I find television very educational. Every time someone switches it on I go into another room & read a good book. – Groucho Marx It was pouring in Split, Croatia. My roommate and I had plans to climb a mountain outside of the city, but had to rethink our afternoon as the heavy rain came down. Having seen most of the sights and wonders of the city, and without many options that would keep us dry, we decided to do something we […]

I’m a big believer in the power of habit. By putting certain parts of my life on autopilot, I have more energy to dedicate to important stuff, like building relationships and doing creative work. A friend recently asked this question on Facebook: “what’s the activity that has the biggest impact on your life?” While certainly there are many simple things like flossing and showering that matter a lot to my health and well-being, without a doubt it’s my routine in the morning (and night) […]

You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day — unless you’re too busy. Then you should sit for an hour. – Zen Proverb I learned to meditate in about a year, thanks an app called Headspace. In the app, founder Andy Puddicombe guides you through meditations while giving advice for managing our emotions. He also covers meditation basics like mindset, attitude, and simple breathing techniques. As someone new to meditation, Headspace was new and exciting. Yet despite my affinity with the app, and despite my well-established meditation […]

Sleep is super important. We spend more than a third of our lives asleep, and there’s a lot of solid research pointing to the health benefits of sleep. When I sleep well, everything is easy. I like it when things are easy. I feel smarter, clearer, happier, healthier, and sexier when I’m well-slept. When I’m under-slept, the opposites are true. I feel mildly depressed, anxious, clouded, reactive and generally unconscious. Yet in spite of this, I rarely commit to a consistent, healthy sleep […]

Today I woke up feeling very refreshed. I slept well for the first time in 2 weeks. It’s ironic that such a night sleep was a rarity; I just finished writing a post on building good sleep habits and the importance of quality sleep. I’m a slow learner. Today, I’m laying out the reasons why I want to start blogging. In approaching this post, I’ve thought of a number of reasons that SHOULD be important for blogging, but ultimately searching other blogs for […]

I once read an essay called, 16 Habits You Should Do Every Day. In it, the author outlined daily habits and a system for tracking them, and why sticking to the habits lead to long-term success in different areas of his life. Similarly, I use a Google Spreadsheet to track a long list of my own habits. Everything from fitness, to meditation, to reading, to diet, to blogging is covered in the sheet. I have reminders set up to check in on these […]