Around these parts we’ve spent each month of 2018 exploring a different topic for self-improvement.
As we approach the end of 2018, we’re spending the last several weeks of the year reviewing what we’ve learned.
We’ve already recapped our January deep dive on life planning and our February explanation of personal finance basics. The next subjects we dove into were time management and productivity. Continue reading “Managing Your Time”
2018 is a year of self-improvement.
I’m spending each month exploring a different area of life and figuring out how best to improve and optimize.
As of the last quarterly update we had covered life planning, personal finance basics, time management, the science of happiness, money and happiness, and health.
Since then, we’ve added philosophy and happiness, investing and the economy, and relationships.
Let’s check in for the third quarter update. Continue reading “Better Life – Third Quarter Update”
2018 is a year of self-improvement.
I’m spending each month exploring a different area of life and figuring out how best to improve and optimize.
So far we’ve covered life planning, personal finance basics, time management, the science of happiness, money and happiness, and health.
We’re halfway through the year, so it’s time for a quarterly check in. Continue reading “Better Life – Second Quarter Update”
We can’t leave our month of talking about health without hitting on sleep.
We already looked at sleep in the context of productivity and time management. There are lots of great productivity reasons that you should sleep more and lots of research showing that skipping sleep to work more doesn’t actually result in more work getting done.
But there are also a lot of health benefits to getting sufficient sleep, so we’re revisiting it today. Continue reading “Go To Bed. Seriously.”
On Tuesday we explored some research showing that work actually makes us happier than we think it does.
While people regularly tell researchers that they prefer home to work, they tend to be happier at work than at home.
Weird, right?
In that article we explored the concept of flow, why it contributes to our happiness at work, and how to bring it home with us. Today, we’re going to explore some other unexpected benefits of work. Continue reading “More Reasons Work Makes Us Happy”
When we look at ways to be happier, we usually don’t look to work.
Instead, we tend to see work as a necessary source of unhappiness. We work because we need money.
One of the premises of the financial independence movement is that we’ll be happier once we don’t have to go to our jobs anymore.
If you’re discounting work as a source of happiness, however, you’re missing out on quite a bit.
Not only do we tend to be happier than we think at work, there is much more happiness to be mined in this arena. Continue reading “How Work Makes Us Happier (Seriously!)”
Alright, so we all want to be happier.
We make, save, and spend money to increase our happiness. We increase our productivity to achieve more success in order to be happier. We manage our time better so that we have more free time to pursue things that will make us happier.
But can we actually make ourselves happier?
Before diving into an exploration of the things that will make us happier, it is worth stopping and understanding whether it is even possible to improve our own happiness in the first place. Continue reading “Could You Be Happier?”
I’ve dubbed 2018 the year of improvement.
Each month we are exploring a different area of life and figuring out how to be better.
In January we explored life planning. February was for personal finance basics. And March was all about time management.
I am sharing as much information as I can learn about each topic. However, at the heart of the project is an experiment in applying everything that I learn to myself.
The end of March marks the end of the first quarter of 2018, so let’s check in. Continue reading “Better Life – First Quarter Update”
Welcome back to time management month at Optimize Your Life.
I hope that what we’ve covered so far has been helpful, but maybe you’re already maximizing your efficiency.
Maybe you’ve already tracked your time and made a plan.
Maybe you’ve scheduled your unscheduled time and gotten enough sleep.
Maybe you’ve quit multitasking, started working in blocks, and cut out your time vices.
If you’ve already done all of that and you still don’t have time to do everything that you want to do, it’s time to bring in the Pareto Principle. Continue reading “When is Good Enough Good Enough?”
March is time management month around here, and we’ve already explored a lot of different topics.
We’ve learned how to track our time and how to plan what we want to do with our time.
We’ve explored why it is important to schedule unscheduled time and to sleep more.
We’ve figured out how to be more efficient by avoiding multitasking and utilizing time blocks.
You may have noticed something missing.
We are 22 days into time management month and I have yet to tell you to stop wasting time on things that don’t matter.
Well…here you go. Continue reading “What Are Your Time Vices?”