Category: Thinking Clearly

Unread Emails

Published on January 11, 2024

I don’t know about you, but I have a ton of unread emails.

Mostly from blogs and people I subscribe to who send valuable, but non-urgent messages.

My current system is to read and reply to the urgent first, then start making my way down the non-urgent from newest to oldest.

This process has left me hovering between 800-1,000 non-urgent unread messages for what feels like years.

This week, however, I started a new process.

Instead of reading emails from the top of my inbox down… I’ve been sorting my inbox based on person or blog and reading all of the emails sent by them first… before going to the next person or blog and so on.

For example, this past week I read through all of my unread Daily Stoic emails and now I’m making my way down all of my unread Seth Godin emails.

This has been significantly more efficient because I don’t have to keep voice/tone/context changing as I read various messages from various people who are all writing in various different ways.

I can keep the same voice/tone/and context in mind and blast through a whole series of emails with much better retention and much less mental fatigue.

It’s like reading 20 pages of one book versus reading one page of 20 different books. The difference is remarkable.

Would recommend.

P.s. Know someone who might enjoy getting these emails? This is me kindly asking if you’d forward an email you liked to a person who you think would like it, too. Thanks :)

Trust What Keeps Bubbling Up

Published on January 9, 2024

I try to write ideas down as they occur to me so I don’t forget them.

When I have a bunch of ideas oriented around the same topic, I’ll purposefully back-burner them all and let them simmer.

…Which is exactly what I did when I was trying to pick my focused goals for 2024.

A good signal that an idea might be worth pursuing—above the others competing for your time and attention—is you can’t seem to get it out of your head.

…It keeps resurfacing on walks, during commutes, in the shower, inside conversation, and even while you dream—in an unprompted fashion.

This is a sign that shouldn’t be ignored.

Not even if your conscious mind has more rational ideas about how you should act on your ideas. Because what it means is that your unconscious mind has picked.

And there’s a depth of understanding and insight that the unconscious mind references that the conscious mind only gets to touch—it’s the drop in the ocean vs the ocean itself.

And it would be wise to trust—and at the very least consider—what that deep wisdom is saying.

P.s. Dreams are NOT arbitrary. Dreams are a primary means of communication. Not convinced? Read this.

Happy Birthday, Ma

Published on January 8, 2024

Today is my mom’s birthday.

And one of my favorite lessons I’ve learned from her is that we humans age like fine wine (she loves a regular glass of red wine so as cliché as it is, it felt too appropriate).

We don’t get worse with age… we get better.

We don’t move away from our prime… we continue to grow as our definition of “prime” grows.

We don’t lose parts of ourselves as we age… we gain deeper understanding of ourselves with each reflected upon experience.

We don’t attach to some pinnacle point in our past… we keep our bags packed light and look towards our next mountain as we continue our climb.

A new decade or a new year isn’t something to be feared… it’s something to be celebrated.

There is no number of trips around the sun that’ll suddenly make you “old,” only stories you can tell yourself that’ll either cause atrophy or spark new growth.

…And there’s always a story you can tell yourself that’ll spark new growth.

Especially when today marks the milestone day when you are the wisest and most self-aware you have ever been in your entire life.

…Which, I’d say, is a cause for celebration, indeed.

P.s. We watched Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2019) yesterday as part of our celebration and all thought it was really great. Would recommend.

Personal Growth via Annoying Tasks

Published on January 7, 2024

What’s one chore you find yourself doing more than any other chore?

Laundry?
Dishes?
Landscaping?

What if I told you that inside of this mundane, annoying, hair-pulling chore lies one of your greatest personal growth opportunities?

What if, instead of feeling dread and resentment towards this unavoidable, time-consuming task… you found a way to integrate a task you’ve been wanting/meaning to do, but never seem to have the time to do?

What if laundry time suddenly became audiobook time?
What if dishes suddenly became meditative time?
What if landscaping suddenly became podcast time?

Suddenly… you just made personal growth one of your most time consuming tasks via one of your most time consuming “hair-pulling” tasks.

You might not be able to change what tasks you need to get done to keep your world spinning… but you can always change your approach to these tasks.

Life is too short to spend so much time daily in resentment and annoyance. And you only have so much hair to pull before you go bald. Might as well find ways to align life tasks and change your mind about what you can. Especially if the alternative is awful… what’s there to lose?

P.s. In case you missed it, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.

Using Your Steering Wheel

Published on January 6, 2024

Life only gets in the way if you’re unable to maneuver around the obstacle(s) it puts in your path.

Once you learn how to turn your life’s steering wheel, suddenly, life doesn’t get in the way so much as it gives you opportunities to build steering skills.

What might turning your life’s steering wheel look like?

Doing a light stretching session when getting sick stops you from doing your regular workout.
Playing an audiobook during your commute because you overslept and missed your morning reading.
Practicing intermittent fasting when traveling because you know the options on the road are going to suck.
Cancelling a weekend obligation to spend more time with family when work kept you late on a weekday.
Immediately starting a rainy day fund where you save 10ish% of each check to help cover big, unexpected expenses like a broken down car, vet bill, or hospital visit.

As wonderful as the straight, unhindered path might sound—it’s the curved, obstacle-filled path that builds skillful life drivers.

P.s. Today I crossed 12,000 insights uploaded to my quote library…!

Where’s Home?

Published on January 4, 2024

One thing that has been helping me with organization is, when I come across something that’s out of place, I ask myself: “Where’s this thing’s home?”

If it doesn’t have a home, then it’s no wonder that it keeps ending up all over the place.

Being organized isn’t just about making things aesthetically neat and pleasing.

It’s about giving things homes.

Places where they can continue to reside; not just temporarily get moved to.

And if you’re going to go through all of that work to clean things up anyway, you might as well do the little bit extra it takes to give them that residential spot.

And not just some arbitrary, hard to remember place—a place that makes sense, that’s close to where it usually ends up anyway, a place that feels right.

P.s. I sip on coffee while I write these. If you enjoy these posts, you can support my future work by supplying me with one of my next cups of joe here. ☕️

Picture Perfect

Published on January 3, 2024

Imagine reading a book titled, Picture Perfect.

And it was about a guy or gal who grew up in a picture perfect neighborhood with picture perfect parents who had a picture perfect education and got a picture perfect career who then married the picture perfect spouse and then settled into the picture perfect fairytale life with a big house, fast cars, luxury clothes, fancy parties, and lots of travel.

…No conflict, no challenges, no adversities, no resistance, no plot twists.

Just a straight line from birth to happily ever after.

This type of story would bore readers to tears.

It’s wildly un-relatable and in complete contradiction to the human condition.

…Which is to face a seemingly never-ending onslaught of conflict, challenge, adversity, resistance, and plot twists.

Why? …Because we’re imperfect creatures living with other imperfect creatures who are all trying to figure it out as we go in an imperfect world. Chaos is bound to ensue.

But, it also keeps things interesting.

The most captivating stories are the ones that follow humans who have overcome the most incredible odds. The ones who have faced the most adversity and yet found a way through. The ones who got punched over and over again with one challenge after the next… who still got back up to fight.

Remember this as you compare your daydreams to your reality.

You’re not unlucky; you’re not a failure; you’re not a lost cause—you’re thickening the plot.

P.s. In case you missed it, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.