yourself permission to feel the way you’re feeling – it’s not right or wrong. But once you can sit with it, you can then deal with it.

Books, documentaries, or podcast episodes I’m enjoying —

Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things

I watched this on Netflix the other day and loved it. While I don’t consider myself a “minimalist” a lot of the things the film dives into speaks to the type of person I want to become. I’m a big fan of the minimalist approach to living in a consumerist society. It’s true, at the end of the day, it’s not what we have but who we have around us.

A quote that’s inspiring me —

Love people, use things. The opposite never works.

— The Minimalists (Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodermus)

Productivity tip of the week —

No caffeine after 2 p.m.

Caffeine can be a powerful ally in your daily productivity in helping you improve your alertness and efficiency. The downside with caffeine is that it has a half-life of 4 to 6 hours in the human body meaning that by the time you’re winding things down in the evening you may still have upwards of a third or a half of the caffeine in your system. That’s not good when your productivity the next day requires you to get high-quality sleep before.

As a rule of thumb, try to limit (or ideally eliminate) your caffeine intake by 2 p.m. If you really need the caffeine to kick the afternoon slump, try to switch to a green or oolong tea instead of coffee. Check out the 7 Negative Effects of Coffee & The Healthy Drink You Should Replace it With from Health Ambition for an interesting look at the potential negative impacts of coffee and how you can mitigate them.

Product or service I’m loving —

Year of the Hustle Calendar by Busy Building Things

I’m a big fan of the work that the guys at Busy Building Things create. In particular, their Year of the Hustle Calendar is one of my favourites. If you’re familiar with Jerry Seinfeld’s “don’t-break-the-chain” methodology, this will become an indispensable tool in your productivity and tracking arsenal. Here’s a shot of the 2016 calendar for me. (Note that I used a calendar from another provider last year so it looks a little different).

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Featured photo by Pixabay.

As always, thanks for checking out this Weekly Learnings Roundup. Follow me on Twitter @peternakamura to see the full list of articles that I share on a daily basis.