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Friday, November 25, 2016

Life Hack

Here is a life hack I am doing.

If you find yourself in a funk, then do one significant thing a day. For example, I sent out the final version of an article, the next day I applied for a job, the next day I sent in a book proposal to a publisher, and the next day I cleaned my home office out. I hadn't been even using it. I will keep doing things like this until I feel I am out of my funk.

They can be things like resuming a good habit that you have allowed yourself to abandon. Don't do things like "I am going to eat better," that are nebulous. Make them very definite. Don't do more than one change a day, and make sure that you continue if the change you make is one that involves habitual actions. If it something that is a one-time thing, like sending an article in or cleaning out a closet, then you don't have to worry about continuity per se.

If you can't think of anything else to do then you are probably all right: you will have gotten out of your funk. Certain things, like not doing as much as you would like to, are living in messy circumstances, are both the cause and result of depression. Hence you can do something just by addressing one thing a day.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a good hack.

Thomas said...

I just did this today. I finally put up shelves in my study and got a pile of books out of my living room. A side note for those who believe in miracles: I had been putting it off because my power drill's battery wasn't charging and, the battery being obsolete, couldn't bring myself to buy a whole new tool. (I won't say how long I've been putting this off, but it's substantial.) So, today, resolving to implement your hack, I pulled the charger out of the box and plugged it in, just to see ... you know, one last try before going to the hardware store and buying the damn new drill. Lo and behold! The light went on. The battery charged! In Denmark, as Christmas draws near, we are subject to the helpful trickery of little elves (nisser). I'm calling mine Mayhew's Duende. Or just Mayhew for short. May-D, for the kids. Thanks, Jonathan.

Jonathan said...

Brilliant. Try to follow up with something else and see how many days you can keep going.