English Recordings

Three Little Habits to Find Focus

‘Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for miseries and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.’ ~Blaise Pascal
Post written by Leo Babauta.

I’ll be the first to admit that I fall victim to the trap of the Internet — a wonderful empowering tool that can fill your day with distractions, a million little “productive” tasks that matter little, constant interruptions from messages and status updates.
Who doesn’t fall victim to this?
We are frittering our lives away.
So how do we beat this? How do we make best use of the awesomeness of the Internet (which has given me the power to do what I love) without succumbing to its powers of distraction? This is a question that obviously occupied the minds of the ancients, from Aristotle to Lao Tzu (who was particularly prone to Lolcats), without any good answer.
I have good news. There is a way. It’s not always easy, but I’ve done it, and if I can do it, anyone can.
It takes three little habits:
1. Set a time limit. Pick something important to do, and set a limited time to do it. That might be one hour, or 20 minutes, or even just 10 if you’re having a hard time getting into it. The time limit helps sharpen your focus. If you have limited time to do something, you’ll be forced to decide what’s important. It also means you’re not doing some unlimited task that could take hours, but a very specific one that will be over in X minutes. Setting a limit is good too for when you decide to process your email — only 20 minutes to get as many emails processed as you can, for example.
2. Close everything. This means everything possible on your computer that isn’t absolutely necessary for the task at hand. If you don’t need the Internet to write something, close it. Close email, all notifications and reminders, all programs not needed for your task. If you need your browser open, close all tabs — bookmark them, or save them to a read-later service like Instapaper. You can always open these sites when you’re done.
3. Pause before switching. So you’ve closed everything else, you’ve set a time limit for your task at hand, and you’re getting started … but then you get the urge to check email or Facebook or Twitter. You want to see what’s happening on Instagram or Pinterest or Youtube. Stop. Make yourself pause for 5-10 seconds. This is the key habit that makes the other two work. Take a deep breath. Think about whether you really want to fritter your life away doing those things all day, every day, or if you want to do something great. Choose great, most of the time.
These are little habits, and you can do them. When your time is up, you can give yourself a few minutes’ break to check your favorite sites, and then close them again. But when you’re trying to focus, practice these habits. They’re a small price to pay for a life not frittered away by distractions.
‘Ain’t no tuition for havin’ no ambition.’ ~Buddha

How to Live Well

‘Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.’ ~Seneca
Post written by Leo Babauta.

I’m not a rich man, nor do I fly around the world and drink champagne with famous people in exotic locales, nor do I own a sports car or SUV or a yacht.
And yet, I’m very happy.
Much happier than seven years ago when I ate fried foods and sweets all time time and felt unhealthy and overweight, when I watched television and was out of shape, when I shopped a lot and was in debt, when I worked a job that paid fairly well and had no time for myself or my loved ones.
How have I accomplished this? With small tricks. The truth is, you don’t need a lot to live well — you just need the right mindset.
Here’s what I’ve learned about living well on little:
You need very little to be happy. Some simple plant food, modest shelter, a couple changes of clothes, a good book, a notebook, some meaningful work, and some loved ones.
Want little, and you are not poor. You can have a lot of money and possessions, but if you always want more, you are poorer than the guy who has little and wants nothing.
Focus on the present. Stop worrying about the future and holding onto the past. How much of your day is spent thinking about things other than where you are and what you’re doing, physically, at this moment? How often are we living as opposed to stuck thinking about other things? Live now and you live fully.
Be happy with what you have and where you are. Too often we want to be somewhere else, doing something else, with other people than whoever we’re with right now, getting things other than what we already have. But where we are is great! Who we’re with (including just ourselves) is already perfect. What we have is enough. What we’re doing already is amazing.
Be grateful for the small pleasures in life. Berries, a square of dark chocolate, tea — simple pleasures that are so much better than rich desserts, sugary drinks, fried foods if you learn to enjoy them fully. A good book borrowed from the library, a walk with a loved one in the park, the fine exertion of a short hard workout, the crazy things your child says, the smile of a stranger, walking barefoot on grass, a moment of quiet as the morning wakens and the world still rests. These little pleasures are living well, without needing much.
Be driven by joy and not fear. People are driven by the fear of missing out, or the fear of change, or the fear of losing something. These are not good reasons to do things. Instead, do things because they give you or others joy. Let your work be driven not because you need to support a lifestyle and are afraid of changing it, but by the joy of doing something creative, meaningful, valuable.
Practice compassion. Compassion for others creates loving, rewarding relationships. Compassion for yourself means forgiving yourself for past mistakes, treating yourself well (including eating well and exercising), loving yourself as you are.
Forget about productivity and numbers. They matter not at all. If you are driven to do things to reach certain numbers (goals), you have probably lost sight of what’s important. If you are striving to be productive, you are filling your days with things just to be productive, which is a waste of a day. This day is a gift, and shouldn’t be crammed with every possible thing — spend time enjoying it and what you’re doing.

