21 Easy Hacks to Simplify Your Life | Zen Habits (41)
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“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.” - Henry David Thoreau If you’re trying to simplify your life, it’s best to follow the four simple steps I’ve outlined before — it’s just the simplest method. But sometimes life gets in the way, and you need a workaround, ...
Some Great Links, and the New Zen Habits Reddit Community (5)
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While I bask in the glow of the RNC, I’ll leave you guys with some of my favorite links in the past week or so. If you’re a subscriber to my tumblelog, many of these will seem familiar. Also, see below for an open-source-style way to share links with the Zen Habits community … The Simple Dollar » Ten Methods I Use to Keep Productive Wherever I’m At The Effortless Way to Achieve Any Goal ...
7 Habits of Great Writers (12)
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If you’re a writer or blogger, you might be interested in my latest post at Write To Done: Learn from the Greats: 7 Writing Habits of Amazing Writers If you like it, I’d appreciate you sharing it on delicious, Digg or StumbleUpon!
5 Legal Tips for Peace of Mind (15)
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Editor’s note: This is a guest from Andrew Flusche, a lawyer and blogger. Legal issues don’t have to be stressful. In fact, you can use the law to reduce your risk, eliminate uncertainty, and plan for the unthinkable. The law can help with your overall peace of mind. 1. Execute a will Estate planning isn’t just for wealthy old people. If you’re an adult, you need an estate plan. This spells out what happens to ...
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oheresy said:
These are great tips. I have an advanced directive for my medical stuff. It's not hard to write. I got the documentation from Kaiser Permanente, but I'm sure you can get it from any healthcare provider.Being single, I don't have a will, since everything will go to my beneficiaries anyway.Homeowners and/or Renters insurance is a must.
6 Questions to Ask Yourself to Get the Most Out of Life (54)
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“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” - Abraham Lincoln I love reading lists of things to do before you die, but after reading several of these lists, I’ve realized that each list is a very personal thing. It can only apply to the writer of the list, and not to all human beings in general. No such list can do that. And ...
Autopilot Achievement: How to Turn Your Goals Into Habits (2)
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“First we make our habits, then our habits make us.” - Charles C. Noble It’s such a simple concept, yet it’s something we don’t always do. It’s not exceedingly difficult to do, and yet I think it’s something that would make a world of difference in anyone’s life. Break your goals into habits, and focus on putting those habits into autopilot. Last week when I wrote my Ultimate Guide to Motivation, there were a number ...
My Basic Running Program (6)
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“There are as many reasons for running as there are days in the year, years in my life. But mostly I run because I am an animal and a child, an artist and a saint. So, too, are you. Find your own play, your own self-renewing compulsion, and you will become the person you are meant to be.” - George Sheehan A number of people have asked about my basic running program. Here it is: ...
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Diane said:
Takes me back to High School and programming in BASIC...
5 Amazing Mac Apps for Getting Things Done (Plus a Custom-Rigged Setup) | Zen Habits (2)
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The ideal for anyone interested in Getting Things Done (more on GTD, and more)– or just being productive and organized, for that matter — is to be able to quickly add things to your to-do lists without interrupting your work; to be able to see what you need to do right now, without worrying about everything else; to be able to organize stuff without too much work. And of course, GTD fans like tools that ...
Random Acts of Kindness: A Social Site I’d Love to See (59)
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“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” - Dalai Lama I don’t think anything like this exists yet, so if you’re looking for an idea for a website/service, I’ve got one for you: Random Acts of Kindness: A Social Site to Create Happiness This site would be a way to do nice things for other people, and get rewarded for it. Here’s how I envision ...
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Surround|ed| said:
Spread some love
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rorowe said:
Great idea! Sorta like "I owe your a beer" for Twitter.
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jwisser said:
I really like this kind of idea. I still want to implement my "Something Nice" idea.
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Michelle Thompson said:
Like this concept a lot.
The Zen Habits Twitterbot Challenge, Plus Two Ebooks (7)
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OK, if you’re a programmer/coder/techie type, I’ve got a challenge for you. After using Twitter for more than a week (follow me here), I’ve really grown to like the Twitterific app for the Mac. It has a really nice little interface, and scanning through new updates is easy. I decided that I’d like to get notifications of new emails and RSS posts right inside of Twitter, so that I can get all my updates in ...
7 Little Habits That Can Change Your Life (105)
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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle If you could just pick one or two (or seven) habits to create in the next few months — habits that will have the most impact on your life — what would they be? I often get asked this question, because people are overwhelmed when it comes to starting positive life changes. They ask me: what one or ...
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Ginger said:
I love this site. Such excellent advice!
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d0t said:
Leo is constantly writing posts that make me think. This one really hit the spot for me today.
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Andrew Randazzo said:
Some great tips to kick off the school year.
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Keener said:
Another really top-notch article from Leo.
