Category: 📁 Life Tips

Begin with the end of your task, goal, project, or dream in your mind by mentally envisioning it and creating a written description or picture of exactly what you want the end result to look like when the project or vision is completed.

• To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination.
• It means to know where you're going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.
• "Begin with the end in mind" is based on the principle that all things are created twice.
• There's a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things.
• Take the construction of a home, for example.
• You create it in every detail before you ever hammer the first nail into place.
• You try to get a very clear sense of what kind of house you want.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Goodreads

Meditate every day because it improves your wellbeing and your mind by helping you to become more relaxed, focused, and aware of all the unnecessary thoughts in your head, which can make you happier and more relaxed and focused on each day you meditate.

What

• Sit down and breathe slowly and deeply for some amount of minutes at least once a day
• Attempt to clear your mind of thoughts and focus on one thing, such as your breathing
• Focus on your breath, body, surroundings, or close your eyes to focus on one thing
• Don't worry if thoughts creep into your mind, just try to let them go, breathe, and focus
• You can also try saying a mantra like "I'm grateful for today. I'm hopeful for the future."
• You may also spend time focusing or contemplating on single projects, goals, or dreams

Why

• Breathing deeply may provide oxygen to the brain which is key for our brain functioning
• Relaxing our mind may allow it to make new connections, which occurs when we sleep
• It may help us become more focused, improve our concentration, and get things done
• It may help us become more relaxed, improve our happiness, and feel naturally calmer
• It may help us process our thoughts, be more creative, and improve our critical thinking
• It may help us slow down and recognize that the thoughts in our head are not our reality

April 1, 2025

Ask open-ended questions by remembering the acronym WHI and starting with why, what, how, and in what way, in order to become a better listener who encourages longer and more revealing answers from people.

• WHI? - Why? - What? How? In what way? - Yes/Open
• WHO? - Who? - When? Where? Would you? - No/Closed
• Asking open-ended questions allows others to share their thoughts
• Asking open-ended questions allows you to become a better listener
• Why, what, how, and "in what way" encourage long open answers
• Who, when, where, and "would you" encourage short fixed answers

March 25, 2025

I organized my entire music library so that every album now has either 2, 4, 6, or 8 singles or picks in it. Believe it or not, I don't think I have OCD, but it was incredibly rewarding and worthwhile nonetheless.

I wonder if it is better and simpler to make sure you always date your notes, and to only take dated notes instead of trying to organize them for reference.

I love reading and learning about the following subjects and feel I've learned a great deal about them.

• Life Improvement
• Goal Setting and Habits
• Productivity and Task Management
• Lifehacking and Software
• Simplicity and Minimalism
• Happiness and Positivity
• Physical and Mental Health
• Simple Finances and Independence

There are a lot of great websites and resources out there for learning about these topics. Essentially places for learning about how to live life. One thing I've noticed is that there is so much information out there that it can be hard to find the good stuff. That is a gap that Life Thinkist hopes to at least help fill.

One main goal of Life Thinkist will be to find links to the best articles out there. Life Thinkist may not provide really long commentary other than maybe a paragraph or a sentence to many links and articles. It's a place to come to in order to find the great news and resources out there on life improvement written by many great writers. We still may provide some longer features written here because I also have some ideas myself that I may sometimes feel inspired to write about. But these longer features will probably be infrequent, and the main goal will be to provide the best news and links that are out there.

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Why would you choose to use text files for notes and lists instead of using a notes app? There are a number of advantages to writing your notes in simple .txt files using a text editor.

Keeping notes and lists in text files might not be everyone's cup of tea. But here are a few of the key reasons why I have kept a lot of notes, lists, tasks, journals, and other information in regular old text files.

1. Open Anywhere and No Data Lock-In

What's great about using .txt files for notes and lists is that you can open the files literally on any device. You don't have to worry about having the app or web app to open your files and read your information. You don't have to worry about your information being locked into a file format, operating system, or website that you can't get it out of. With Evernote, you need to use their apps and their apps only. They hold your data hostage, and if they decided now not to offer a free version, you'd either have to pay whatever they said to pay for it or be out of luck with all of your data.

2. Future Proof and Company Independent

You can open text files on any device, both now and way in the future. Text doesn't depend on a single company or piece of software existing to support a file format or web service. Plus, if you ever find or build a working time machine, you could even open a text file on a computer from 30 years ago. Though I don't know why you'd want to go back to the 80's. Before Google Keep, Google had Google Notes and they completely terminated it leaving people kind of helpless if they had used it. They came out with Google Keep, an extremely similar product, years later.

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Give honest and sincere appreciation. - Dale Carnegie

• Lincoln once began a letter saying: "Everybody likes a compliment."
• William James said: "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated."
• He didn't speak, mind you, of the "wish" or the "desire" or the "longing" to be appreciated.
• He said the "craving" to be appreciated.
• Let's try to figure out the other person's good points.
• Then forget flattery. Give honest, sincere appreciation.

How To Win Friends And Influence People - Goodreads

Take a quick break every hour to evaluate what you have done and refocus on what you should do next.

• STEP 2 (1 minute every hour) Refocus.
• Set your watch, phone, or computer to ring every hour.
• When it rings, take a deep breath, look at your list and ask yourself if you spent your last hour productively.
• Then look at your calendar and deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour.
• Manage your day hour by hour.
• Don’t let the hours manage you.

An 18 minute plan for managing your day - Harvard Business Review

People may often do inconsiderate things when they are in groups, and people who strongly affiliate with one group of people may naturally want to harm outsiders who are not in that group.