What I’ve Learned About Learning

‘We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.’ ~Lloyd Alexander
Post written by Leo Babauta.

I am a teacher and an avid learner, and I’m passionate about both.
I’m a teacher because I help Eva homeschool our kids — OK, she does most of the work, but I do help, mostly with math but with everything else too. I also teach habits, writing/blogging, simplicity and other fun topics in online courses.
I’m a lifelong learner and am always obsessively studying something, whether that’s breadmaking or language or wine or chess or writing or fitness.
Here’s are two key lessons — both really the same lesson — I’ve learned about learning, in all my years of study and in trying to teach people:
Almost everything I’ve learned, I didn’t learn in school; and
Almost everything my students (and kids) have learned, they learned on their own.
Those two lessons (or one lesson) have a number of reasons and implications for learning. Let’s take a look at some of them, in hopes you might find them useful.
Why Learning is Independent

One of the foundations of Unschooling, which Eva and I and the kids do here at home, is that you’re not teaching subjects to your kids — in fact, you’re not really teaching them at all. They take responsibility for their learning, and do it because they’re interested in something, not because you tell them they should learn it.
This is exactly how I learn as an adult, and so I know it works.
When teachers (wonderful people that they were) tried to teach me something in school, I often became bored, and just did what I needed to do to do well on the test. Not because the subject or the teacher was boring, but because it wasn’t something I cared about. They wanted me to learn it because they thought I should, but that’s not why people learn something. They learn it because they care about it — because they find it incredibly interesting, or because they need it to do something they really want to do.
When teachers succeeded in getting me to learn, it was only because they made something seem so interesting that I started to care about it. But then I learned on my own, either in class while ignoring everyone else, or more likely after class in the library or at home.
That’s because someone walking you through the steps of learning something doesn’t work — you aren’t learning when you’re just listening to someone tell you how something works. You’re learning when you try to do that something — putting it into action. That’s when the real learning begins and the superficial learning ends — when you try something and fail, and adjust and try again, and solve countless little problems as you do so.
The best teachers know this, and so they inspire, and help you to put the learning into action.
As an adult, I’ve learned a lot on my own. The stuff I’ve just read, I’ve mostly forgotten. But the stuff I’ve put into action by playing with it, by practicing, by creating and sharing with others — that stuff has stuck with me. I truly learned it.
I learned about blogging when I started blogging, and kept doing it for five years — not by reading blogs about blogging. My students have learned habits and decluttering and meditation and blogging from me not because I told them something brilliants, but because the ones who really learned put it into action. They formed a simple habit, decluttered their homes, did 5 minutes of meditation for 30 days, blogged.
This is where the real learning happens — when the fingers start moving, the feet start dancing, not when you hear or read something.
How to Learn (or Teach)