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edythe said:
1. Develop positive thinking. I put this first because I think it’s the keystone habit that will help you form the other important habits. Sure, positive thinking by itself won’t lead to success, but it certainly goes a long way to motivate you to do the other things required.I learned this when I quit smoking — when I allowed myself to think negative thoughts, I would end up failing. But when I learned how to squash negative thoughts and think positive ones instead, I succeeded. This discovery lead to me practicing this over and over, until I was able to form just about any habit I needed. It’s been invaluable to me, and I think it could be to most people.Focus on this habit first, and you’ll have a much easier time with any of the others. Start by becoming more aware of your negative self-talk — do a little tally sheet throughout the day, marking a tally each time you notice a negative thought. Soon you’ll recognize them, and you can squash them.
The No. 1 Lifehack You can Implement Today to Make the World (19)
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Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Mark Hayward of the MyTropicalEscape blog. In a word: Kindness. The Oxford Pocket Dictionary defines kindness as - the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate. It’s a simple concept in theory, but in reality it is an action that can sometimes be difficult to implement on a day-to-day basis. Now I am not talking about the kindness that you might show to your spouse, family members, ...
Life’s Enough: Stop Comparing Yourself to Others (29)
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“Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another.” - Marquis de Condorcet If you took the strengths of others, and compared them to your weaknesses, how do you think you’d size up? And do you think this would make you feel good? The funny thing is, this is what most of us do at one time or another — and some of us do pretty often. It’s a sure-fire recipe for a ...
The Dirty Little Secrets of Productivity Bloggers (36)
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“I trust so few that it is much easier to simply keep no secrets.” - Nathaniel Summers Psst … hey, over here … I have a secret to tell you. Don’t tell anyone! What I’m about to tell you is top secret. Please don’t let on that I told you, or I’ll be ostracized in the productivity blogging world. Promise? I’ve been a productivity blogger for more than a year and a half now (related ...
How Do You Help Out a Blogger? (18)
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My friend J.D. Roth of the awesome Get Rich Slowly blog came out with a post today about Seth Godin’s advice to click on ads to support a blogger: Ads Are NOT the New Online Tip Jar I agree with J.D. completely. If you like Zen Habits, don’t click on ads just to support me. Click on them if you’re interested in what they’re advertising, sure, but don’t just click randomly. Instead, here’s how you ...
The Seven Deadly Sins of a Relationship | Zen Habits (2)
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“Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.” - Emily Kimbrough While I can’t claim to be the world’s foremost expert on relationships, I do know that my wife and I have a very strong marriage, and have never been more in love. I’ve failed at marriage before, but that’s helped me become better at it. I’ve learned the deadly sins of relationships, and how ...
Is Our Addiction to Saving Money Destroying the Real America? (36)
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Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Paul Michael, Senior Writer for Wise Bread. As a young boy growing up in a gray, rainy seaside town in England, I had a fascination for America; maybe even a love affair. America was the land of opportunity, sure. But it was also vastly different and eccentric (in a good way) from state to state. So when I came to the U.S. around seven years ago, I ...
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Brett Stewart said:
What is more American than nostalgia? America has changed, but that doesn’t automatically mean it is bad.America’s economy has evolved along with technology. Wishing for those happy times when most stores were Mom and Pop is also wishing for a time when most people could afford one car only, when long distance phone calls were a luxury, and when foreign grown foods, like pineapple, were almost unattainable. Technology has given us great gains in efficiency. Big chain stores allow traditionally poor people to have products that were impossible to afford in the Mom and Pop days. Take away the chain stores, and you take away some family’s means to buy furniture and supplies for their home. But maybe they would be better living on a farm, growing their own food (just don’t use pesticides!), and unable to afford those Mom and Pop hotels this post so desperately romanticizes.It amazes me to see how many people want those old days back, but don’t realize that the culture they want was only for a small middle class. Today, the middle class is huge, and for some reason it thinks it can have it both ways. A large middle class cannot support a Mom and Pop store economy, because Mom and Pop prices are too high. Take away chains and you take away the middle class that wouldn’t afford it.I think Mom and Pop stores are great, but only if they can make the extra money worth it. I’ll pay for personal service when I need it, but when I am buying a coke at the corner, do I really need to worry about whether or not it’s from a chain? I don’t think so.Think about this. Walmart is actually the biggest Mom and Pop store around. The Walton family still more or less runs the business, after it was started in a little town in Arkansas. If you want Mom and Pop, there is it.
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bddemir said:
My lonely but beautiful country, Turkey suffers from the same loss of taste as time goes by slowly. Surrounded by (mainly foreign) corporate owned businesses, nothing is like as it was used to be. Giving up on local and family owned equates to giving up on our souls...
12 New Rules of Working You Should Embrace Today (211)
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The workplace, more and more, is changing, and with this change comes a whole new set of rules. The traditional office work environment and tools are still around, but at a very rapid pace, they’re being supplanted by newer and better tools, newer and better ways of working. The old rules are being broken, and new ones are emerging. You could call this the Workplace of the Future, as not all businesses have adopted these ...
