I’m always writing down blog ideas. At the time of writing, I have 535 unpublished saved drafts. Most of these will never see the light of day. But some of them are worth sharing. In an effort to whittle that number down as fast as humanly possible, here are five things that have crossed my mind recently:

1. I’ve seen the future. Her name is Alexa. Although I write about technology for a living, I’m a chronic late adopter because I don’t like messing with things until they’re proven, refined, and working well. So I wait to buy technology after early adopters, manufacturers, and coders have worked out all the kinks. That said, I’m totally sold on the Amazon Echo I bought last month. It has enhanced our home f
   or the better. We ask it to set timers, look up information on wikipedia, get our sports update, ask what’s on my calendar, play Christmas music or specific songs, add things to my shopping cart. Unlike uneven Siri and Google results, it feels like Alexa gets things right nearly 80% of the time. I’m impressed. The future is now.
2. Client case study that didn’t go as planned. I started writing for Adobe this year. The first story I wrote for them was a special report on email marketing. Although they liked the work, they heavily modified it before taking it life. As you can see here, the first part is what I wrote and the second is how it ended up. Even though it didn’t turn out how I hoped, the team liked it enough to hire me for subsequent reports and blogs posts, which I’m very grateful for.
3. My favorite quote from my favorite animated movie this year is good.
   “Hey, Judy, I-I’d just like to say I’m sorry for the way I-I-I behaved in my youth. I-I had lot of self doubt, and it manifested itself in the form of unchecked rage and aggression. I was a major jerk.”—Zootopia
4. What is the best time to publish online content online? The answer: Weekends around 1pm; Thursdays and Friday’s around 3 pm; and weekdays around 7 pm, according to research.
5. Bragging about how busy you are won’t make you happy. I’ve blogged about this before, but it bears repeating. Over the last decade, we’ve increasingly bragged about how busy we are, researchers found. When asked about our well-being, we exclaim, “Busy!” Instead of wishing others well with year-end greetings, we’ve turned Christmas cards into brag sheets about how over-scheduled we are. “It’s almost as if being busy now is not just a status symbol, but a clear sign that we measure up, we fit in with the ‘crowd, and that we’re worthy and important,” says Brigid Schulte, author of Overwhelmed.

I couldn’t agree more.