The teacher’s job, really, is to fascinate the student. Fascination is the key to learning. Then help the student put the fascination into action.
It follows then, that if you’re teaching yourself, your job is exactly the same.
Here’s how to learn:
Get fascinated. As a teacher, you should fascinate the student by rediscovering with her all the things that originally fascinated you about the topic. If you can’t get fascinated, you won’t care enough to really learn something. You’ll just go through the motions. How do you get fascinated? Often doing something with or for other people helps to motivate me to look more deeply into something, and reading about other people who have been successful/legendary at it also fascinates me.
Pour yourself into it. I will read every website and book I can get my hands on. Google and the library are my first stops. They’re free. The used bookstore will be next. There are always an amazing amount of online resources to learn anything. If there isn’t, create one.
Do it, in small steps. Actually doing whatever you want to do will be scary. You can learn as much Spanish vocabulary as you like, but until you start having conversations, you won’t really know it. You can read as much about chess as you like, but you have to put the problems into action, and play games. You can read about how to program, but you won’t know it until you actually code. Start with small, non-scary steps, with as little risk as possible, focusing on fun, easy skills.
Play. Learning isn’t work. It’s fun. If you’re learning because you think you should, not because you’re having fun with it, you will not really stick with it for long, or you’ll hate it and not care about it. So make it play. Make games out of it. Sing and dance while you do it. Show off your new skills to people, with a smile on your face.
Do it with others. I believe most learning is done on your own, but doing it with others makes it fun. I like to work out with my friends and with Eva. I like to bake bread for my family. I like to play chess with my kids. That motivates me to learn, because I want to do well when I do it with others.
Feel free to move around. I will dive into something for a couple weeks, and then move on to something else. That’s OK. That’s how passion for a topic often works. Sometimes it will last for a long time, sometimes it’s a short intense burst. You can’t control it. Allow yourself to wander if that’s where things lead you.
But deep learning takes months or years. You can learn a lot about something in 2-4 weeks, but you really become an expert at something only after months and years of doing it. I knew a lot about blogging after 6 months, but I waited a couple years before I was comfortable teaching others about it. Even now, after 5+ years of blogging, I’m still learning. The same applies to habits — I’ve learned a lot after 7 years of successfully creating habits, and now can actually teach it with some confidence. So how do you allow yourself to wander, but stick with something for long enough to get deep learning? By wandering around within the topic. You can learn a lot about wine in a month, for example, but what if after that you focused on cabernet sauvignon for a month, then zinfandel, then pinot noir? What if then you decided to learn about Oregon pinot noirs, then Sonoma pinots, then (the wonderful) pinots from Burgundy? You’d be wandering around, but going deeper and deeper. You can also move away from a topic, then get fascinated with it again and come back to it.
Test yourself. You can learn a lot of information quickly by studying something, testing yourself, studying again to fill in the holes in your knowledge, testing again, and repeating until you have it by heart. That’s not always the most fun way to learn, but it can work well. Alternatively, you can learn by playing, and when you play, allow that to be your test.
Disagree. Don’t just agree that everything you’re reading or hearing from others on a topic is correct, even if they are foremost experts. First, experts are often wrong, and it’s not until they are challenged that new knowledge is found. Second, even if they are right and you are wrong by disagreeing, you learn by disagreeing. By disagreeing, you have already not only considered what you’ve been given, but formulated an alternative theory. Then you have to try to test to see which is right, and even if you find that the first information or theory was right and you were wrong, now you know that much better than if you just agreed. I’m not saying to disagree with everything, but the more you do, the better you’ll learn. Don’t disagree in a disagreeable way, and don’t hold onto your theories too tightly and be defensive about them.
Teach it. There is no better way to cement your knowledge than to teach it to others. It’s OK if you don’t really know it that well — as long as you’re honest about that when you’re teaching it to someone. For example, I’m a beginner at chess, but I will learn something about it and teach it to my kids — they know I’m not a tournament contender, let alone a master, and yet I’m still teaching them something they don’t know. And when I do, I begin to really understand it, because to teach you have to take what you’ve absorbed, reflect upon it, find a way to organize it so that you can communicate it to someone else clearly enough for them to understand it, see their mistakes and help correct them, see where the holes in your knowledge are, and more.
Learning can be subliminal. We think we’re in control of our minds and we’re like programmers telling our minds what to learn, how to learn, and what data to retain. No. Our minds work in mysterious ways, and cannot be tightly controlled. They wander, latch onto the weirdest things, and soak up more than we know. Later, you can come back to what you’ve absorbed, and test yourself, and find you knew something you didn’t realize you knew. The lesson is to expose yourself to as much as possible on a topic, and allow yourself to absorb it. Sometimes your mind will pick up patterns you didn’t consciously realize were there, but then can use those patterns later when you put the learning into action.
Reflect on your learning by blogging. You soak up a ton of information and patterns, and you can put that into action, but when you sit down and reflect on what you’ve learned, and try to share that with others (as I’m doing right now), you force yourself to think deeply, to synthesize the knowledge and to organize it, much as you do when you teach it to others. Blogging is a great tool for reflection and sharing what you’ve learned, even if you don’t hope to make a living at it. And it’s free.
‘The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.’ ~Albert Einstein

The 39th Lesson

Post written by Leo Babauta.

Today (April 30) is my 39th Un-un-birthday, and as usual, the day is a good day to pause and reflect.
Last year I wrote 38 Life Lessons I’ve Learned in 38 Years, and people seemed to find some use in it.
This year, I thought I’d share an additional lesson I’ve learned:
You’re not missing out.
Our lives are often ruled by the Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO. (Never heard of FOMO? You’re missing out.)
Some ways we let the fear of missing out rule us:
We check email, Facebook, Twitter and other social networks often, in case we’re missing something important.
We try and do the most exciting things, and are constantly in search of exciting things, because we’re worried we might miss out on the fun that others are having.
We constantly read about what other people are doing, and try to emulate them, because it sounds like they’re doing something great that we’re not.
We often want to travel the world, because it seems that other people are living amazing lives by traveling all the time.
We miss what we don’t have, miss places and people who we aren’t with.
We work constantly, because we think if we don’t, we might miss out on opportunities other people will get.
We feel like our own lives are poor in comparison with the great lives others are leading, and so feel bad about ourselves.
I could go on and on, but I have a birthday breakfast to eat (Eva and the kids are baking something delicious), so I’ll stop there.
We fear missing out, but why?
The truth is, we could run around trying to do everything exciting, and travel around the world, and always stay in touch with our iPhones and Crackberries, and work and party all day long without sleep … but we could never do it all. We will always be missing something.
And so, if we cannot help missing out, what is a saner alternative than letting this fear drive us? Let go of it, and realize you have everything right now.
The best in life isn’t somewhere else. It’s right where you are, at this moment. There is nothing better than exactly that.
Pause for just 10 seconds, and notice where you are, what you’re doing, who you are, at this very moment. Notice that you are breathing, and how lovely that is. Notice that you can smile, and feel the joy in that. Notice the good things around you. Give thanks for the people you’ve seen today. Celebrate the perhaps not altogether insignificant fact that you are alive.
This moment, and who you are, is absolutely perfect.
You are missing nothing, because there is nothing better.
You can breathe, and let go of all that fear of missing out, and be happy with what you have. Be grateful, and each moment think not about what you’re missing, but what you’ve been given.
This past year has been my best ever, because each day I have celebrated my Un-birthday with a smile and warmth in my heart. Today, I celebrate my non-un-birthday, and it is perfect. This moment I have spent talking to you is a gift. Thank you, my friends.

