Field Notes
Research-backed guidance on navigating disruption, managing reduced capacity, and rebuilding with intention. New pieces land here before they go anywhere else.
Estate planning is the topic everyone agrees they should handle and almost nobody does. Here is the simpler version: five documents, plain English on what each prevents from going wrong, and the 90-minute weekend that gets them in place.
California reinstated stricter Medicaid asset limits January 1, 2026, and several other states tightened in parallel. The 5-year lookback means a 'we'll deal with it' plan is functionally a plan to spend down everything. The timeline, the protected-asset categories, and the conversation to have in the next 60 days.
Delaware, Minnesota, and Maine launched new paid family and medical leave programs in 2026. Colorado, Rhode Island, and Washington expanded existing ones. The state map, the FMLA-vs-state-paid-leave-vs-short-term-disability stack, and the application sequence that produces the largest cushion.
The standard advice is to not make major decisions for six months after a significant loss. The advice is repeated everywhere; the application is rarely defined. Here is what counts as major, the financial decisions that have hard deadlines anyway, and the bridge structures that hold the big choices until your cognitive load lifts.
Most of what you read online about probate is organized chronologically. The right framework is by deadline. The four hard deadlines, the safe-to-defer list, the estate checking account, the siblings conversation, and the probate-attorney decision.
Three Q1 2026 reports document a displacement pattern: female-dominated occupations are nearly twice as exposed to GenAI as male-dominated ones, and 86 percent of workers in the high-exposure low-adaptability zone are women. The pattern, the role-evaluation framework, and the differentiation move that actually works mid-career.
When capacity drops, the items that get dropped first are often the load-bearing ones — sleep, movement, connection. Three categories that fail silently when neglected, the three-question filter that surfaces what is actually structural, the 60-percent rule, and the conversation at home.
COBRA is too expensive but the alternatives have a 60-day window. This piece is a day-by-day playbook of the post-layoff insurance window: day 1, day 30, day 59, and the decisions that compound badly when missed.
Caregiving content addresses the long arc; the operational triage of week one is largely missing. A tactical 30-day plan covering medical records, medication reconciliation, home setup, durable POA, and the sibling communication structure that prevents resentment from compounding.
Most "build your support network" advice tells you to add people. The actual problem is role mismatch. Four roles, one diagnostic, one schedule — the framework that prevents the gap from becoming the situation.
Beneficiary designations override wills. They override divorce decrees. The piece of paper you filled out at onboarding a decade ago is the final word on who gets the money. The 20-minute checklist most people do from the wrong end of a probate fight.
Understanding what happens to your body, mind, and capacity when multiple systems fail simultaneously. Why this moment is not a weakness—it's a signal.
The distinction between personal failure and situational overwhelm. What reduced capacity actually means and how to work with it instead of against it.
Practical frameworks for decision-making when your prefrontal cortex is offline. How to make good choices even when your brain is in survival mode.
Communication strategies for managing your professional presence during personal crisis. How to protect your career without pretending everything is fine.
Realistic expectations for recovery and rebuild. Why "healing" timelines from self-help books miss the actual length and shape of real recovery.
Why vague help-seeking fails and specific requests work. The exact framework for asking people for what you actually need.