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Working From Home – Six Ways To Bring Up Your Game
As a music producer/freelance database developer/blogger, most of my days are spent in my home office. I love working from home, and I hope I never have to “go in” on a regular basis again, but I...
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Results and Impressions of 3-Year “Life Vision” Planning Experiment
About three years ago I wrote a detailed essay envisioning what I would like my life to look like in three years. I included details about where I would be living, what my house and working spaces...
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Getting To Know Yourself, Finally (Practices for Active Self Knowledge)
“Self-knowledge” has a pretentious ring to it, but it’s really a down-to-earth concept. Do you know yourself? Do you understand what makes you tick? Do you have some grip on what’s important to you?...
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Quality of Consciousness
Three personal values, or metaprograms: Maintain a high quality of consciousness. Take radical responsibility for every aspect of your life. Design and implement a system of functional vitality. The...
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If You Want Something More …
My daughter just started her last year of preschool. One thing the teachers say to the kids is “You get what you get and you don’t get upset.” (A variation at another preschool is “You get what you get...
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Brain Renewal Protocol
A week ago I woke up in a black mood. Instead of feeling excited about my day, I saw a series of dreary tasks ahead of me. Looking into the future, I felt despair instead of hopefulness. Things that...
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A New Approach to Goal Setting (Introduction, and Reservations)
Over the last six months I’ve started using a new approach to goal-setting that I’ve found to be effective, enlivening, and motivating. I’m still ironing out the kinks in the system, but I’m far enough...
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How to Discover Your Life Purpose, Set a Primary Goal, and Stay On Track
In my last post I wrote about why I think setting goals is important. I addressed some of my own reservations regarding goal-setting. Is ambitious goal-setting selfish? Is it obnoxious and annoying to...
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When To Give Up and When to Double Down
The common sentiment that a strong person should “never give up, never surrender” quickly falls apart when subjected to some critical thinking. For example, any experienced poker player will tell you...
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How To Complete Difficult Tasks
What’s the secret to completing difficult tasks? If we can learn how to consistently overcome challenging obstacles, we can reduce our reliance on others, feel more capable and powerful, and take on...
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Why Money Is Bad For Art
As usual, I’ve been juggling things I need to do, things I want to do, and things I end up doing that are neither, and feeling like there isn’t enough time for all of it. You might think that the …...
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Subjective Benefits of Meditation, and a Rant Against Gurus
I usually meditate a few minutes a day, on most days. I’ve been doing this, on and off, since I was fifteen. Here’s a list of the benefits I notice from meditation: lower pulse rate feel more...
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The Learning Tax (pay it, instead of working around your ignorance and...
For about a decade, for most of my thirties, I lost touch with active learning. This isn’t to say that I didn’t learn anything for those ten years. I learned passively, reading nonfiction and news. I...
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Writing Habits and Start-Stop Ritual (boost efficiency by 50%)
Recently I came across this article by Phil Jourdan on writing habits and efficiency. It’s a great read. Phil was researching the subject of writing efficiency, routine, and habits. He found lots of...
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Why Breaks Are a Bad Idea
I’ve been working on a new novel (if you’ve been wondering why my recent posts have been shorter, that’s the reason). It’s my third attempt at a novel, and hopefully I’ll be happy enough with the...
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Keeping a Daily Writing Log
Recently I read two posts that approach the same problem from different directions; how do you get to a different place in your career (or develop a new career) when you are far away from your goal?...
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One Goal To Rule Them All
Apologies to Tolkien. For the last fourteen months I’ve been practicing a new form of goal setting: Have only one goal at a time, that closely aligns with life purpose. Set an “evaluation date” for the...
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Is Grandiosity a Prerequisite for Greatness?
Young Franzen’s grandiosity turned out to be predictive. Just a quick shower thought this morning, something that occurred to me while thinking about Jonathan Franzen’s article/excerpt from The Kraus...
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You Are Responsible For Your Own Brain Chemistry
Even cats like yogurt. Recently Kia was stressed out, and griping about some first-world-problem (I forget what it was; something along the lines of “my clients want me to do stuff,” or “the internet...
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Goals Are For Soccer? (Reevaluating Goals vs. Systems)
Should the idea of goals be left on the field? Recently my friend Will Spencer sent me this article by Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame). Part of the article is a cautionary tale against listening to...
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