How to Fail at Habits

Post written by Leo Babauta.

Before I learned how to change habits, I was stuck. I kept trying to change various habits — running, eating healthier, waking earlier, getting out of debt, ending procrastination — and I kept failing.
I got very good at failing, in fact.
Looking back on those days, given the power of retrospect, I now know that I did everything wrong. I was setting myself up for failure, and in failing often and not learning from those mistakes, I was learning to be good at failing. Failing became my habit.
And while I’m actually a fan of failing as a method for learning how to get better at something quickly, if you’re not learning from your failures, it’s not as useful. So in that spirit, I’d like to share what I’ve learned from my failures so that you might glean some useful information from my suffering.
How to Fail at Habits

I failed at creating new habits repeatedly. Here’s what I did, and what most people also do:
Take on multiple habits at once. We have lots of things we want to change, so we try to change them all at once. Of course, this spreads our focus and energy thin, so that we can’t give our entire focus to any one habit. Habits are hard to change, and spreading yourself thin is a good way to make sure you fail.
Bite off more than you can chew. Whether you do one habit or many at a time, try to do as much with each habit as possible, so that it takes up a lot of energy and seems really hard. Don’t run for 5 minutes, try doing 30. That way it’ll be a big chunk of your day that will get pushed to tomorrow when other urgent things come up, it will take a lot of your physical and mental energy, and it’ll be something you dread doing because it’s so difficult. Don’t meditate for 5 minutes, meditate for 60. Do 90 minutes of yoga. Change your entire diet all at once. These are excellent ways to fail.
Tackle habits you don’t enjoy. Because habits should be something you do for moral reasons — they’re good for you! And so it doesn’t matter if you hate them, and if you dread doing them after awhile, because you’re going to be disciplined. That works extremely seldomly, so it’s a great strategy.
Keep it a secret. Don’t tell anyone you’re changing your habit. That way, if you mess up, it won’t be embarrassing. This means that you secretly think you’re going to mess up, which is another excellent way to fail.
Jump right into it. Decide today to start running, and just do it! This way you are treating it as if it’s nothing, and not a big commitment. You don’t plan for obstacles, don’t set up a support system, don’t give yourself rewards, and treat the habit change as lightly as you do putting on your socks. And when you quit doing the habit, it will be no problem either.
Don’t worry about how others have succeeded. Why read the success stories of other people? You know better than them. You can do it without learning from them. That’s what I used to think, at least.
Don’t motivate yourself. You don’t need motivation if you have discipline. Discipline is something you have or don’t have, but motivation is something you can actually do.
Give yourself plenty of opportunities to give up. Trying to eat healthy? Have your cupboards and fridge filled with junk food, and have it surround you at work, and go to restaurants filled with fried foods and sugary sweets. You’ll definitely have the discipline to ignore those.
The eight steps above are a sure-fire recipe for habit failure, and I recommend you try all of them if you’re looking to fail. Of course, if you’re looking to succeed, you might want to avoid them and possibly try the opposite.

Crazy Talk: The Do-What-You-Love Guide

‘Everything you can imagine is real.’ ~Pablo Picasso
Post written by Leo Babauta.

