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New book: Pay Attention
We often find ourselves feeling distracted and discontent, bored with our everyday routines. As Louis CK put it, “everything’s amazing, but nobody’s happy”. We look for a change of scenery, or dream about a life somewhere “out there” where everything life will be amazing again. Wonder, though, is based more on posture than location. It’s…
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The Joy Continuum
Now At any given time, there’s a lot going on. We interact with people, get work done, move through the world, take note of things. We have thousands of micro-experiences throughout each day. The Joy Moment There’s a moment when we actually appreciate a given experience. This doesn’t always happen at the same time as…
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That’s not a lot of boxes
A co-worker recently shared Tim Urban great TED talk on procrastination. Funny and down-to-earth, Tim takes a light-hearted but challenging look at how we manage to put off the things we really should be doing. As Tim points out, tackling concrete deadline-based projects at work, school or home are one thing, but much more difficult…
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Savour the Good Stuff
Life is beautiful right now. Really, it is. It’s spring. The trees are blossoming all over our neighbourhood. We have this tree in our front yard that’s covered in white flowers. “I don’t remember it being this beautiful last year,” my wife pointed out last night. And the birds are singing. Robins are ordinary enough,…
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Always Something
Ever pick up your head at the end of the day and think, where did the day go? Did I do anything besides stare at a screen, firing off another email, reacting to the latest ping? Did I take note of one person around me, or even truly listen to those closest to me? It’s…
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Your Life’s Work
David wrote a great post about what’s important in life. But what affected me is the PS at the end of the post: “My life’s work is Basecamp.” Such a profound statement. In recent years Basecamp (formerly 37 Signals) has focused their efforts on their collaboration software, so much so that they changed their company’s…
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Small Things
Behind every graphic you see, there’s a graphic designer. It’s easy for designers to point to their work when it gets projected in Time Square, but this isn’t the reality for the daily work of most designers. Most designers sweat over dots and pixels that are seen by only a handful of people for a…
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Us and Them
They want us to believe that there’s not enough to go around. That more for Them means less for Us. That the winner takes all, and if They win, the rest of Us lose. That helping Them succeed will bring Us to shame. That we need to look out for ourselves, because no one else…
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Shedding Skin
The snake is the ancient sacred symbol for transformation. In order to grow, it must shed its skin. This process is painful, dangerous, and necessary for growth. The snake’s insides are literally outgrowing its outsides, and it must remove its restrictive, outermost layer. The snake rubs and scratches, feeling that something’s not quite right. During…
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The Tedium of Blossoming
As I approach my 31st birthday, one thing is becoming quite clear: I will never hit Fast Company’s “Top 30 Under 30” list. It’s also too late to become a 20-year-old millionaire. We admire the child prodigy, the early bloomer. Every young musician aspires to be the next Hansen (when they were young, well, maybe…