Hackerella

This month was great. I did not expect to enjoy the many hours I spent geeking out over technology, productivity and organizational systems as much as I did. I got so excited about this stuff that I created a few guides to help people get started on their own digital life cleanups. Less text and…

Right now, I’m sitting in a cozy chair in the Sky Lounge of the Celebrity Solstice cruise ship sailing through the Alaskan fjords.  I snuck away to this spot for some quiet time to sit and admire the view. This scenery is some of the prettiest I’ve ever seen – breathtaking glaciers, towering cliffs, icebergs…

In Visitacion Valley Middle School, a bell rings twice a day. It’s a school in one of the roughest neighborhoods in San Francisco where crime, poverty and traumatic stress are part of every day life; and where seemingly like magic, the rowdy students quiet down and sit in silence for 15 minutes once they hear the…

It comes down to this. If we’re going to spend time and effort struggling (at first!) through a meditation practice, how can we be sure that we’ll see results? We’ve read the articles and studies touting all the benefits of meditation, but as individuals, we can’t exactly pinpoint how (or if at all) it improves our lives. We…

The light turns green. The car in front of me begins its left turn and I edge out to follow. At first, the driver in front of me doesn’t notice the man and his friend crossing the street but stops with plenty of time to spare. It’s enough to incense the pedestrian who proceeds to raise his…

It’s a popular philosophy: read enough on one subject and eventually the stuff will sink in. I am a big believer in attacking from all sides when setting out to acquire a new habit. Where you basically hack your environment and bombard your brain with stories, facts and ideas from the books and articles you read and…

It’s 8:22 pm on Monday, and the post that was scheduled to go live today is garbage. I’ve spent more time than I care to admit writing, editing and organizing, only to delete draft after draft. The only logical solution is to ditch the whole thing and not publish anything. But today is Monday, and on…

“Kevin – would you ever try meditating?” I ask one evening, earlier in the month. My husband crinkles his nose, searching for the best logical answer to the “no” that will shortly be coming out of his mouth. “I just don’t have the time.” he finally says. “Even 5 minutes a day?” “I guess I don’t…

30 day challenges are about trying something new, different, healthy, fun, or even crazy every day for 30 days which, incidentally, is the approximate number of days it takes to form a new habit. 30 day challenges force you to do something every single day, even if that something is small. What matters is that…