When I wrote the first words of this blog, more than five years ago, I had no idea those few keystrokes would change my life.
I thought I was doing nothing more than reflecting on the changes that had been happening in my life, sharing a bit about what I learned with a handful of friends. I thought those tinkling of computer keys would fade into the void, as most of my thoughts had before that.
I didn’t imagine that a year later, I would have 26,000 people reading my blog (and eventually a quarter million subscribers), that I’d finally be out of debt, that I’d have my first book publishing contract, that I’d happily hand in my resignation for my day job. All of that was out of the realm of possibility.
That’s the amazing realization here: that we rule out the possibility of great change, because it doesn’t seem realistic. For nearly two decades I focused on going to college, and working at a day job that I sometimes enjoyed but often dreaded, because that’s what we expect should happen. Starting my own business, pursuing my dreams, doing something I loved? Crazy talk.
Crazy talk is what I’m going to give you today, in hopes that perhaps one of you will expand your possibilities. It is possible — I did it, all while working a full-time job, doing free-lance writing on the side, and having a wife and six kids. I did it, even if I never dared to dream it for the first three decades of my life.
I am not someone who likes to give career advice, or teach people to be online entrepreneurs. So I’m not going to do that here. I’ll just tell you this: it’s possible. Yes, it absolutely is possible.
And I’ll share what I’ve learned, in small snippets of goodness, about doing what you love.
If you don’t think it’s possible, do a small easy test. Don’t think you can start a blog? Sign up for a free WordPress.com or Blogger.com account and do a short post. Don’t tell anyone about it. Just write a post. It costs nothing, risks nothing, takes almost no time. But you will learn you can do that one little thing, and if you pass that test, you now know your theory of impossibility was wrong. You can do this with any skill, btw, not just blogging.
Expand your tests. If you pass the first test, do another small one. Then another. Keep going and notice your confidence grow. Your skills grow along with the confidence. It’s amazingly simple. Iterate and re-iterate as long as you are having fun.
If you don’t know what you love, don’t worry. There’s no need to figure that out right away. Try something that someone else is doing, and see if you think it’s fun. The real fun part, btw, comes when you start to get good at it, so perhaps stick with it for awhile and enjoy the learning, then enjoy being good at it. If that first try doesn’t work, try something else. You don’t have to commit to one thing for your entire life. You can do a dozen a year if you want, for a decade. You’ll probably find something by then.
Find inspiration. Who else is doing what you love doing? Who is excited about it most? Follow them. Learn about them. See what path they took. Watch closely how they execute, what they do right. Learn from the best.
Reach out to a mentor. Of the people who inspire you the most, try to make contact with a few of them. If they never respond, try a few more. See if you can buy them lunch or coffee. Don’t pitch them on anything. Just ask for their help, and say you’d love for them to mentor you in a way that won’t take up much of their time. Don’t demand a lot of time, but go to them when you’re having trouble making big decisions.
Choose one passion at random. Some people have many interests and don’t know where to start. Pick one or two randomly if they’re all about equal, and just get started. Don’t let choice paralyze you. Get started, because in the end it won’t matter if you started with the wrong passion — you’ll learn something valuable no matter what. Read more.
Get good at it. You get good at something with practice. Allow your friends and family to be your first audience, readers, customers. Then take on a few others at a low cost, or increase your audience slowly. But always have an audience or customers if possible — you’ll get good much faster this way, with feedback and accountability. Read about it. Watch videos. Take a class. Join a group of others learning. Find people to partner with. Before long, you’ll be good at it.
Help others. One of the best ways to get good at something is to help others learn. Making someone’s life better with your new skill is also an amazing way to get satisfaction out of what you do, to love what you do. Help as many people as you can in any way possible — it will pay off.
Find your voice. Eventually, as you master your skill, you will learn that you are different than the thousands of others doing it. You will find your uniqueness. It’s not necessarily there at first, because you might not have the technical skills to express yourself. But eventually, find that voice. Find the thing that sets you apart, that helps you to stand out from the crowd. Then emphasize that. Read more.
How can you be valuable? What can you do that is valuable to others? Sometimes it’s doing something that they really need. Sometimes it’s doing it better than others. Sometimes it’s saving people time, or money. Other times it’s just making their lives better, brighter, pleasanter in some way.
Become an expert. If you get good at something, and help others, and find a voice, and become valuable — you’ll become an expert at what you do. Others will turn to you for advice. Help them. Read more.
Sell your own stuff. I’ve found that the best way to make a revenue, by far, is by selling your own stuff. I’ve tried ads and affiliate links, and while I have nothing against those things, the thing that works best for me is selling my own stuff. I’ve already proven to my audience that I’m valuable and honest and trustworthy, and so they are much more likely to want something that I’ve created than something I recommend made by others. So create something valuable that will help others, and sell it.
Don’t be a jerk. Too many people online are so worried about maximizing subscriber numbers or pageviews that they do things that are disrespectful to their readers. Asking me to click “Next Page” five times to read your article? Jerk move. Having a pop-up asking me to subscribe before I’ve even read the article I came to read? Jerk move. Screaming at me to “Like” your page on Facebook, when I could decide that on my own without being asked if the article was really good? Jerk move. Learn to feel what is respectful, and what’s a jerk move.
Don’t let numbers rule you. Numbers are arbitrary and basically worthless. How many readers do you have? No one really knows, and in the end the number of readers doesn’t matter as much as things like: how much do they care about your articles, how much have you helped them, how much do they trust you, how excited are they? Pageviews don’t matter, neither do Facebook fans or Twitter followers or the number of people on your mailing list. Instead of worrying about numbers, pour yourself into your work, make yourself incredibly valuable, help people as much as possible, love what you do. The numbers will come as a side effect.
It’s the doing and loving that matters. Many people focus on growing, or hitting goals, or making money, but they forget what matters. What matters most is loving what you do. If you love it, and you’re doing it, you’ve already succeeded. Don’t worry so much about achieving certain levels of success — people push themselves so hard to reach those things that they forget to enjoy what they’re doing, and in the process they lose the reason they’re doing it in the first place.
Dream bigger. Once you’ve overcome the initial fear and started to become good at something you love, dream bigger. The first stage is small steps, but don’t stop there. You can change lives. You can change the world. Doing so will change you.

Why We Overplan

‘A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.’ ~Lao Tzu
Post written by Leo Babauta.

