Pouring out ideas is better for creativity than doling them out by the teaspoon.
Rather than striving for a particular level of possessions—minimal or otherwise—it’s helpful to think about getting rid of what’s superfluous. Even people who prefer to own many possessions enjoy thei...
Six obvious ways to make an activity less convenient: • Increase the amount of physical or mental energy required (leave the cell phone in another room, ban smoking inside or near a building). • Hid...
One Secret of Adulthood is Never start a sentence with the words ‘No offense’? And
The Habits Manifesto What we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while. Make it easy to do right and hard to go wrong. Focus on actions, not outcomes. By giving something up, we may ga...
The bus was hardly moving, but I could hardly keep pace with my own thoughts. I’ve got to tackle this, I told myself. As soon as I have some free time, I should start a happiness project. But I never...
The conduct of our lives is the true reflection of our thoughts. —MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
The conduct of our lives is the true reflection of our thoughts. —Michel de Montaigne, Of the Education of Children
The habit of the habit is more important than the habit itself. For this reason, it can be helpful to keep a habit symbolically, even if we can’t keep it literally, to keep a habit in place. Someone w...
The very words we choose to characterize our habits can make them seem more or less appealing. Engagement time sounds more interesting than than email time; playing the piano sounds more fun than prac...
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 trea...
Impunity.
These small, everyday actions had their own value; the pressure of my daily habits would mold my future. These habits were little things on their own, but their combined weight was massive. I thought...
They’re perceived to be more friendly, warmer, and even more physically attractive. A study showed that students who were happy as college freshmen were earning more money in their midthirties—without...
This self-knowledge is crucial because we can build a happy life only on the foundation of our own nature, our own interests, and our own values.
Leisure must be entered on the schedule as its own activity; it’s not something I get only when I have nothing else to do. Because I always have something else to do.
Unlike a reward, which must be earned or justified, a treat is a small pleasure or indulgence that we give to ourselves just because we want it.
Upholders respond readily to both outer expectations and inner expectations. Questioners question all expectations, and will meet an expectation only if they believe it’s justified. Obligers respond r...
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...
Waldenlust. This longing takes several forms: fantasies of the freedom that dispossession would bring; nostalgia for earlier, supposedly simpler times; and reverence for the primitive, which is assume...
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