Tag: happiness
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Making Someplace New, Home
I’ve had this conversation multiple times lately, so it’s time to document it. I feel like a hippocrite offering these observations, since I don’t feel at all at home in London yet, but at least I’m mindfully unhappy about it. Even somewhat 1-dimensional workaholics have multiple aspects to their lives (they normally have somewhere to…
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10 Ways to Develop Your Plan B
Following on from The Disillusionment of the Early Career Engineer, I could write a number of different things, but the thing that I find people having the biggest trouble with, that I am continually nudging people on, is the finding of other options and opportunities. I don’t know why. Do people view this as disloyal?…
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Habits vs Tasks: I Want an App For That
I have this list of “habits” that I need to make time for, on a daily or weekly basis. For example: Get some exercise, every day. Read a book, every week, Weight train 2x a week. Do something for just for me, every day. Connect with a friend, every day. Do something outside (a long…
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Happiness is… A List
For a long time, I’ve been doing this thing where I GO GO GO like a crazy person and then crash. And I always come up with a plan, like “take on less”, or “be more organized” or some other strategy. And these are helpful, absolutely, but at best they seem to result in a different…
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Email Once A Day
Back in May, I started checking email only once a day (and sometimes not at all if I had no meetings). I had to accept that no-email days would be scarcer than I’d like, but overall it’s been a good experiment. Typically I get through it as fast as possible (< 15 mins) and once…
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How to be Slightly Happier and get a Bit More Done
I bought this book (Amazon) because I’m a huge fan of Burkeman’s column “This column will change your life”. He has a knack for taking a large self help book and extracting the one actually useful piece of advice – like the 10-10-10 method for making decisions. And debunking popular myths – like it taking 28 day days…
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Post Grad Rehab: May/June
In May I focused on feeling better about myself. I bought new makeup, two new pairs of jeans, got my hair cut and colored, and started making more effort to dress up for work. Sometimes I wear heals, sometimes I wear my new Ugg sneakers (they are fluffy inside, it’s awesome). I still keep it…
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Drawing Lines Around Your Day
Arriving, stressed, on a Monday morning the other week I decided to shut the mail tab on my browser, with no intention of opening it again. This impromptu panic started a new thing – I’m checking (work) email at most once a day, if I have a meeting. No meeting days – usually one a week…
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The Ultimate Productivity Boost
I checked off everything on the list last week. It wasn’t even down to the line – at 1400h on Friday all that was left was one kickboxing class. I hung out, caught up on some reading, watched an episode of Scrubs and then went out for dinner. And I thought about how it was…