There is something about my mind, and many people’s minds, that is overly optimistic.
We think we can do so much each day, and so we overplan. We fill our plans with so much, confident we can do it all, ignoring the evidence of the past when most plans didn’t get done and most things didn’t get crossed off as hoped.
We believe that, sure, we might have failed to meet our expectations in the past, but this time will be different! This time, we will do better. This time, we will be disciplined and productive and get more done.
Yes, that’s an excellent plan. Let me know how that works out.
Hint: It never works out for me. I’ll give you a good recent example.
What I Learned on Vacation

As I said last week, my family and I recently went on a short vacation to sunny and sublime San Diego for four days. As usual, I had lots of goals and expectations (I can’t seem to help it):
I bought a book (The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest) and planned to finish it in just over 4 days of vacation — which meant about 150 pages per day. No problem!
I brought a yoga DVD, planning on doing yoga every morning as the kids slept in.
I thought I could do some beach running every morning too, as we were staying a block from the beach.
I had lots of work I thought I could get done too.
And of course, we were going to walk around and explore San Diego all day, hang out at the beach for hours, and eat at lots of restaurants.
Guess how much of that got done? I did read a fair amount, but only about half the book. I didn’t even open the plastic wrapping on the yoga DVDs. I did almost no work. I ran for maybe 10 minutes at the beach once. We did a lot of walking and exploring and eating, and hung out at the beach a fair amount, but little else.
I overplanned. I was overly optimistic. I had lots of goals and expectations.
Yes, I’ve been mostly going without goals for awhile now, but I slip into my old habits frequently.
Not Overplanning in Real Life

Sure, many experienced travelers know that I made a basic traveling mistake — overplanning is common among travelers, and the best of us plan very little on most trips. I know this, and usually follow that advice. I guess the plans above were subconscious plans and goals that my mind was making without me really trying. It was only during the middle of the trip that I realized I’d had high expectations of myself for the trip, and had set goals without realizing it.
But here’s the thing: travelers know we should travel without goals and too many plans … but what about in the rest of our lives?
Most people who travel with few plans and goals ignore this wisdom in regular, daily life.
In our daily personal and work lives, we overload ourselves and overplan. We are overly optimistic about what we can do, despite past evidence. We set too many goals and have too high expectations.
Here’s what I’ve learned from my vacation (and the last couple years) that can help with overplanning and goal setting in our daily lives:
Leave plans to a minimum. That’s not to say you won’t do anything, but plan as little as possible — most of what you might plan won’t get done anyway. Why create a fiction? Leave wide open blocks with few scheduled appointments when possible.
Learn to act fluidly. If your day is mostly wide open, how do you fill it? Flexibly. You don’t have plans or goals, but know how to pick your priorities fluidly, in the moment. At this moment, what is the thing you’re most excited about? What is the most important thing you can do? What can you do that will change your life the most? This is a skill that you learn by practice, but planning ahead what you should do makes no sense when the landscape is changing constantly.
We are not walking a path, but surfing a sea. Most people look at goal setting as picking a destination, then figuring out a path to get there. That assumes you’re walking on land that will change very little, and that while you will have unforeseen obstacles, you’ll be on stable ground and the destination won’t move. That’s not at all true — life is more like the sea, ever changing with no fixed paths or destinations, with swells and currents and waves that change everything at every moment. The ultimate skill, then, isn’t setting a destination (goal) or a path (plan), but surfing. In surfing, you take whatever waves come, learn to judge the waves as they come, learn to ride the wave as it changes, not as you planned. It’s going with the flow (literally), and changing what you do depending on how the flow changes.
Your plans might fall apart, but life will be greater for it. While nothing went as I’d apparently hoped it would on our trip, I was completely happy. We still filled our days with exploring and trying new things and play, and living in the moment meant I didn’t care that I didn’t get the work done or do the yoga or accomplish the massive amounts of reading I’d hoped. Life changes things, and it’s when we cling to our goals and plans that we are unhappy or stressed — when we learn to surf the wave as it comes, we can be very happy, no matter what comes.

Teaching Kids to Pack Ultralight

Post written by Leo Babauta.

