Betterment

We’re all hardwired to value something we own twice what it’s worth. But ‘selling the position’ is an extraordinary way of combating it.

I used to be a regular journaler, but no longer am. I wasn’t getting much out of journaling, so I dropped it as a regular habit. While I don’t journal every day anymore, I haven’t completely given up on the practice. I still get an intermittent itch to crack open my journal and put pen […]

Feeling stuck? Pondering these topics can help you get out of a rut, says author Ralph Kilmann.

When we’re not certain of the right answer, the best approach is to have a portfolio, a range of bets that reward us with resilience and significant upside. An example can be something as sim…

Consider the windows on a car. First, they were manually clipped into place. And then they were hand-rolled into position. But that was too difficult. So the electric window was born. But holding y…

Decades ago, society was more bullish on the importance of exercise in weight management. Just go jogging a few times a week, the thinking went, and you’d shed the pounds — never mind that you ended your run by heading to the bagel shop for a big, well-earned, carb-tastic breakfast. In the last decade, much […]

Setting goals can transform your life. Goals can help you get in shape, improve your finances, learn a new language, or finally launch that business. But goal-setting can also leave you miserable. Burnout, stress and disillusionment are high on the list of potential side effects. The crucial difference between success and burnout often comes down […]

A flow state is priceless. It happens when we lose ourselves in the work, simply connecting with the task, without commentary or doubt. When we’re in flow, time slows down, satisfaction rises…

First, we have to see them. Some people, no matter how fast or slow their friends are walking, always walk a step behind. Or perhaps you need to live in the nicest house on the block, or drive the …

The phone is ringing. Your ice cream is melting. Next month’s rent is due. There’s a useful workshop coming up in a few months. Your hard drive will fail before the end of the year. Col…

Is there anything more thrilling than unwrapping a shiny guitar; flipping through the pages of a new journal; buying a piece of exercise equipment; signing up for a self-help program? You feel a tingle of excitement as you imagine yourself slaying songs; penning notes for your sure-to-be-bestselling novel; flexing your freshly-formed biceps in the mirror; […]

This is not the same as being creative. In fact, they’re very different skills and emotional mindsets. All humans are creative. Sometimes. Creativity is a special sort of internal conversatio…

What makes learning hard? How can we make it easier? Cognitive load theory explains how we learn and how to do it better.

Well, it’s a new year, and that means men all over the world are setting goals to improve themselves over the next twelve months. If you’re one of these men, here’s a useful mental model to keep in mind as you get cracking on your efforts: progress isn’t linear. Instead, progress usually looks more like […]

From a reader: You should do a post on tips for reading canonical Western literature.  Especially on whether, and to what extent, one ought to read secondary stuff like criticism, biographies, histories alongside.  Also, to reread, or to read another canonical work for the first time instead.  Tips for the average interested reader… For your […]

Fergus asks: Having enjoyed your posts on how to read canonical Western literature and how to get started with opera, I’d like the same thing but for film, and perhaps for architecture. Today let’s do movies!  I am hardly an expert, but here are my tips: 1. Yes there are some movies made for the television, but for […]

And just like that, another year is gone. As in 2020, I spent 2021 carefully logging my reading on my Kindle to visualize at year-end. If you’d like to know how I did this or to view my data …

For the last few years, I've been a fan of Tom Whitwell's annual list of 52 things he learned during the past year -- here's his l

Whether it’s taking fruit to work (and to the bedroom!), being polite to rude strangers or taking up skinny-dipping, here’s a century of ways to make life better, with little effort involved …

A year after we moved to northern California I acquired a pair of shiny new titanium hip joints. There would be no more running for me. But I’m a lucky guy who gets to to bike and hike more t…

That’s why it’s worth so much. Sure, you can outsource. You can look for shortcuts. You can hire folks. You can use mailmerge. You can even send it to voice mail. But all of these time …

I live a weirdly balanced life these days, with friends and work and a cheap lifestyle that still ends up fun, and adventurous. It's a good life, I enjoy it - but there is also a decade of my life that was hectic, loud, and stressful - and I still couldn't get enough of that. But I always knew t

When it comes to moving forward, becoming better, achieving our goals, the biggest obstacle very often seems to be time. In that there’s never enough of it. We keep waiting for long, uninterrupted stretches in which to read, exercise, journal, reply to a text. And yet, no matter how much we organize our schedules to […]

I recently found myself standing on a windy tarmac 20-miles above the Arctic circle, staring at a plane that was about the size of a Snicker

If you’re feeling creative, do the errands tomorrow. If you’re fit and healthy, take a day to go surfing. When inspiration strikes, write it down. The calendar belongs to everyone else.…

Posted on Friday 31 Dec 2021. 990 words, 15 links. By Matt Webb.