Better Living

Ideas, resources and recommendations on creating the best conditions for living a good life, from lifehacks and new habits to tipps for a healthy lifestyle. Follow along on Refind to get the most relevant new links picked for you.
9 Best Articles in 2021
Gabriel Weinberg
Mental Models I Find Repeatedly UsefulGabriel Weinberg
From 2016 · Update: Since this post came out, I co-authored a book about it called Super Thinking. Get notified about book updates here (currently…
wisdom
mental models
ux
The New York Times
Stop Trying to Be ProductiveThe New York Times
7 min read · 2020-04-01 · The internet wants you to believe you aren’t doing enough with all that “extra time” you have now. But staying inside and attending to basic needs is plenty.
productivity
mental health
better living
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“I’m trying to be more OK with just being.”
This urge to overachieve, even in times of global crisis, is reflective of America’s always-on work culture.
“this mind-set is the natural endpoint of America’s hustle culture — the idea that every nanosecond of our lives must be commodified and pointed toward profit and self-improvement.”
LessWrong
100 Tips for a Better LifeLessWrong
10 min read · 2020-12-23 · The other day I made an advice thread based on Jacobian’s from last year! If you know a source for one of these, shout and I’ll edit it in. Possessions 1 .If you want to find out about people’s…
better living
mindfulness
sleep
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Are you on the fence about breaking up or leaving your job? You should probably go ahead and do it. People, on average, end up happier when they take the plung
Discipline is superior to motivation. The former can be trained, the latter is fleeting. You won’t be able to accomplish great things if you’re only relying on motivation. 
The 20-20-20 rule: Every 20 minutes of screenwork, look at a spot 20 feet away for 20 seconds. This will reduce eye strain and is easy to remember (or program reminders for). 
insidemymind.me
Today I Learned That Not Everyone Has An Internal Monologue And It Has Ruined My Day.insidemymind.me
3 min read · 2020-02-07 · My day was completely ruined yesterday when I stumbled upon a fun fact that absolutely obliterated my mind. I saw this tweet yesterday that said that not everyone has an internal monologue in their…
mind
brain
self
Scott Young
The Nine Habits to Increase Your EnergyScott Young
5 min read · 2019-12-14 · Your energy levels are the basis of your success and happiness. Here are nine habits you can start today to feel more energetic in work and at home.
productivity
self
work
Lifehack
10 Simple Ways To Refocus a Wandering MindLifehack
6 min read · Apr 13th · Do you want to reach your goals and avoid distractions? Here are 10 simple ways to refocus your wandering mind and achieve success.
productivity
better living
focus
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There isn’t a “right” or “wrong” way to learn information, but there may be “better” ways to facilitate learning by increasing our attention span and mental endurance.
Switching from a task requires the brain to refocus, which also entails new circuits to be used, different pathways to fire, and more energy exerted to start up the new task at hand.
Parkinson’s Law holds that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion,”, which is why setting time limits can deflate a ballooning task.
Tim Urban
How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You)Tim Urban
From 2018 · Our career path is how we spend our time, how we support our lifestyles, how we make our impact, and even sometimes how we define our identity. Let’s make sure we’re on the right track.
career
life
personality
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a person’s career quadruples as the person’s primary identity. Which is kind of a big thing.
An unfulfilled Personal Yearnings tentacle is often the explanation, for example, behind a very successful, very unhappy person—who may believe they got successful in the wrong field.
a person’s career quadruples as the person’s primary identity. Which is kind of a big thing.
Aeon+Psyche
How to think clearlyAeon+Psyche
~13 min read · Jun 9th · By learning to question and clarify your thoughts, you’ll improve your self-knowledge and become a better communicator
better living
psychology
thinking
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So far as possible, you should try to extract the maximum truthful and reasonable content from what others say, especially if they disagree with you
Unless you seek out contexts, routines and environments that support your best self, you’ll struggle to be that self at any but the very best of times.
By learning to question and clarify your thoughts, you’ll improve your self-knowledge and become a better communicator
Fast Company
Personal branding for people who hate personal brandingFast Company
5 min read · From 2019 · Self-promotion might not come naturally for some, but less outgoing people can use their natural strengths to create an authentic online presence.
career
marketing
self
New this week
Between Restlessness and Rapture: Autumn and the Sensual Urgency of Aliveness
