Toluu

Zen Habits

Simple Productivity

The Sherlock Holmes Guide to Recovering Your Stolen IdentityOctober 9

Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead.

As technology rapidly increases and the information age expands, our identities are at an increasing risk for being stolen. But it’s not a hacker trying to steal your social security number that should be causing you to lose sleep. It’s the ownership of your mind that’s at stake.

Most of us work at boring jobs, doing the same thing day in and day out. We’re trying to liberate ourselves from these dead-end pursuits (that’s why you’re here right?) but it’s not always easy.

The answer society has given us is to buy more things:

• Buy this Porsche and you’ll feel like a movie star.
• Buy this Swiffer Sweeper and all your problems will be solved!
• Buy this flat screen TV so you can distract yourself from the fact that you really don’t like what you do for a living.

The answer we’re given is not a change of attitude or perspective, but a product. What they’re really saying is: “If you have this thing you’ll finally live up to the image of who you think you should be, or rather, who we think you should be.”

This might sound a bit extreme. Most of us can’t imagine that we’re living a lie and that stuff is ruling our lives. That’s only because we’ve been so brilliantly duped.

The Only Two Secrets to Motivating Yourself You’ll Ever NeedOctober 8

I’ve written about motivation a bunch of times before here on Zen Habits, but the more I learn about it, the more I realize that motivation isn’t that complicated.

Sure, there are numerous tips that can help, numerous tactics and strategies I’ve used with success. But it really all boils down to two things.

And those two things are so deceptively simple that you might decide to stop reading after I name them: 1) make things enjoyable and 2) use positive public pressure. But read on for more on how to use those two things to motivate yourself for any goal.

It’s Motivation, Not Discipline

First let’s back up a little bit. A number of readers have emailed me about sticking to their goals — anything from exercise and eating right to being organized and productive to creating new habits — and have said they simply lack the discipline to stick with things for very long.

But what is discipline, really? It’s mostly an illusion, in my experience.

When people say that someone has “discipline”, as I’ve written about before, they really mean he has the motivation to stick to something.

In a previous post I used the example of someone in the military, a typical case of somone who is said to have discipline. This military man might get up super early, fix his bed neatly, go on an early-morning run, do a bunch of other exercises, and generally do a disciplined job throughout the day.

But is that just because he

Re-Centering: Finding Your Way Back To The Life You Meant To LiveOctober 7

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Eric Hamm of Motivate Thyself.

It’s amazing how far off course we can get when we’re not watching our steps.  We just wake up one day and wonder, “Where the heck am I and how did I get so far off my intended path?”

Let’s all take a second and travel back in time to what I like to call our ‘dreaming years‘.  This is the time when you’ve first opened your eyes to life as an adult.  The world is your oyster and the possibilities, endless.  Your desires are strong and yet simple in their structure.  The chaos of life has not yet stripped away your clear vision of what a healthy, happy life should be.

For me, this would be right around the time I started my tech consulting business.  I was excited about the early successes I was encountering and was just starting to move beyond the paycheck to paycheck lifestyle.  I saw great opportunity ahead and started laying out my goals with bated breath.

One day I was walking some laps around my favorite park dreaming of the future.  I started working some numbers in my head, thinking of what my possible income might be 5 years into the future.  (I wasn’t so much interested in the money as much as the freedom that a healthy income can bring.  More time to live the life I desired was what I was after.)

This day dreaming turned into some real goal setting.  I did the math, made some assumptio

10 Simple Ways to Live a Less Stressful LifeOctober 5

“If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.” - George F. Burns

Stress is a major problem for many people — a hectic, stressful job, a chaotic home life, bills to worry about, and bad habits such as unhealthy eating, drinking and smoking can lead to a mountain of stress.

If your life is full of stress, like mine once was, there are some simle things you can do to get your life to a more manageable level.

Now, your life will probably never be stress-free — I don’t think that’s even desirable, even if it is possible, because stress is something that challenges us and helps us grow. At a reasonable level. But when stress gets too high, it causes us to be unhappy and unhealthy.

It wasn’t that long ago when I was working long hours in a very stressful job, with little time for my family, smoking and eating fatty foods and not exercising. I had a lot of debt and too many bills. I was unhappy and stressed out all the time. I was losing hair … OK, actually that was because of genetics, but still. I was pretty stressed.

So I made some drastic changes. I quit my job. I simplified my life. I quit smoking and started exercising and eating healthier. I began to eliminate my debt. And I learned some habits that, when applied on a daily basis, can really transform the way you li

13 Ways to Simplify International TravelOctober 3

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Nonconformity, the author of the Unconventional Guide to Discount Airfare.

I’m writing from my hotel balcony in Giza City, Egypt – just outside Cairo, and the site of the historic Pyramids. The sun is coming up right now, and the view is great. There’s only one problem:

A lot of other visitors here are unhappy.

They’re on vacation, far away from home, but they’re not enjoying themselves. Between the heat and the hassles, something has gone wrong… and unfortunately, the problem is not unique to Egypt.

From departure lounges all over the world to nice hotels on every continent, I see the same thing no matter where I go: some people are having the time of their lives, and others, well, would rather be at home.

There are probably several reasons for this phenomenon of unhappy tourists, but one of them is that international travel can be overly stressful and unnecessarily complicated. If travel becomes too complicated, you can end up defeating yourself before any external pressures even arrive.

To counter the stress, here are 5 “big-picture” strategies and 8 specific, practical tips you can use to simplify your next big trip. Some of them will help you save time and money – both worthy goals – but