Happiness & Habits

From happiness to productivity, from meditation to self-organization. Insights, research and life hacks on how to live a more fulfilling life.
Collection by Katja Evertz
The New Yorker
Why Do We Work Too Much?5 min read · Aug 30th · In the modern office, stress has become a default metric for judging whether we are busy enough.
future of work
business
career
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we can’t redirect the future of work until we can control it in the present.
Parkinson’s Law,” and it opens with a famous pronouncement: “It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
The problem with the stress heuristic is that it doesn’t start reducing your workload until you already have too much to do
BBC Future
The surprising power of daily rituals6 min read · Sep 15th · Rituals come in many different forms and are practised in cultures the world over, but why have they become such an important part of our lives?
better living
ritual
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Sports psychologists also propose that pre-performance rituals can confer benefits for athletes, such as better execution and possible reduction in anxiety levels
Given that rituals have stress-busting qualities, Gino advises us to "adopt pre-performance rituals during stressful situations in your own lives, perhaps before giving a presentation at work, taking an exam, or having a difficult conversation.
a predefined sequence of symbolic actions often characterised by formality and repetition that lacks direct instrumental purpose"
Zapier
If you’ve got 15 minutes, here are 6 more productive ways to spend time on your phone4 min read · Sep 25th · We don’t need to hide our phones during a break. We just need mobile break options that improve our state of mind—not bring us down.
productivity
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It’s a phone. Call someone close and have a chat.
elenasalaks.medium.com
I just don’t want to be busy anymore1 min read · Sep 27th · I work in tech, I’m a parent, and I’m struggling with burnout.
productivity
career
The Guardian
Ready for the roaring 20s? It’s time to re-learn how to have fun, says happiness professor4 min read · Sep 5th · A conscious decision to bring more joy into our lives can boost both mind and body
brain
Darius Foroux
The Magic Of Momentum: What Goes Up Slowly Comes Down Fast3 min read · Sep 15th · Most things in life that are worth it are difficult to achieve. Building a business, forming new habits, etc. These all take momentum.
productivity
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90% of all startups fail. 96% of all small businesses fail within 10 years. 94% of smokers who want to quit fail. 92% of people quit their new year’s resolutions.
Let’s take a closer look at failure rates. According to the Small Business Administration, 33% of businesses fail during their first two years.
In a study by Rolland LeBrasseur and colleagues, that examined the relationship between growth momentum; I found something interesting.
Psychology Today
High EQ Is a Superpower: Three Habits Signify You've Got It4 min read · Sep 7th · Recognize what emotional intelligence looks like in "real life."
better living
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Second, an individual who is self-aware is often emotionally intelligent
First, a person who is emotionally attuned to others is usually emotionally intelligent. Sensing the feeling states of others allows a person to act conscientiously and respond to the emotional needs
Third, a person who is in touch with her uncomfortable emotions can identify, verbalize, and discuss the nuances of specific emotional states
Harvard Business Review
The Power of Small Wins20+ min read · From 2016 · Want to truly engage your workers? Help them see their own progress.
Inc.
Why Successful People Take 10 Years to 'Succeed Overnight'6 min read · From 2017 · There's a reason why this 10-years-to-overnight-success pattern shows up over and over. And it's not just about working hard.
edutopia
Not Again! How to Keep From Overextending Yourself This Year6 min read · Aug 1st · Experts say it’s important to set clear limits and prioritize certain tasks early on in the school year to help prevent stress and burnout later.
career
education
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To help her determine if a voluntary opportunity is worth her investment of time, Short now asks herself a few questions:  Does this commitment allow me to use my strengths to help others? Will it further my professional growth? Will taking on this commitment lessen my ability to fulfill my current obligations? What can I take off my plate before adding something new?
Anne Helen Petersen
You're Still Exhausted5 min read · Aug 5th · This is the midweek edition of Culture Study — the newsletter from Anne Helen Petersen, which you can read about here. If you like it and want more like it in your inbox, consider subscribing.…
culture
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I think the real problem is that life is still exhausting because the pandemic was and remains exhausting in so many invisible ways — and we still haven’t given ourselves space to even begin to recover.
I could spend a year doing pretty much nothing at all and still, with just a moderate amount of social life, find myself drained.
our society, our jobs, even our family arrangements — none of them are engineered to accommodate rest, let alone grief.
Eric Barker
4 Things The Most Organized People Do Every Day10 min read · Sep 20th · *** Before we commence with the festivities, I wanted to thank everyone for helping my first book become a Wall Street Journal bestseller. To check it out, click here. *** In 1930, famed economist…
Seth Godin
Solving for stress2 min read · Aug 24th · If we’re hungry, the obvious solution is to eat something. If we’re restless, it pays to get up and walk around. Is stress different? Along the way, it seems as though we got confused a…
mental health
Nir Eyal
Stop Thinking About Your Bad Habits! [Do This Instead.]~13 min read · Aug 30th · Ruminating on bad habits just makes them harder to avoid. There's an easy solution, though. Here's what you need to know.
psychology
habits
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deliberate attempts to avoid certain thoughts make those thoughts even more persistent.
Russian novelist and philosopher Fyodor Dostoyevsky famously captured this tendency in his 1863 essay Winter Notes on Summer Impressions
Eventually, when you can’t stop thinking about it, you give in, reinforcing the behavior and making it more likely you’ll do it again and again.
Forge
It’s Time to Replace Ambition with Adaptation9 min read · 2020-10-15 · The pandemic and climate crises make working ourselves to the bone in service of our own ambition seem a little silly. Let’s change that.
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Our individualized, highly specialized career ambition is no longer a suitable match for the world we’re living in.
the most important gift is reclaiming the adaptive capacity of our species.
Somewhere in there lies the sweet spot where our human capacity for adaptation itself becomes ambitious.
Aeon+Psyche
Meditation is like mountaineering: approach it with care6 min read · Sep 7th · We speak of meditation as exercise, something that’s good for everyone. But, like scaling a mountain, you must use caution
outdoors
mindfulness
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Exploring one’s inner world can be a profound and life-changing experience, but it must be approached with respect for the risks and some idea of the journey ahead. Reaching the summit of the mind via a careful, guided trek could present the challenge of a lifetime. It’s not as simple as taking a few more strolls around the block.
Happiness & Habits

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