Procrastination, Productivity

11 Unproductive Habits You Want To Quit

No Comments

The reason I study productivity is that I’m an unproductive person. I’m not like those people who naturally wake up at 5 am and just go.

If it wasn’t for my productivity system, I wouldn’t get anything done. I wouldn’t even write this article. But if you browse social media, all you see is super productive, healthy, and wealthy people. Is that really the case?

I don’t know. I just know this: You can’t be productive 24/7. And a big part of being productive is about getting rid of unproductive habits we all have.

What follows is a list of eleven unproductive habits that I learned to do less, or eliminate. Do you have a few of these habits? Don’t worry, we’re all unproductive at times. But if you have five or more, it might be time to change.

Let’s start.

Continue Reading

Career Advice, Personal Development, Procrastination, Productivity

Skill Stacking: A Practical Strategy To Achieve Career Success

No Comments
Skill Stacking

One of the most popular ideas in personal development is that all successful people have achieved mastery. Many of us believe in this false notion that you have to master a skill to achieve career success.

That’s because we, as a society, admire and glorify winners. We look at billionaires, champions, gold medalists, and other outliers. I must admit, there are many lessons we can learn from people who are masters at one particular skill.

But at the same time, it’s very daunting. Let’s be real, not everyone wants to spend 10 or 20 thousand hours to master a skill. We all have other things we value in life: Our family, friends, hobbies, health, you name it.

So when people write books and articles about outliers, we might get inspired, but from a practical point of view, the advice is useless. Not because we can’t apply the advice—most of the time, we don’t WANT to.

Continue Reading

Decision Making, Investing

Always Protect the Downside

No Comments

What’s a big goal or dream that you have? Do you want to start a business? Become a full-time author? Travel the world? Become financially independent? Change careers?

I bet you’ve thought about it, and at some point thought, “I’m not sure I can achieve that.”

If you’re anything like me, you always think about the risks that are involved with making a big move in life. And that’s not a surprise. We’re collectively risk-averse. We truly hate risk. I’ve never met someone who said, “I love to lose everything!”

But what can we do about our risk aversion? If you think about it, most of us are put off by fear. You think of doing something, consider the risks, and decide not to do it. Here are some examples.

Continue Reading

Life Lessons, Self-Knowledge

10 Lessons I Learned From Making Mistakes In My 20s

No Comments
one step at a time

One of the biggest mistakes we make is that we assume we always learn from our mistakes. I’ve met enough people who learned little from their own stupidity.

We all know these people. In fact, we probably are these people. You know why? It’s damned hard to learn from your mistakes. I’ve never met someone who actually enjoyed failing.

Let’s be honest, no one likes to make mistakes, and lose their time, energy, or money. So that’s why we need to make an effort to learn from the things that we wish we didn’t do. The father of functional philosophy and pragmatist philosophy, John Dewey, made that point obvious:

“The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.”

Learning from your mistakes does not happen automatically—it requires thinking and reflection. So here’s my reflection on the lessons I learned from the mistakes I made in my twenties. Here we go.

Continue Reading
Close Menu