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...
Technology is a good servant but a bad master.
So where should we start? It’s helpful to begin with habits that most directly strengthen self-control; these habits serve as the Foundation for forming other good habits.
Pouring out ideas is better for creativity than doling them out by the teaspoon.
People who feel less guilt and who show compassion toward themselves in the face of failure are better able to regain self-control, while people who feel deeply guilty and full of self-blame struggle...
One-Coin Loophole: Whether we choose to focus on the single coin or the growing heap will shape our behavior.
One of my most helpful Secrets of Adulthood is What I do every day matters more than what I do once in a while.
One lives in the naïve notion that later there will be more room than in the entire past. —Elias Canetti, The Human Province
Once I’ve cleared away the things I don’t need, use, or love, my surroundings reveal to me, and to others, the things that matter most to me. Careful curation means that my space and my possessions re...
On Three Ways of Writing for Children: When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a ma...
Obligers, however, often dislike their Tendency. They’re vexed by the fact that they can meet others’ expectations, but not their expectations for themselves.
My home is a place of unconditional belonging, which is part of its pleasure, part of its pain—as Robert Frost wrote, home is Something you somehow haven’t to deserve. At home, I feel a greater sense...
Lewis’s brilliant essay On Three Ways of Writing for Children:
It would be impossible for me to eat one square of chocolate a day. For the rest of the day, I’d be thinking about that bar of chocolate. In fact, I discovered that the question Could you eat one squa...
It turns out that stating a problem clearly often suggests its solution.p 32
It struck me as poignant that my long relationship with my beloved grandparents could be embodied in a few small objects. But the power of objects doesn't depend on their volume; in fact, my memories...
In the chaos of everyday life, it’s easy to lose sight of what really matters, and I can use my habits to make sure that my life reflects my values.
I sat on that crowded bus, I grasped two things: I wasn’t as happy as I could be, and my life wasn’t going to change unless I made it change. In that single moment, with that realization, I decided to...
I realized that one way to deprive myself without creating a feeling of deprivation is to deprive myself totally.
Habits speed time, because when every day is the same, experience shortens and blurs; by contrast, time slows down when habits are interrupted, when the brain must process new information.