Adapting a simple practice from world-class cyclists can help you achieve more with less effort
What can cycling and aerodynamics teach us about building habits and achieving goals more easily?
One word: drag. It’s a well-known term in aerodynamics, but one we also encounter when we try to build habits or overcome procrastination and get things done.
The faster an object tries to move, the more it encounters drag — the resistance of the air around it. If you’re trying to get somewhere quickly while expending the least amount of energy, drag becomes increasingly important to think about. Drag needs to be overcome and minimized.
But overcoming drag is not just a physical undertaking. We…
The nature of our work has changed dramatically in the past few decades, but these 4 ideas remain evergreen
Whether you’re a founder, a maker, or both, the work you do doesn’t much resemble the kind of work most people did at the beginning of the 20th century. Since about the 1960s, the term knowledge work has been used to describe what most of us — from the C-suite on down — have to do.
The problem with knowledge work is that it folds in on itself. It’s the kind of work where 50% of the work is figuring out what you need to do, 30% is figuring out how you’re going to manage to get it done given…
My experience with not charging for things in the creative landscape
What do you give away for free, and what do you charge for?
As a creator, and as someone with both sales and marketing experience, this question continues to plague me. After all, if I’ve sunk my time and effort into something, shouldn’t I get compensated for that? Why should I throw it all out there for people to take for free?
Making a Thing
Just over three years ago, I built a pretty in-depth spreadsheet for running the GTD productivity system without having to use any apps. I built it to solve a problem I was having, to fill a burning desire…
Why I’ve done away with GTD “contexts” for next actions, and adopted a simple scheduling system instead
The genius of a productivity system like David Allen’s GTD (Getting Things Done) consist of two key habits:
- get everything out of your head and onto a list
- think in terms of next actions
Both of these habits are beneficial. But they have their downsides — especially when you adopt them together. A major downside is that you end up with a giant list of next actions — one that overwhelms you as you glance at it. …
A brief manifesto on being an effective teacher, coach, or consultant
Why do you do what you do? More specifically, why do you do the work that you do? Is it money? Do you do it for praise? Do you want to be known and respected? Or is it something else?
I was talking once with a woman who did a lot of consulting work for manufacturers. She would come into their plants, review how they moved around materials, where people assembled things, and how they did it.
She would do time studies, take detailed notes, and provide presentations to executives. Ultimately, she would be able to provide them with impressive…
Micro-dosing struggles to build your mental fortitude and self-confidence
We humans have a skill that is at once both a blessing and a curse: our minds adapt to nearly any situation. When things go badly for us, we may be dismayed, but we can usually adjust and get used to it. On the flip side, when things go really well — and we feel a surge of joy — we also get used to it. That joy gives way to our normal indifference. Then we crave more, just to get that same surge of joy.
It’s called hedonic adaptation. An increase in good things or bad happens to us…
As a husband, father of 2, full-time worker, and side-hustler, I’ve found a way to devour books despite being crunched for time
Reading books is one of the best habits you can build into your life. In terms of ROI on your time spent, it’s hard to find a better practice than reading. The more you read, the better stuff you find to read later.
I’ve always felt tremendous pressure to make more time to read books — to sit down and page through them. But I struggle with both a short attention span, high distractibility, and a lifestyle that pulls me in several different directions across a very constrained schedule.
I’m the father of two small children. I have a demanding…
A process to both understand and overcome the feeling of having too much to do but not enough time
One day, a few years ago, I found myself at my desk at work. It was 5pm. I felt like I hadn’t gotten anything done, and I felt like I still had so much more to do. But I also knew that I needed to go home. I’d been at work since 6:30 am.
It was another nearly 12-hour day. And it’s not like I was working for a sexy startup as an entrepreneur. I was in an entry-level position at a 9 to 5 job — which had become a 6 to 5 job. …
There are 2 ways to be self-centered, so be sure your picking the right one
Normally, when someone is accused of being self-centered, we consider it a bad thing. It’s portrayed as a lack of concern for others, or a kind of greediness.
But do we have it right? Is self-centeredness a bad thing? Perhaps there’s a bit more to it than we think. Perhaps being self-centered is actually a good think. But like so many other good things, we’ve been getting it wrong for quite some time.
In fact, being self-centered is only bad if the self you’re centered around is the wrong kind of self.
A Tale of Two Selves
There are 2 kinds of selves. The first…
This 110 year-old book taught me more in 90 pages than many of the newest big books on the market
I love stumbling upon a hidden gem of a book. One that I’ve never heard of, but someone well-respected speaks highly of it.
I was listening to an interview with the great Brian Tracy, when I heard him mention a book in passing as one of his all-time favorites on productivity. It was called How To Live on 24 Hours A Day by Arnold Bennett. I had never heard of it. But if the mind behind Eat That Frog! says a book on productivity is his favorite, you’ve got to check it out!
Mike Sturm
Author of “The Wabi-Sabi Way” and “Be, Think, Do”. Subscribe to my newsletter “Woolgathering”: https://goo.gl/UhzUYL.
