5th Rantiversary/45th Birthday Thoughts

Today is my 45th birthday, which means it is also the 5th anniversary of the Disrupt For Good blog, and a natural moment to pause and take stock. Some of you have been here the whole time, so thank you!

For the last few years, my January message to you has included sharing my word of the year. A few years ago, it was solidarity. Taking a posture of solidarity left me angry most of the year, so the following year my word was grace. Then last year, my word was flow (I had actually forgotten, and had to look it up just now). At the time, I defined flow as ease and movement — the ability to adjust to circumstances while maintaining a core sense of direction and purpose.

These words are usually chosen after a couple of weeks of less work and more time for reflection and future planning over my Christmas break. This year, I’ve done the same reflection and planning, but no single word has surfaced. Instead, I’ve been thinking more about how I want to make decisions about my time and attention. I thought I’d share it here in case it is helpful to you, too, in case you also like to think about these kinds of things at the beginning of a new year.

Looking ahead: 2026
2026 is going to be a year with a lot of changes for me personally: I’ve chosen to end a 12-year contract I’ve had leading the Network of Rare Blood Disorder Organizations this coming April, and the girls will graduate high school in June, and we expect that at least one, if not both of them, will live somewhere else in September. 

While there are some unknowns, I’m excited to see what shows up to fill the space I’m purposely creating in my schedule and in my brain. 

In the meantime, I have decided to sort of “pilot” a more structured approach to how I create my to-do lists this winter. 

I regularly face choices in where to put my time and attention (you probably are too):

• Urgent vs meaningful
• Loud vs strategic
• Individual fixes vs structural change
• Motion vs leverage

When I look across the 2026 work plans for the organizations I’m part of, a clear throughline emerges: messaging and narrative work focused on changing how people understand marginalized groups and social issues — because humane policy depends on it.

• Overcoming othering 
• Reframing problems as system failures
• Shifting narratives
• Building shared understanding that enables collective action

More than ever, the skillset I need and the work I do across my various roles is integrating, and I need to protect significant creative space in my schedule for narrative work and learning more about movement building, not just on the side for fun, but as a core part of my paid work. This is exciting!

I want to be really intentional about ensuring the space created by wrapping up at the NRBDO doesn’t get sucked into other people’s to-do lists. 

I want to make sure that, to the extent possible, the items on my daily to-do lists flow from the strategic priorities I have set and the select few flagship projects I have chosen, not from requests in my inbox. This does not come naturally to the people-pleasing, Enneagram 3s among us! But it feels really important for me to at least try in this season.

 So, while I don’t really have a word, I am trying out a bit of a new filter for 2026: 

I protect my time to focus on what matters. 

In 2026, outside the work I’m wrapping up with the NRBDO, I am focusing on narrative change and movement-building to counter othering and support humane housing and health policy, particularly for people who use drugs and people experiencing homelessness.

If something doesn’t clearly advance this, it’s likely a no.

I’m a pretty productive person. I plan my days around tasks, and I complete a LOT of tasks, but I’m not necessarily super conscious of whether those tasks align with my stated priorities. In January, I’m going to be testing out some structures and rhythms that let me design my days with this in mind (not just activity and checking things off, even though I DO find checking things off very satisfying). 

But as I do this, I will keep a little counterbalance to hold alongside this filter about protecting my time for things that matter — something I heard on a podcast this week that really grabbed my attention and may resonate with you, too: it’s possible to optimize yourself right out of a beautiful life. 

As in, time management systems are great when they serve us and the life we want to build. But we should be the boss of those systems, not a slave to them. Efficiency isn’t the goal. A beautiful, meaningful life that leaves room for curiosity and creativity and relationships and a bit of wandering is. And that's a gentle reminder I want to carry in my pocket with me into 2026.