By: Spencer Greenberg and Uri Bram
For a new project, how do you decide WHAT to do WHEN? We propose that there are two main types of projects: 'Jigsaw Puzzles' and 'Quests'. Let's explore each type and how to best prioritize the tasks that they involve.
Type 1: Jigsaw Puzzles
A 'Jigsaw Puzzle' has a finite scope; you know what the steps are, more or less. Each piece of the puzzle has to be included in the project, so the question is just what order to do them in. A good example of ...
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A Guide to Programming Yourself
Imagine you could program yourself like a simple robot, with rules like, "when situation X occurs, do Y." What rules would you choose to program yourself with to improve your life or the lives of those around you?
Interestingly enough, we can program ourselves in this way, and it's not even that hard to do. As a simple example, you can program yourself so that when you FIRST ENTER YOUR KITCHEN IN THE MORNING, you always DRINK A TALL GLASS OF WATER. Or you can create a rule in your ...
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Ten Useful Reframings
1. I just made a huge mistake; what on earth is wrong with me? How the hell could I be so stupid?
Reframe: I'll learn so much from this mistake that I'm never going to make one like it again.
2. This bag is too heavy, I have to walk way too far
Reframe: Exercise is healthy, and people pay trainers to get them to lift heavy stuff or go on the treadmill, this is just exercise with the world as my trainer!
3. This train/bus/line is taking forever, what a pain!
Reframe:...
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A Simple Trick for Eating Healthier
I believe healthy eating is hard because it's often in tension with the three other things we typically care about when eating: taste, price, and convenience.
When we're choosing what to eat, healthy food may not be the tasty, cheap, or convenient option. How can we prevent this tension between healthiness and the other factors we care about?
Another reason healthy eating is hard is that we are normally forced to choose whether to make the healthy choice (or not) over and over again eac...
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Three Problems, Three Solutions, and the First Step
If there was a technique that might improve your life in just 5 minutes, would you use it? If so, why not give this one a try?
Step 1:
Write down a list of the three most significant problems in your life right now
Example:
The three biggest problems are -
(1) I don't feel rested when I wake up
(2) I worry too much
(3) I need to make a difficult decision at work
Step 2:
Choose the problem from Step 1 that you think it would be easiest to make improvements in, gi...
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Make a Plan to Improve Your Life
Have you considered creating a plan to improve your life? If not, how about doing it right now? Or if you don't want to make one for yourself, you can use this one.
A friend asked me to help him make a plan to become happier. He is already pretty happy, but thought he could be more so. What you see below is the general life improvement plan we came up with, which should apply to most people (plus some improvements I added for this post).
Each week of the plan is an experiment, where you wo...
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