W. H. Auden articulated this tension beautifully: Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidenta...
The Strategy of Scheduling, of setting a specific, regular time for an activity to recur, is one of the most familiar and powerful strategies of habit formation
Studies suggest that we repeat about 40 percent of our behavior almost daily. So if we change our habits, we change our lives.
Secret of Adulthood: Make sure the things we do to make ourselves feel better don’t make us feel worse.
Second Splendid TruthOne of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy.One of the best ways to make other people happy is to e happy yourself. p 147
Research shows that the more elements make up your identity, the less threatening it is when any one element is threatened.
Remember, the reason to clear clutter is because, somehow, that clutter is diminishing your happiness. If you don’t care, don’t bother.
One of life’s small pleasures is to return something to its proper place;
Obligers may find it difficult to form a habit, because often we undertake habits for our own benefit, and Obligers do things more easily for others than for themselves. For them, the key is external...
Nothing is more exhausting than the task that’s never started, and strangely, starting is often far harder than continuing.
Nietzsche wrote, All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking, and his observation is backed up by science; exercise-induced brain chemicals help people think clearly. In fact, just stepping o...
My Current Habits Am I more likely to indulge in a bad habit in a group, or when I’m alone? If I could magically, effortlessly change one habit in my life, what would it be? If the people around me co...
It’s hard to do even simple things well, and most things aren’t simple. As
It’s a Secret of Adulthood: What we assume will be temporary often becomes permanent; what we assume is permanent often proves temporary.
In the Strategy of Pairing, I couple two activities, one that I need or want to do, and one that I don’t particularly want to do, to get myself to accomplish them both. It’s not a reward, it’s not a t...
In other words, even though one coin certainly isn’t sufficient to make a man rich, a man only becomes rich by adding one coin after another.
In fact, novelty lovers may do better with a series of short-term activities—thirty-day challenges, for instances—instead of trying to create an enduring, automatic habit.
I wasn't sure how to answer. Could I tell him that one Secret of Adulthood is Never start a sentence with the words 'No offense'?
I should pursue only those habits that would make me feel freer and stronger.
Habits are the invisible architecture of daily life.