Eva and I and our five kids (the sixth is in college) just got back from a 4-day trip to gorgeous San Diego, and instead of being exhausted from wearying travel, we came back with smiles on our faces.
This is despite four days of walking for hours as we explored, running around and building sand castles on beaches as the sun set, hiking in Torrey Pines on our last day, taking planes and multiple trains.
Our secret was packing ultralight.
I’ve been a fan of packing ultralight for awhile now, of course. Last year, I took three trips with basically one change of clothes, a book, an 11″ Macbook Air, deodorant and a toothbrush — three days in Portland, a month on Guam and 10 days in New York City.
But I consider it a glorious thing that our kids are now ultralight packers themselves. How did it get this way?
We’ve been moving gradually towards this for a few years. We traveled to Tokyo in 2009 with a backpack each, and moved from Guam to San Francisco in 2010 with a backpack each, then took a month trip with a backpack each. In those cases, the backpacks were usually filled with clothes and computers and various gadgets and toys.
This year I sat them down and we talked about packing even lighter. I told them about my experiments and how much I enjoyed it. I explained that carrying heavy bags and rollerbags around airports, train stations, on and off trains and buses, into rental apartments and around strange cities … can be physically taxing. Going light is truly lovely when you travel like that.
They were immediately on board, and so we decided to do it. This San Diego trip, by the way, was a practice run for our three-week trip to southern Europe (Italy, southern France and Barcelona) this summer, where we plan to pack the same way. The practice run went swimmingly.
Here’s what we packed in tiny backpacks (I used the 16-liter Goruck Echo):
1 T-shirt
2 pairs of underwear
2 pairs of socks
1 pair of shorts
deodorant and toothbrush
a book
the kids had either an iPod or Nintendo DS, with charger
That’s it. In addition, we wore a pair of jeans, T-shirt underwear, socks, shoes, and a light sweater. The bags were incredibly light and easily fit under the seats in front of us on the plane, and weighed almost nothing. I was the only one to bring a laptop (an 11″ Macbook Air) but only used it for about 30 minutes a day.
We wore the shorts at night and to the beach, washed clothes before bed (I handwashed in the shower but Eva used the washer & dryer in the house we rented). We encountered no problems, and everything was easy.
My two little ones, by the way, carried their own little packs (the 8-liter North Face Sprout), and had no problems as they were super light.
The kids thought the light packing experience was great, and this short experiment (four days) helped them see that we could do it for three weeks in Europe this summer.
I’m sold on ultralight packing, of course, but it’s a joy to know that my kids love it too.

How to Meditate Daily

Post written by Leo Babauta.

The habit of meditation is one of the most powerful things I’ve ever learned.
Amazingly, it’s also one of the most simple habits to do — you can do it anywhere, any time, and it will always have immediate benefits.
How many habits can you say that about?
While many people think of meditation as something you might do with a teacher, in a Zen Center, it can be as simple as paying attention to your breath while sitting in your car or on the train, or while sitting at the coffee shop or in your office, or while walking or showering.
It can take just one or two minutes if you’re busy. There’s no excuse for not doing it, when you simplify the meditation habit.
Why Meditate?

Why create a small daily meditation practice? There are countless reasons, but here are some of my favorite:
It relieves stress and helps you to relax.
When you practice mindfulness, you can carry it out to everyday life.
Mindfulness helps you to savor life, change habits, live simply and slowly, be present in everything you do.
Meditation has been shown to have mental benefits, such as improved focus, happiness, memory, self-control, academic performance and more.
Some research on meditation has indicated that it may have other health benefits, including improved metabolism, heart rate, respiration, blood pressure and more.
Actually, some of the best benefits of meditation are hard to define — you begin to understand yourself better, for example, and form a self-awareness level you’ve never had before.
Most simply, sitting for just a few minutes of meditation is an oasis of calm and relaxation that we rarely find in our lives these days. And that, in itself, is enough.
How to Do It Daily

There are lots and lots of ways to meditate. But our concern is not to find a perfect form of meditation — it’s to form the daily habit of meditation. And so our method will be as simple as possible.
1. Commit to just 2 minutes a day. Start simply if you want the habit to stick. You can do it for 5 minutes if you feel good about it, but all you’re committing to is 2 minutes each day.
2. Pick a time and trigger. Not an exact time of day, but a general time, like morning when you wake up, or during your lunch hour. The trigger should be something you already do regularly, like drink your first cup of coffee, brush your teeth, have lunch, or arrive home from work.
3. Find a quiet spot. Sometimes early morning is best, before others in your house might be awake and making lots of noise. Others might find a spot in a park or on the beach or some other soothing setting. It really doesn’t matter where — as long as you can sit without being bothered for a few minutes. A few people walking by your park bench is fine.
4. Sit comfortably. Don’t fuss too much about how you sit, what you wear, what you sit on, etc. I personally like to sit on a pillow on the floor, with my back leaning against a wall, because I’m very inflexible. Others who can sit cross-legged comfortably might do that instead. Still others can sit on a chair or couch if sitting on the floor is uncomfortable. Zen practitioners often use a zafu, a round cushion filled with kapok or buckwheat. Don’t go out and buy one if you don’t already have one. Any cushion or pillow will do, and some people can sit on a bare floor comfortably.
5. Start with just 2 minutes. This is really important. Most people will think they can meditate for 15-30 minutes, and they can. But this is not a test of how strong you are at staying in meditation — we are trying to form a longer-lasting habit. And to do that, we want to start with just a two minutes. You’ll find it much easier to start this way, and forming a habit with a small start like this is a method much more likely to succeed. You can expand to 5-7 minutes if you can do it for 7 straight days, then 10 minutes if you can do it for 14 straight days, then 15 minutes if you can stick to it for 21 straight days, and 20 if you can do a full month.
6. Focus on your breath. As you breathe in, follow your breath in through your nostrils, then into your throat, then into your lungs and belly. Sit straight, keep your eyes open but looking at the ground and with a soft focus. If you want to close your eyes, that’s fine. As you breathe out, follow your breath out back into the world. If it helps, count … one breath in, two breath out, three breath in, four breath out … when you get to 10, start over. If you lose track, start over. If you find your mind wandering (and you will), just pay attention to your mind wandering, then bring it gently back to your breath. Repeat this process for the few minutes you meditate. You won’t be very good at it at first, most likely, but you’ll get better with practice.
And that’s it. It’s a very simple practice, but you want to do it for 2 minutes, every day, after the same trigger each day. Do this for a month and you’ll have a daily meditation habit.
Expanding Your Practice

