Chris Loper has been writing about self-improvement and helping busy adults with habit formation since 2017. He also writes an education blog for parents and students for Northwest Educational Services. Along with Greg Smith, Chris is the cocreator of Parenting for Academic Success, a series of transformative classes that create empowered parents, confident students, and harmonious families. His most recent endeavor combines his academic and habit-formation expertise to help students thrive in college. Visit SmartCollegeHabits.com to learn more. In 2021, Chris published a humorous memoir titled Wood Floats and Other Brilliant Observations, a book that blends crazy stories with practical life lessons. He lives in Issaquah, WA where he is the owner of South Cove Tutoring.
When tomorrow comes, your attention will go somewhere. It has to. And, as Chris Bailey put it in his book, Hyperfocus, “Attention without intention is wasted energy.”1 So you’d be wise to choose where your attention will go. If you don’t, other people will choose for you. (App designers and advertisers, mostly.) And if you’re anything like me, you make far better choices when you decide what to do in… Read More »Decide Tomorrow Tonight
I’ve just finished reading Garth Nix’s Abhorsen Trilogy – a superb fantasy series. To my surprise, as I was enjoying this epic saga, I discovered a powerful lesson about procrastination. WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD (I’ve tried not to give away much of the plot.) In the world of these books, the dead don’t always stay dead. They try desperately to return to life, often with the help of evil necromancers. But… Read More »The Book of the Dead
When I was a kid, my parents would sometimes admonish me for wasting my life in front of “the boob tube.” (Readers from certain generations know that means television.) I scoffed and continued watching reruns of The Simpsons. But a funny thing happens when you get older: You often realize that your parents were right. It’s usually much more fulfilling, more memorable, and more fun to actually do something. Doing… Read More »Doing is Greater than Watching
You probably know the importance of cross-training. In athletics, cross-training means doing a wide variety of physical exercises, including those outside of your typical sports. My three sports are skiing, rock climbing, and hiking. And I could get in shape for those sports by just doing those three activities. But I’ll be better off in a number of ways if I cross-train, so I also do a lot of other… Read More »Cross-Training For Your Brain