News websites — and certain people — can make you worry about everything. The moment you open a news site or talk to them, you start feeling anxious about things far outside your control. Whether it’s new workplace rules or world events, many of these sources of information are unhelpful, if not harmful.

Of course, you can try to avoid such news or people. But there are three fundamental questions you can ask whenever you’re confronted with worrying information:

• Can I change it?
• Can I influence it?
• Can I control it?

This idea comes from the classic book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, where the author presents the famous Circle of Control framework:

Stephen Covey explains that there are many things in life we care about — politics, the economy, other people’s behavior, global events — but most of these lie outside our direct control. We might influence some of them slightly, but we cannot change them directly.

Covey also argues that the more time you spend worrying about things outside your control — like constantly checking the news — the more your Circle of Influence shrinks. Your attention gets pulled into areas where you have no power, leaving you with less energy, confidence, and focus for the things you can actually impact.

Covey’s main point is simple: We should not invest our time and energy in things we cannot influence or control.

Think less about things you cannot change, and more about things you can change or influence.

So, the next time you encounter bad news or a stressful situation, ask yourself:

• Can I control this?
• Can I influence it at all?

If the answer to either question is “yes,” then it’s worth your time and energy. If not, then it’s healthier to let it go and refocus on the things you can change — for example:

• Your health
• Your skills
• Your family
• Your mindset

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

We, as managers, attend a lot of meetings every day. I’ve had days with more than ten meetings, most of which were titled something like “… All-Hands”, “… Alignment”, “… Sync”, or “… Weekly”.

While I was sitting in one of those meetings, a question came to mind: How much does this meeting cost for the company? So, I did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation.

Disclaimer: The following analysis is purely illustrative. All salary figures are publicly available data from Levels.fyi and do not represent any confidential or internal company information. The example company (Amazon) is used only for reference, and the calculations are approximate.

Using Levels.fyi, I looked up the average salary for each role represented in the meeting. There were five Senior Software Engineer, one Senior Product Manager, two Engineering Managers, one Senior Data Analyst, and one Product Performance Manager. According to the site, here are the average salaries for each role at Amazon:

Job	Annual Salary	Hourly Salary
Senior Product Manager	~96,000€	~48€
Engineering Manager	~404,000€	~202€
Senior Data Analyst	~100,000€	~50€
Senior Software Engineer	~254,000€	~127€
Product Performance Manager	~90,000€	~45€

A bit of math revealed that a one-hour call costs around 700€.
If this meeting happens weekly — assuming 52 weeks a year and 5 cancellations — that’s 47 meetings per year. That’s roughly 34,000€ for this single recurring meeting. Mind-blowing, right?

Now, let’s take another example: an all-hands meeting held every other week. I won’t go into the same detailed breakdown, but assuming the average salary at Amazon is around 120,000€, a typical all-hands for a tribe or vertical of 120 people — held 25 times a year — would cost around 180,000€ annually!

And that’s just personnel costs — not counting licensing, assets, or other overheads.

Rethinking How We Meet

Meetings are important and part of our daily work. We need them to align and move forward effectively.
But the reason I wrote all of this is simple: when we’re aware of how expensive meetings really are, we’re more likely to think twice before scheduling one.

The following considerations might help:

• Maybe only a few people truly need to be there.
• Maybe this topic could be handled asynchronously.
• Do we really need a meeting?

Putting the cost of a meeting into perspective helps us be more intentional — and respectful — with everyone’s time and company resources.

Photo by Josiah Weaver on Unsplash

I’ve seen many people devote themselves completely to work. They stay late, constantly check messages, and let their jobs define their lives. Even outside working hours, their conversations and relationships often revolve around what they do for a living.

Unfortunately, society tends to praise this behavior. We call such people “always available” or say things like “You can always count on him — no matter if it’s 5 a.m. or 11 p.m., he’ll reply right away.”

But the truth is, we don’t live to work — we work to live. Work is a means to build a life, not the other way around. We work to earn enough to live well, to spend time with loved ones, to rest, to explore, and to grow beyond our professions.

So next time you find yourself answering messages late at night, pause for a moment and ask yourself: Am I living to work, or working to live?

If you open YouTube, Instagram, or any other social network, you’ll notice countless posts comparing things — trying to decide which one is “the best.” You’ll see titles like “AirPods Killer,” “Garmin vs. Apple Watch,” or “The Best Gaming Laptop.”

But here’s the truth: none of these really matter, because your life is probably very different from the person who created those posts.

People have different expectations and needs. For one person, a simple non-smart watch might be perfect. For another — say, an ultra runner — a smartwatch with long battery life and advanced tracking might be essential.

The sad part is that many of these videos are not created to help you. Their real goal is to keep you watching — because that’s how their creators get paid.

So, instead of asking “Which one is the best?”, maybe we should ask: “Which one works best for me?”

The best one is always the one that fits your life — not someone else’s.

Image by Dmitriy from Pixabay

Last week I wrote about the fact that people were more productive when we moved from wired connections to wireless.

Besides the distraction that wireless devices can create, being wired has other implications:

• When you’re wired, you have a specific location for doing something.
• When you’re wired, there’s no sitting on the sofa with your laptop while watching TV.
• When you’re wired, you can’t take your phone or tablet to bed — which ultimately leads to better sleep.
• When you’re wired, you need to move more throughout the day to get your day-to-day stuff done, which helps you burn more calories and stay more active.

When you read productivity books, they all emphasize that to be productive, one should focus on a few key things:

• Focus on one thing at a time -> from “Deep Work” by Cal Newport
• Avoid distractions -> from “Indistractable” by Nir Eyal
• Get a good amount of sleep -> from “Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker
• Be more active throughout the day -> from “Atomic Habits” by James Clear

You see, just by being wired, one can naturally live a better, more productive life.

I was talking with my wife the other day and told her I was way more productive when I had a desktop PC. When I think about it, my current laptop is far more powerful than my old PC, but simply because I was wired, I was able to achieve more when I used it.