Sitting and paying attention to your breath is really mindfulness practice. It’s a way to train yourself to focus your attention. Once you’ve practiced a bit while sitting in a quiet space, you can expand your mindfulness practice:
When you feel stress, take a minute to pay attention to your breath, and return your mind to the present moment.
Try taking a walk, and instead of thinking about things you need to do later, pay attention to your breath, your body’s sensations, the things around you.
When you eat, just eat, and focus your attention on the food, on your feelings as you eat, on the sensations.
Try a mindful tea ritual, where you focus your attention on your movements as you prepare the tea, on the tea as you smell and taste it, on your breath as you go through the ritual.
Wash your dishes and sweep your floor mindfully.
This, of course, is just a start. There are many ways to practice mindfulness, including with other people, while you work, and so on.

How to Beat the Exhaustiveness of Stressful Work

Post written by Leo Babauta.

I’ll confess: I recently let stress beat me.
I know, some of you think I’m perfect and never get stressed out, ever, especially as I’ve written about slowing down and simplifying for five years or so now.
But I do get stressed out, and I do sometimes overwork myself. It doesn’t happen much anymore, but it does happen. This week was one of those times.
Stress beat me … but stay with me until the end. In the end (spoiler alert), I beat out stress.
How Stress Beat Me This Week

As you might know, I created the Sea Change Program to help people change their lives, and The Mindful Diet course as part of the program because many members wanted help with healthy eating.
Unfortunately, there was a glitch in the registration process that caused 400 people to have registration problems, and so I spent two days manually fixing the problems (along with the trustworthy Dean, Zen Habits Creator of Smiles). It was tedious, exhausting work, and I did it until late at night and starting early in the morning.
I learned to do it almost as a form of meditation — trying to be mindful as I did it, much as I try to do when I sweep or wash dishes or take a walk.
Still, the overwhelming amount of people needing help at once stressed me out for two days, and at the end of it, I was wiped out.
How I Measured the Effect of Stress

Normally, we can feel the exhausting effects of stress, subjectively, but it’s hard to really know how much of an effect this is having on our minds and bodies.
On Tuesday, I found an objective measure of the toll stress had on me: strength training. I’ve been sticking to a regular weight lifting program for about 7 weeks now, doing the same four workouts (mostly barbell stuff with chinups and dips) and logging my progress. So I know pretty much exactly how much I should be able to lift for each workout.
But on Tuesday, I tried to lift the same amount I had lifted a week earlier, no more, on the exact same lifts with the exact same rest periods. I was too tired to make it through even half the workout. My body (and mind) couldn’t do what it had done a week before.
There are lots of possible reasons: not enough fuel (but I eat the same thing every day), too much other types of activities (but that is also very consistent on my current schedule), not enough sleep (this was slightly less in the last two weeks, but that amount hasn’t hurt me this much in recent weeks), burnout due to too much exercise over a period of weeks (possibly a factor, but looking at my log, probably not), illness (but I’m not sick, actually very healthy right now).
After evaluating the many possible factors, stress is the most obvious. A few of the other factors probably played a smaller part, but stress was most likely the biggest factor. And it had a major effect, judging from my objective test.
How I Beat Stress

Here’s what I did:
After two stressful, exhausting days, the workout was actually my first step to recovery. It might seem counterintuitive — why exercise when you’re exhausted? And sometimes that can be dangerous — adding the stress of lots of exercise to physical and mental exhaustion can put you at risk of burnout or injury. But I’ve found that a good bout of exertion works wonders for when I’m stressed. So I ran and lifted a few weights. I instantly felt better.
Then I meditated for about 10 minutes. Bringing myself back to the moment is a great way to beat stress.
I then shut down my computer, got outside, walked, met with a friend and spent a few hours of disconnected time.
When I got back, I did return to the computer, but only allowed myself shorter bursts.
I also took a short nap (highly, highly recommended).
I massaged my shoulders (OK, my wife Eva also helped with the shoulder massage).
I read for a bit.
I spent some time reading with my kids.
And I had some green tea while drinking it slowly and savoring it.
This is a de-stressing routine that works wonders. You don’t need to do the entire routine, but pick three or four and apply generously.