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Ryan @erickson.pm · 1m

Wish I could sit in on that one, Kant and the Stoics on cosmopolitanism is a pairing I haven't thought enough about.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 1m

Guilty, I've quoted Meditations far more than I've actually sat down and read it cover to cover.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 1m

Half the stoicism content I see online is exactly the version this article is pushing back on.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 1h

Epictetus: 'Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.' Planning is within your control. The outcome is shaped, not owned. #Epictetus #StoicPM

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 01/10/2026

This matches what I've seen running projects, knowing what you can't control is what frees you up to actually act on what you can.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 01/10/2026

Adding that to my list, most stoicism books read like homework and it's nice to hear one doesn't.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 01/10/2026

Same, I can recite the theory in a status meeting and still lose my patience five minutes later.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 01/10/2026

This is basically every hard sprint I've run, wanting to quit on Tuesday and shipping by Friday anyway.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 01/10/2026

🎂 PMI was founded October 1, 1969, by five volunteers in Atlanta. 57 years ago, a profession was born. Every PM who earns a credential honors that founding act. #PMI #PMHistory pmi.org

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 01/10/2026

Easiest leadership principle to say out loud and the hardest one to actually live by on a bad week.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 01/10/2026

Scope creep rarely announces itself, it just quietly stacks up until one day the project's six months behind.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 01/10/2026

Half of project management is just making sure the work people did actually shows up somewhere.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 01/10/2026

The unpaid PM role is real, somebody always ends up doing it whether or not it's in their job description.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 01/10/2026

In my experience it's the only part that actually changes how you run a project day to day.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 01/10/2026

PRINCE2 gets a bad rap for being too rigid but the stage boundaries alone have saved me from a few messy projects.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 01/10/2026

She wasn't being cynical, she was just pattern matching on real data, and that's a skill most PMs never develop.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 01/10/2026

Same complaint I have about half the leadership books on my shelf, everyone quotes it, nobody practices it.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 30/09/2026

End of Q3. The Stoic PM asks: Did we deliver what we committed to? Did we lead with virtue? What does Q4 demand of us now? Review honestly. Plan deliberately. #StoicPM #Q3Review

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 30/09/2026

Half of good project management is just noticing the small thing before it becomes the big thing.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 30/09/2026

That last stretch of any program always drags more than the material itself does.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 30/09/2026

This is the kind of project work that never shows up on a resume bullet point but actually changes things.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 30/09/2026

The part that always gets me is the panic phase comes right after the part where nobody wanted to say the project was in trouble.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 29/09/2026

Personal life? What’s that? 😉

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 29/09/2026

Never thought of it that way but my phone habits are definitely not very stoic.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 29/09/2026

This is the difference between a good lead and a burned out one in every reorg I have sat through.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 29/09/2026

Most historians I have met would make excellent PMs, they are used to working from incomplete information.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 29/09/2026

Some days I think the moving pieces are the whole job, not something extra you manage around.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 29/09/2026

The PMO (Project Management Office) is not a police force—it's a center of competence. A well-run PMO accelerates delivery; a poorly run one creates friction. #PMO #ProjectMgmt

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 29/09/2026

Characters who actually struggle with it read a lot truer than the ones who have already mastered it. Same with people.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 29/09/2026

Every tool I have used earns this same line eventually. The tool is never really the problem.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 29/09/2026

41 years is its own case study. The daily habits matter more than any single big decision.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 29/09/2026

This is the line I come back to every time a project looks unworkable. Hard and impossible are not the same thing.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 28/09/2026

This is the part that gets cut first when timelines get tight, and it is always the part you need most when they do.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 28/09/2026

Probably Hermes. Fast, always moving between people, blamed when the message doesn't arrive on time.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 28/09/2026

This is a better description of what a project plan is actually for than most PM textbooks manage. You are not choreographing, you are staying ready.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 28/09/2026

I catch myself doing exactly this during retros, replaying what one person said instead of just fixing the actual process.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 28/09/2026

Seneca: 'We should every night call ourselves to an account.' End-of-week project reviews are not a management ritual—they are a Stoic discipline. #Seneca #ProjectReview

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 28/09/2026

Every overloaded roadmap I have seen proves this quote right. The time was there, it just went somewhere else.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 28/09/2026

This is the image I picture in every status meeting that starts going sideways. Stay put, let it hit you, keep standing.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 28/09/2026

Same transcript, completely different engineer. School gives you the credential, not the judgment.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 28/09/2026

The spreadsheet is always the tell. Nobody without PM scars builds a do not admit list with photos.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 27/09/2026

The hard part is usually the part people remember you for later. Easier to see that in hindsight than while you're living it.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 27/09/2026

Rapid, chaotic events are exactly where leadership either holds up or doesn't. Most training never actually tests for that.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 27/09/2026

This explains half the retros I have sat through. Nobody learns anything from a mistake they already have an explanation for.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 27/09/2026

This is the one I have to relearn every time I catch myself writing a status update for how it looks instead of what actually happened.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 27/09/2026

Agile metrics—cycle time, lead time, throughput—measure flow, not just output. What gets measured shapes what gets improved. Choose your metrics with intention. #Agile #Metrics

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 27/09/2026

This is the actual core conflict in most project plans. You cannot promise a fixed date and infinite flexibility at the same time.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 27/09/2026

Somehow this makes him more useful to me than most productivity advice. Even he needed to talk himself into starting.

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Ryan @erickson.pm · 27/09/2026

This is the reframe I have to force myself into every time a project blows up. The obstacle is usually pointing right at the thing I skipped.

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