My single hope for all of us this coming year: take a step back. Perhaps the most disturbing story I heard in 2017 was the story of Geary Danley. In the hours after the mass shooting in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017, the internet was abuzz with people relaying information and weighing in on what… Read More »A One Word Wish for 2018: Restraint
credit: Maxime Le Conte des Floris How the “Four Causes” of an ancient philosopher can be used as an exercise to help you live with more purpose and focus. We all get stuck from time to time. We all fall into a rut, where it seems like we can’t move forward and make progress — at least not in… Read More »The 4 Questions that Define You: Aristotle and a Deeper Dive into Self-Awareness
nobody’s an island — not even her. So you want to go around touting yourself as a self-made millionaire, or whatever sobriquet you’d like to adorn yourself with? Great! It’s all the rage these days! Here’s a checklist of things you must do beforehand. Once these are complete, self-aggrandize to your heart’s content! Check with your parents, guardians,… Read More »7 Things to Do Before You Can Say You’re “Self-Made”
From Two Great Systems to One Helpful Way to Look at Your Day Time management is key in supercharging your productivity because it is the most scarce resource you have. No matter what you do, you cannot really get more time than what you are allotted. You can find ways to make more money, you can… Read More »The 48 Tomatoes Method for Time Management and Productivity
credit: 童 彤 How a small practice can enrich the powers of restraint and mindfulness that is so lacking these days Fasting has been a practice in many spiritual traditions for millennia. From those in the clergy, to monks and lay people, abstaining from food and/or drink in a ritualistic manner has been embraced because of the… Read More »Friday Fasting: A Weekly Practice to Bring Back Focus and Strength
On the Life-Changing Magic of Having and Using A Trusted System Every so often, I find myself feeling like things have come a bit unraveled in my life — like I have lost control. I can see all of the symptoms — unread mail piling up, chores not getting done, deadlines sneaking up on me. And often, I attempt to… Read More »What We Talk About When We Talk About Productivity
credit: Cole Keister Fewer and fewer students are buying into one of the richest and most vibrant areas of study. It’s time to change that. In recent years, the Humanities and liberal arts are being given short shrift by many in the public sphere. Marco Rubio famously commented that the world needs more welders, not philosophers, and… Read More »We Need a Sales Force for the Humanities
photo: Darko Popovic What an Old Danish Philosopher Can Teach Us About Cultivating a Richer Existence There are many ways to conceive of this huge block of time and movement that we call “life”. But one of the big problems with capturing what it’s all about is reconciling the two conceptions of life: the inner one… Read More »Kierkegaard and the 3 Stages of a Full and Happy Life
Photo by Jacob Morch It is simpler than it seems to do well and feel happy, you just have to go back to the basics. About a year ago, I was traveling with the president of the company I work for. We had met with some high-level personnel at a large customer to finish negotiating a large… Read More »2 Foundational Principles of Personal Productivity, and How to Follow Them
The Power of Simple Columns, Rows, and Formulas Photo by Esa Riutta Almost 10 years ago, I read Getting Things Done for the first time. It showed me the importance of having a trusted system, a place for all of the things that you want to or have to do — be they personal, professional, or otherwise. That book… Read More »How to Implement a Killer GTD System in Google Sheets
