We all do it: we look at what others are doing and wish we were doing that too. Or, alternatively, we scoff at what they’re doing and judge them, and see ourselves as better. One makes us feel bad, the other makes us feel superior. Neither makes us happy.

One way is to get everything ready for anything that’s likely to come: get all your survival equipment, prepare your skills, plan for your work projects, get your affairs in order, think through your arguments, and so on. The trouble with this is you don’t know what’s coming.

The practice of simplifying, clearing things away and staying with what I’m doing is incredibly useful, and something I haven’t mastered yet.

I try to be myself, which is really the best I can do. If I’m authentic, I can’t be a fraud, because I’m just being who I am. Of course, I’m always trying to figure out who that self is, and the self is constantly changing, so it’s an interesting endeavor.

When we start a change, we have an idea of how that will turn out — a fantasy in our heads, perhaps with a short timeline and a perfect result and an increase in happiness. But it never happens as quickly as we’d like, we’re never perfect at it, and we tend to be mostly as happy as before. So given that reality, how do we make long-term changes?

I could cite a bunch of studies and numbers, but here’s the honest truth: based on my own self-experiments, and working with thousands of people on habits, sleep is one of the most important but least valued factors when it comes to creating habits.

The combination of sounds and colors and shapes and smells around you will never exist in this particular combination ever again.

We all procrastinate, and by and large, we all know the solutions to our procrastination. But they don’t work unless you’re aware of what you’re doing.

High stress, constant anxiety over tasks and work and life, social anxiety … this is all a part of the modern way of life. Most people just don’t feel a sense of peace, of calm, of serenity, throughout their day. These are the habits to develop that will help you develop calmness (based on my experience):

So what do you do when you’re overwhelmed and have a crapload of work to do? Here are the practices that work for me. I offer them to you in hopes that they’ll help you.