Practice

How to Make Meditation the Best Part of Your Day

I used to hate meditation. Raised with a particular version of by-your-bootstraps Judeo-Christian work ethic that idolized “pioneers” (in quotes because they were actually colonizers), I had a real problem with the idea of just sitting there, doing nothing, for any amount of time. Worse, when I forced myself to do it I kept on …

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Practice

One Week of Intentflix & Not-So-Chill

As promised, here’s the update on my personal experiment to do more deliberate viewing of television shows. It’s been a week where I’ve avoided the endless scroll of shows, making sure that when I turned on the TV I knew exactly what I was going to watch, and nothing more. Well, mostly. I’m human, and …

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Love

Rediscovering Pleasure in Professionalism

In the rush to be more productive, to be more successful, to be more…whatever it is we’re trying to be more of…it’s easy enough to forget about the why in pursuit of the what. Case in point: I’ve been trying for a few years to get better at sketchnoting. In a time when I was …

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Life

Are You a Slave of Time?

“I realized during meditation this morning that a huge part of my stress lied in a perceived scarcity of time. I am so concerned with ‘not wasting time’ – with ‘living up to my potential’ – that any moment that is not propelling me towards some goal is felt to be a waste, a luxury, …

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Life

An Urgent Message for Younger Me

Today’s post is in response to reader Jessica’s request for “Advice to younger self”. It occurred to me that the traditional Letter format was kind of outdated — we barely read through our emails. But if I really wanted to get my attention, I would text myself.

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life

The De-Tolerated Life

Shortly after writing my post about de-tolerating your environment, I took on the elements of my desk that were most aggravating me: I dusted the swords on top. I found a better place for my glasses. I used an old IKEA shelf as a cord manager. I found better homes for both my hard drives …

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Practice

The Maker-Time Schedule

This would be one of those “public accountability” posts, or maybe just a “notice of an experimental life hack.” As you may remember, a while back I tried out the concept of “Maker Time” – with some fantastic results. I’ve also been trying to come up with a more definitive schedule for myself because my …

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Love

Use Love to Enable Productivity

Love in Iguana Land “An iguana is any task I don’t want to deal with, anything I’m dreading or avoiding or dread-avoiding…Just thinking about them makes me want to crawl into bed and hide.” – Havi, Fluentself.com If you’ve not been acquainted with Havi’s idea of the “idowanna iguana”, it’s pretty charming. Illustrated, even, and the post …

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Practice

using your environment to reinforce your goals

Greetings from occasionally-sunny San Francisco. After a great weekend workshop, I had a chance to catch up today with my friend W – a remarkable woman of many talents and interests, including being part of the team of artists that helped string lights all along the Bay Bridge turning it into a work of art …

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Life

Avoid Burnout by Living Deliberately

Traveling at the Speed of Life Take care not to smoke too quickly; for the best possible burn, taste, and aroma, smoke as slowly as the cigar will allow. – Hayward “Lou” Tenney Cigars require attention, lest you suffer the dreaded “burnout”, when it simply stops smoldering and starts smelling. But the rate at which …

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