#44: When it comes to planning your day, there are two extremes: having no schedule at all, or having a rigid and constraining schedule. It is common to fall into one of these extremes, or perhaps go back-and-forth between them. Yet the most sustainable way of scheduling, the one that yields the tranquility of order, involves a personalized balance of non-negotiables and flexible work times. In this episode, Dr. Kevin Majeres and Sharif discuss how to get your schedule to work for you.

#43: Our brains naturally strive to maintain a predictable status quo. The upside of this is that we conserve energy and form habits. At the same time, it can lead to plateaus — in our skills, personal growth, and relationships. It can even cause our dealings with others to become rote, and we developed a fixed and superficial perception of those around us. Dr. Kevin Majeres and Sharif Younes turn to the work of renowned neuroscientist Karl Friston to understand better the importance of challenging this status quo.

#42: If you’re aiming to work at your best, constantly operating at 100%, won't you quickly become exhausted? In this episode, Dr. Kevin Majeres and Sharif Younes discuss how to make intense workdays sustainable by introducing periods of intense rest. Intense rest not only helps you recover from work, it also helps you consolidate the learning and growth you attain while working.

#41: If someone around you has some defect that annoys you, it can cause a kind of obsession that develops into a critical attitude towards the very person. In this episode, Dr. Kevin Majeres and Sharif Younes discuss how this annoyance develops, what it means for the relationship, and what to do about it.

#40: The New Year provides a unique opportunity for a fresh start. To make the most of this opportunity, approach your resolutions with hope and creativity: hope so that you strive for the highest things (ideals, bonds) and creativity so that you can strategize how to achieve them. In this episode, Dr. Kevin Majeres and Sharif Younes discuss a broad array of questions related to New Year’s resolutions.

#39: The more you find yourself complaining or dreading, the more you’ll benefit from reframing, the skill that is most essential to OptimalWork. In this episode, Dr. Kevin and Sharif take several examples of difficult situations, pointing out possible reframes and, in the process, shedding light on the different ways to find meaning in the challenges you face.

#38: In this episode, Dr. Kevin Majeres and Sharif discuss some questions received by email about service. Working with a spirit of service means shaping yourself so that you’re the kind of person who is ready to give cheerfully to all those around you. Although this requires that the actual work you’re doing is helpful, the essence lies instead in the way you do it: with a willingness to form and prioritize bonds with those closest to you.

#37: In this episode, Dr. Kevin Majeres and Sharif discuss how to approach your repeating tasks in a new and better way. It comes down to three steps. First, identifying a goal to aim for, either in your way of working or what you will accomplish. Second, crafting a strategy to achieve this goal. And, finally, laying out the steps according to the strategy. You can use these steps whenever you are seeking to improve your work or change well-established habits.

#36: In this episode, Dr. Kevin Majeres and Sharif discuss the importance of rising early to meet the challenges of the day head-on. They present an email from someone who uses OptimalWork asking for advice: whether she should adjust her schedule to be much earlier to accommodate a morning workout. They apply OptimalWork’s approach to this question and examine the results it yielded.

#35: In this episode, Dr. Kevin Majeres and Sharif discuss the question of worrying. Worrying is when you have some bad outcome that you continually think about how to avoid. It is one of the top reasons people get stressed out, experience burnout, and feel fatigue. Dr. Majeres helps clarify the precise nature of worrying, as well as steps to take to overcome it.