It’s certainly tempting to stay in bed. Sleep feels so good, and our mattress is extremely comfortable. We even use a black-out curtain, so the early light of June and July doesn’t wake us up at 5am. But for a while now, I’ve been finding it impossible to sleep in. Once I’ve had enough sleep, I just can’t stay in bed any longer. Sometimes, it’s because I have a lot… Read More »Why I Get Out of Bed
I often advise keeping your eyes on the process rather than keeping your eyes on the prize. In other words, focus on your effort, not the results you’re aiming for. Pour your energy into the work, and the results will usually take care of themselves. But last week, Seth Godin reminded me that it’s not that simple: “We expend effort. We create value. It’s easy to get confused about which… Read More »Are Your Efforts Effective?
“The meaning you give work determines its difficulty. A coder working on a passion project works 12 hours straight and calls it energizing. That same programmer, doing maintenance on legacy code they consider meaningless, feels exhausted after 2 hours. Your relationship with the work shapes its weight more than the work itself.” –Shane Parrish1 In both of the cases above, the coder was working for money. But in the first… Read More »How to Be Energized by Your Work
Take a moment to remember the last time you cooked in an unfamiliar kitchen. Maybe it was at a friend’s house; maybe it was an Airbnb. Remember the feeling of not being sure where things are, the slightly frustrating inefficiency of working in that kitchen? Compare that to how it feels to cook in your own kitchen, where everything is exactly where you expect it to be. At home, you… Read More »Using Mise En Place for Home, Work, and Life