• When people get together in groups, unusual things can happen — both good and bad.
• Groups create important social institutions that an individual could not achieve alone, but there can be a darker side to such alliances:
• Belonging to a group makes people more likely to harm others outside the group.
• In a study that recently went online in the journal NeuroImage, the researchers measured brain activity in a part of the brain involved in thinking about oneself.
• They found that in some people, this activity was reduced when the subjects participated in a competition as part of a group, compared with when they competed as individuals.
• Those people were more likely to harm their competitors than people who did not exhibit this decreased brain activity.

When Good People Do Bad Things - MIT News Office

Cultivate a positive environment by reading and listening to more positive information and entertainment sources, and choosing to spend time around positive people.

• Who you choose to spend your time with and the input you get from further away like the TV, the internet and magazines will have a huge effect on your outlook.
• To be able to stay positive it is essential to have influences in your life that support you and lift you up instead of dragging you down.
• So carefully consider what you let into your mind.

How to stay positive: 11 Smart habits - Positivity Blog

Don't be a sucker.

• Dramatizes the destructive effects of racial and religious prejudice
• This US National Archives educational film illustrates how extremist ideologies use prejudice to divide populations and dismantle democratic societies. It highlights the importance of protecting the rights of all citizens to safeguard individual liberty and prevent the rise of authoritarian control

Don't Be A Sucker - US National Archives - YouTube

Turn your problems into challenges or goals that you can overcome or accomplish in order to be happier and improve your life.

• Happy people will see problems as challenges, as opportunities to explore new ways of doing things, expressing their gratitude for them, understanding that underneath them all lay many opportunities that will allow them to expand and to grow.

15 Powerful things happy people do differently - Purpose Fairy

Find and meet up with people who are doing things that you are interested in doing.

• Find people online doing interesting things, meet up with them in real life.
• Find people who are passionate, who are building things, who are pushing themselves, who dream big, who are mindful and joyful and healthy and friendly and shy and gregarious and adventurous and curious.
• Befriend them. Be there for them. Be helpful. Make them laugh.
• These are your people.

Advice for people in their early 20s - Zen Habits

Exercise every day because it improves your body, your mind, and makes you happier and more productive on the day in which you exercise.

• A recent study from Penn State university shed some light on the matter and the results are more than surprising.
• They found that to be more productive and happier on a given work day, it doesn’t matter so much, if you work-out regularly, if you haven’t worked out on that particular day.
• Think about starting small and then start even smaller: Here is a little secret.
• When I first started exercising, I did it with 5 minutes per day, 3 times a week.
• Can you imagine that? 5 minutes of timed exercise, 3 times a week?
• That’s nothing you might be thinking.
• And you are right, because the task is so easy and anyone can succeed with it, you can really start to make a habit out of it.
• Try no more than 5 or 10 minutes if you are getting started.

What happens to our brains when we exercise and how it makes us happier - Buffer

Create daily habits and practices to improve your wellbeing, be happier, achieve goals, and make your dreams come true.

• The only way you can make something stick is to create a habit through daily practice.
• So if you want to exercise, set up 10 minutes every day, at the same time of day, when you’re going to do your yoga or pushups or jogging/walking.
• Put it on the calendar, and make it an unmissable appointment.

Feeling determined to change - Zen Habits

Remember everyone is emotional and people are all going through the ups and downs of life, so try not to take it personally when people get angry, and try to comfort or support others when they are in a bad mood.

• Perhaps this is an exaggeration.
• But the core of the message is that people tend to have stronger feelings about something than they let on.
• People who regularly have outbursts of anger, depression or flamboyant enthusiasm are generally frowned upon in most cultures.
• This especially applies to men (for women trying to figure us out).
• The application of this rule is to not assume everything is fine just because someone isn’t having a nervous breakdown.
• We all have our individual problems, angst and upsets that are normally contained.

The critical 7 rules to understand people - Scott H. Young

• Think and Grow Rich is a classic motivational book.
• Written by Napoleon Hill and inspired by Andrew Carnegie, it was published in 1937 at the end of the Great Depression.
• In his introduction, Hill refers to the "Carnegie Secret", a conception which he reports is the foundation of all success and appears to be the premise of the book.
• Hill promises to indirectly describe this "secret" in every chapter, but never state it plainly, believing the use of the secret is only available to those who possess a "readiness" for it, a disposition Hill describes as essential to the concept itself.

Napoleon Hill talks about "The Secret" to Think & Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill - YouTube

Consider using simple text files to help you get things done and keep track of your tasks, todo lists, projects, and goals, instead of using a complicated tasks app.

• While I love the apps mentioned above, I personally look for super simple.
• So I’ve settled on a setup taken from Gina and Adam’s articles on Lifehacker (read the tutorials: Geek to Live and Hack Attack).
• Text files: Basically, I organize my tasks in a series of text files.
• That’s because they’re super simple, easy to manipulate, and small.

Amazing Mac apps for getting things done (plus a custom-rigged setup) - Zen Habits

Have a growth mindset by believing that you can grow, learn new things, improve your skills and knowledge, and realizing that temporary and recurring failure are a necessary part of learning and growing.

• Dweck, like many adults, had learned to hide her frustration and anger, to politely say "I'm not sure I want to play this anymore" instead of knocking over the board.
• She figured the successful kids would be the same - they’d have tactics for coping with failure instead of getting beaten down by it.
• But what she found was radically different.
• The successful kids didn’t just live with failure, they loved it!
• When the going got tough, they didn’t start blaming themselves; they licked their lips and said "I love a challenge."
• They’d say stuff like "The harder it gets the harder I need to try."

Believe you can change - Aaron Swartz