1. I originally discovered the concept of ikigai in late 2015 and published the original version of this post—a high-level overview of ikigai—in early 2018. Since then, I've continued to learn a lot more about ikigai. So, I scrapped the entire … [Read more...]
Essentialism Blog Posts
Articles about essentialism, being an essentialist, the Essentialism book by Greg McKeown, essentialism philosophy, and more.
Understanding Your Brain: Connecting “The Golden Circle” (Simon Sinek) & “The Three Layers of Behavior Change” (James Clear)
I couldn't help but notice a similarity between the books Atomic Habits by James Clear and Find Your Why (also Start With Why) by Simon Sinek. They all talk about the brain. But, instead of presenting the brain in a complex fashion that makes your … [Read more...]
How to Build Better Habits with “Atomic Habits” by James Clear (Book Summary)
Atomic Habits is a book worth reading. I don't say that lightly. In the last couple years, I can count those books on one hand (here are my top three books from 2018). Another book I'm a big fan of is Essentialism by Greg McKeown. I believe … [Read more...]
20 Life Purpose Perspectives from Oprah’s “The Path Made Clear” (Book Summary)
Most life purpose books are about why life purpose is important. They leave out the most important part: how to actually find and/or create life purpose. The Path Made Clear: Discovering Your Life's Direction and Purpose mostly addresses the why … [Read more...]
Post-Workism & Total Work: 5 Future Scenarios when the Religion of Work Loses Followers
"Post-work is about the future, but it is also bursting with the past’s lost possibilities." — Andy Beckett¹ I always find it mind-opening and expanding to think about the future—I've covered the future of busyness, but what about something as … [Read more...]
Total Work: When Humans are Transformed into Workers and Nothing Else (Were we Born only to Work?)
"Life is just one damn thing after another." — Anonymous In my research on workism and post-workism, I discovered another concept: "total work." Total work seems to be the epitome of workism. This is also timely given all the news coverage of … [Read more...]
Create Your Life Purpose with the Why Discovery Process from “Find Your Why” by Simon Sinek (Book Summary)
This is a ton of information out there about why purpose is important. Even on this site, I've written many posts about purpose—it's one of my top five post topics. But, I've quickly learned that there is shockingly little out there about how to … [Read more...]
Timeboxing: The #1 Productivity Hack for Actually Doing Your To-Do List (+ 10 Timeboxing Tips)
I'm fascinated by time—the variety of ways that humans have found to spend 24 hours of time, that the current lifespan in the US is 1% of recorded history, and that time is a finite resource. So naturally, I highly value time and like to find ways to … [Read more...]
3 Simple Things We Can All Learn from the Quaker Testimony of Simplicity
Note: This post isn't intended to address any religious views. I believe we can all learn something new about our common humanity by expanding our minds and opening them to other cultures and spiritualities. This is nothing new. Over a century … [Read more...]
Life Purpose Showdown: Ikigai vs the Hedgehog Concept by Jim Collins
This is a companion post to the previous post: Create your Life Purpose with the Flywheel Effect by Jim Collins (note: you can also get a quick intro and video about Collins in that post). As you'll quickly see, the Hedgehog Concept bears a … [Read more...]
