You’re Not Being Lazy—Routines and Breaks are Good For You. 12 Proven Productivity Hacks to Help You Win Every Day. Tell me you’ve had this experience: You start out with the best of intentions.
Today is the day you’re going to slay your to-do list and bring home a major win. But… Life happens. And it doesn’t just happen—it happens like a tornado. Suddenly you’re behind, and it feels like there’s no hope of catching up. But what if you could stay ahead of the storm? Some of these are face-palm obvious. My specialized training course and community, Platform University, is designed to help you take your message to the next level. Start the Night Before The best time to get a jump on the day is the night before. List three wins. Life is routine and routine is resistance to wonder. If you’ve followed my writing or heard me speak you may have heard me quote Philosopher and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel saying, “Life is routine and routine is resistance to wonder.”
Our brains are wired toward routine and we absolutely lose our sense of wonder in every day life. Yet wonder is a natural anti-depressant. When we pause, have a moment of mindfulness and open our senses, the sights, smells, tastes, sounds and feeling of things comes alive. There are so many wonders all around us that can bring alive the magic of the world.
I wanted to share one of them with you put out by filmmaker Alexis Coram in National Geographic who films the “auroras” of the Northern Lights. Take 3 minutes and treat this as a mindful experiment. Carry this wonder with you for the rest of the day (or press play again :). Please share you thoughts, stories and questions below. The Difference Between Routine and Ritual: How to Master the Balancing Act of Controlling Chaos and Finding Magic in the Mundane. By Maria Popova “The wonder of life is often most easily recognizable through habits and routines.”
William James, at the dawn of modern psychology, argued that our habits anchor us to ourselves. As someone equally fascinated by the daily routines of artists and with their curious creative rituals, and as a practitioner of both in my own life, I frequently contemplate the difference between the routine and ritual, these two supreme deities of habit. They seem to be different sides of the same coin — while routine aims to make the chaos of everyday life more containable and controllable, ritual aims to imbue the mundane with an element of the magical. The structure of routine comforts us, and the specialness of ritual vitalizes us. Comfort Zone. Life Rhythm. Self-Discipline.
Novelty. Doing Nothing. How To Give Your Brain A Break Without Booking Vacation Days. (Hint: Think Plastic) ✔ All to-do’s completed for the week ✔ Dinner plans set for Meatless Monday ✔ Workout and game night scheduled When you get that ideal routine down, it can feel empowering to be so predictably productive.
But then life gets too busy. But it can also be that when you say “I just need a break,” what your brain really means is: “I need a change.” For years, neuroscience has looked into ways to train and rewire thought processes to boost productivity, like visualization techniques favored by Olympic athletes. Science has discovered that the brain is a fickle creature: it not only continues to grow through adulthood, it likes new and shiny things. So if you can’t squeeze a beach getaway into your plans this week, keep reading for some ways to give your brain a vacation without packing your suitcase.
How to Hone Your Creative Routine and Master the Pace of Productivity. By Maria Popova “When you work regularly, inspiration strikes regularly.”
We seem to have a strange but all too human cultural fixation on the daily routines and daily rituals of famous creators, from Vonnegut to Burroughs to Darwin — as if a glimpse of their day-to-day would somehow magically infuse ours with equal potency, or replicating it would allow us to replicate their genius in turn. And though much of this is mere cultural voyeurism, there is something to be said for the value of a well-engineered daily routine to anchor the creative process. The 7 Step Evening Ritual That Will Make You Happy. Everybody talks about morning rituals to get the day started right.
(Even I have.) But ending the day right can be even more important. Why? Because your mind ain’t perfect when it comes to happiness. It cheats. Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, has shown that your brain really remembers only two things about an event: The emotional peakThe end Via The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less: Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues have shown that what we remember about the pleasurable quality of our past experiences is almost entirely determined by two things: how the experiences felt when they were at their peak (best or worst), and how they felt when they ended.
If your brain is gonna cheat, you should cheat back. How? 1) Have a “Shutdown Ritual” Workday is over. A simple ritual can help. How To End This Month (And Start Next Month) Right. Chronic Fatigue.