I love the first week of January! I buy pretty notebooks and write down my (incredibly ambitious) goals for the year. I tell myself I’m going to work out every day, eat right, and deep clean my apartment each week.
Five days later, I’m sprawled across my couch, surrounded by piles of laundry, and eating a bag of chips for dinner.
What happened?
Well, in the 29 years I’ve spent with myself, I’ve learned something profound. If a task seems too big or too hard, I’ll opt to do nothing. Nothing at all. I’ll take the path of least resistance(or…
There are a million ways to reach a goal, build a habit, or learn a skill. And when we aim to do something important, we want to do it right. So we do our research.
We read articles like “How I Lost 30 Pounds in 2 Months (And Kept It Off!)” or “I Made $5,000 in My First Month as a Freelance Writer — And You Can Too!” And don’t get me wrong, those articles are great. They’re fun to read. They inspire us. And they motivate us to keep going when we’re ready to give up. …
“There’s too much to do today! I feel like I’m losing my mind! I need a break! Maybe I should just watch Netflix for an hour or five…” — Mind of a Procrastinator
Are you a procrastinator? Me too! You have no idea how long it’s taken me to sit down and write this article. (So if you’re reading this article instead of going grocery shopping, I understand.) But I’ve found the not-so-secret secret to keeping myself sane even on the busiest of days. And it can help you too! What is it?
List-Making!
I know what you’re thinking: Been…
Eli was still grumpy when they reached the edge of the village. But Ina knew exactly how to shake him. She veered left at the fork in the path and Eli stumbled to a stop behind her. “Where are you going?” He asked even though it was obvious. Corbin chuckled. He had stopped to rest, leaning on a large boulder alongside the path.
There was only one home at the end of that lonely trail. “To visit Kaira. Want to come?” She smiled innocently as Eli shifted from one foot to another. “No, you go ahead. I’m just going to…
16 Years Later…
“Have you lost your mind?!” Eli’s voice rang across the clearing, stopping Ina in her tracks. She was crouching in the water behind the smaller rowboat, just about to push off. But she should have known he would catch her. He always did.
Ina straightened, “Are you coming with me, or are you staying?” Eli laughed, “We’re both staying.” “Wrong answer,” she replied, giving the boat a hearty shove. She was about to jump in, but she wasn’t fast enough. Eli’s hand wrapped around her wrist and with one quick tug she was on her butt in…
“I wrote this next song in about 15 minutes and I kinda took my lunch and put it back in my bag and went home because I realized there was no point in working the rest of the day. When people ask me about this song, I never feel like I can claim that I wrote it because you should never be able to write a song in 15 minutes, because I feel like I channeled the song but I didn’t necessarily write it.” — Ben Gibbard
This is how Ben Gibbard felt after writing the song “I Will Follow…