Brain Pickings
A New and Improved Way to Understand Your Own Self-Image
Psychology Today
The Good Luck of Your Bad Luck: Marcus Aurelius on the Stoic Strategy for Weathering Life’s Waves…
Brain Pickings
How to Get Motivated and Take Action
Mark Manson
Take a deep dive
Recently popular
TED Talks
Adam Grant: How to stop languishing and start finding flowTED Talks
Sep 7th · Have you found yourself staying up late, joylessly bingeing TV shows and doomscrolling through the news, or simply navigating your day uninspired and aimless? Chances are you're languishing, says…
better living
productivity
Psychology Today
Can't Sleep? Try These 6 Lesser Known Sleep TipsPsychology Today
4 min read · Sep 4th · Hopefully, the most practical sleep article you'll ever read.
sleep
better living
UnHerd
Life is one big status gameUnHerd
7 min read · Sep 2nd · The battle to be virtuous inspires endless political cruelty
better living
society
Most highlighted
The battle for status has defined human history
Unsurprisingly, therefore, a huge amount of effort goes into signalling and detecting.
People do terrible things more out of love than out of hate.
Aeon+Psyche
Lost perspective? Try this linguistic trick to reset your viewAeon+Psyche
5 min read · Sep 15th · By using ‘distanced self-talk’, you can leverage the structure of language to take a step back and see the bigger picture
language
better living
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Through adopting this more distanced self-perspective, Aurelius was able to recognise that his feelings of anguish were temporary
The benefits were even greater when the children were told to adopt the perspective of a character with a reputation for hard work: eg, Batman or Dora the Explorer
This process of reflecting on one’s self using parts of speech that are typically used to refer to other people – ie, second- or third-person pronouns, or even one’s own name – is distanced self-talk. A mounting body of research by psychologists suggests that engaging in distanced self-talk can help us to regulate our negative thoughts and emotions in a range of situations – from working through a painful past experience to performing on a stressful upcoming task.
The School of Life
Why We’re All Capable of Damaging OthersThe School of Life
5 min read · Aug 21st · One of the reasons why we may end up acting more destructively and cruelly than we should is that it can take us a long time to fathom how someone like us could cause trouble for anyone. By ‘someone…
psychology
relationships
better living
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We are weak before the world and it is always more likely that someone else will be the aggressor.
The loving know how much everyone suffers from feelings of self-doubt, worthlessness, loneliness and pain beneath a veneer of imperviousness and strength.
To be a loving person is to wrestle with an always profoundly improbable idea: that however modest our position in society might be, however much we may have been maltreated in the past, however mesmerised we are by the deplorable behaviour of powerful individuals, however shy and frail we are, we are constantly capable of causing other people significant hurt.
The School of Life
How Perfectionism Makes Us IllThe School of Life
3 min read · Aug 27th · There is a kind of person who seems at first glance to have an admirable degree of self-motivation, thoroughness and drive. They are up at dawn, they rarely take holidays, they are always sneaking in…
better living
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We need to shift our sense of where our drive is coming from.
Perfectionism, tragically, does not spring primarily from a love of perfection in and of itself. It has its origins in far more regrettable feeling of never being good enough. It is rooted in self-hatred, sparked by memories of being disapproved of or neglected by those who should have esteemed us warmly in childhood.
There will never be a point of rest or a lasting feeling of completion. In truth, we are ill rather than driven.
Psychology Today
7 Scientifically Supported Steps to HappinessPsychology Today
6 min read · Sep 5th · Best hits from a guru of positive psychology.
better living
Psychology Today
High EQ Is a Superpower: Three Habits Signify You've Got ItPsychology Today
4 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
Psychology Today
The Secret Language of Low Self-EsteemPsychology Today
4 min read · Sep 4th · People who dislike themselves don't always say what they mean.
better living
self esteem
self
The School of Life
A More Self-Accepting LifeThe School of Life
4 min read · Aug 27th · One of the ways in which we can accelerate, and keep faith with, change is to look forward to a time when it has occurred and anticipate what it might be like to have made progress with our psyches.…
better living
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Inner critic: You have wasted so much time.  Self-loving reply: To which the only answer is love: love what remains of our days, love  charity, self-forgiveness, mercy, modesty, acceptance, appreciation and gratitude.
Better Living

9 Best Articles in 2021

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