I’ve always thought of life as a spiraling staircase, gracefully wrapping around time and achievement, as opposed to the blunt vertical found on a ladder. Comparing life’s ascension to a set of stairs is often apt, but there are moments when life as ladder is far more fitting, such as when we find ourselves stuck between rungs, mired in the middle of old pattern and new performance. This is when the decisive climb from one rung to the next must begin so that we may climb toward our tomorrow, while leaving yesterday behind.

Steps may be clambered in tandem (my wife and I often fall into reflexive harmony when we find ourselves on stairs together), but climbing a ladder is a solitary endeavor. We begin at the bottom, then spend our lifetimes reaching for the top, each rung pulling us closer to dusk and further from dawn. Destinations are determined by our daily decisions, as is our grasp and the speed of our climb.

Each of us finds ourselves at some point stuck between the rungs, pinned at an impasse. Perhaps success has halted, and our growth is no longer happening at the rate it once was. We can wrap our hands around the rung above, but we do not have the strength to pull ourselves upward. Often, it is the rung just below that is holding us hostage with insubordinate habit. It is then when we must lower our heel, shatter the habits to bits, and then continue to climb without looking behind.

It is never too late to learn a new habit; never to early to shed the old like dead, useless skin. Bad habits are formed by the slow and steady accumulation of mindless minutes. As a million years of rainfall will smooth the slope of a mountain summit, so do a million misplaced moments warp our good intentions.

We all are capable of reverse engineering our own bad behavior, but we cannot unlock the door without looking for the key.

We can start by searching for the reason in our routine. Understanding why we do something is an excellent precursor to halting the undesirable. If a bad habit is built by a sequence of negative actions, then a good habit can be formed by stringing opposite elements in an opposing direction.

New habits are most difficult at their birth. The links of our new chain are frail, and barely strong enough to hold their weight, but every moment of determination thickens our resolve.

For the last three years, I’ve run a preschool with my wife. Recently, I sailed the seas to full time writer. The needs of a cadre of kiddies are nowhere close to those of the online world, and adjustments needed to be made.

At first, it was easy to allow my old habits to swallow me. It would have been simple to swear I was doing my best, but I wasn’t. The whisper was there, and I rarely commanded his  silence. You know the voice, we all have one. Mine tells me to check my email, or my analytics… or my email (it’s been five minutes after all). Telling myself I could do better wasn’t enough. I needed to reach for the rung, and pull with all my might.

I could tell you that I used the mute on my computer to silence the song of my inbox, or preach the pluses of using pen and paper, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. Not one single bit. What worked for me may not work for you. I’ve read enough tips to know. I don’t need a “How To,” I need a “Why Should I.”

It is the universal thread that’s important - our need to change, and desire to do so. When want meets willing, there is no limit to how high we can climb.

Read more from Sean Platt at his blog, Writer Dad, or subscribe to his feed.

Like many people, I tend to overeat during the holidays, from Thanksgiving through New Year’s. It’s kinda part of the tradition to consume huge amounts of food, you know?

And like many others, I also tend to gain weight during the holidays — some people can gain 5 or more pounds (though for most it’s usually only a couple pounds).

Not this time around.

On Thanksgiving, while I enjoyed time with my family, and while everyone else pigged out, I ate moderately and wisely. And I felt great about it. I also got a great workout in the morning after — heavy deadlifts followed by two brutal 10-minute weight circuits and finished with 15 minutes of hard intervals.

This will be the healthiest holiday season ever for me. I’m also starting a meal plan and exercise routine that will have me drop some fat while gaining muscle by New Years, I promise. I’ll publish more about this plan after I see the results (3 pounds dropped already).

But the really cool thing I started on Thanksgiving comes from the Okinawan people (who don’t live too far away from my home, the beautiful island of Guam).

The Okinawan Diet Rules

The Okinawans (the indiginous people of the Ryukyu islands in Japan) are famous for having the longest life expectancy in the world. This single fact has had them studied from every angle, from diet to lifestyle to genetics to environment. And while all of these have played a factor, there’s no doubt that their traditional diet has played a big part — when they eat a more modern, Western-style diet, they don’t live as long or as healthy.

So what’s their secret? Actually, there are two secrets (and they’re not really secrets), and I used these rules to guide my eating on Thanksgiving (and beyond):

Rule 1. Eat to 80% full. The Okinawans call this rule “Hara Hachi Bu”, and if you haven’t tried it, you should. I did this on Thanksgiving — while I usually stuff myself with all the good food, I just ate until I was about 80% full. Of course, there’s no way to know exactly how full you are, but it’s a guideline. And as our brains are 10-20 minutes behind our stomachs, it usually turns out that when you think you’re 80% full, you’re actually full … while when we eat to 100% full, we are usually overstuffing ourselves.

The result of this rule for Okinawans is that they end up eating fewer calories than most people. They tend not to gain too much weight as a result, and coupled with their active lifestyles (they farm and garden and generally stay active, even into their 100s), it keeps them very healthy.

The result for the rest of us is that eating fewer calories will keep the extra pounds off. If we pair this with the next rule and an active lifestyle, we can actually lose weight during the holidays.

Rule 2: Eat healthy foods, mostly plants. Way before Michael Pollan wrote about his simple rules for eating healthy, the Okinawans had this down. They eat way more veggies than most people (mostly green and yellow ones), as well as whole grains, tofu, fish and other legumes. They eat very little sugar, and very little meat, dairy or eggs. This contradicts low-carb diets such as the Zone, Atkins, Paleo and others — I’m not saying those don’t work for whatever your goals are, but I am saying that a mostly plant-based diet has been proven to work well for the Okinawans.

I used these guidelines during Thanksgiving. I don’t eat meat or fish, so I stuck with veggies and sweet potatoes and a mango-ginger tofu dish I made. Again, I ate to about 80% full, and loved it. OK, I also had some pumpkin pie (made it myself) but as I ate mostly healthy and didn’t overeat, I felt great about it.

Can you follow these rules throughout the holidays, and the rest of your life as well? The Okinawans did it (although the younger generation has changed to a more Western lifestyle and has suffered for it) and I think I can too, most of the time. Treats are great in moderation, but moderation is the key word.

Get Active Too

I’m adding more exercise to these Okinawan diet rules (not to be confused with the commercial Okinawan diet, which I think is unnecessary if you follow these rules). The extra activity will help burn any extra calories I take in (which won’t be a huge amount) and I hope lean me out even more. My goal is to be in the best shape of my life by New Year’s — why wait until then to start?

The key is to just get active. Exercise regularly if you can, play sports, toss a ball around with your family. My nephews and I tossed a football around and worked up a sweat durng Thanksgiving lunch, and the next day during a day-after-Thanksgiving dinner with my dad I went swimming with the kids.

For those who are curious, I’ll list my current workout routine. I don’t expect anyone to follow it, especially if you’re not very active already.

• Mon: Running — intervals combined with steady state for 40-60 mins
• Tue: Heavy weights plus metabolic-conditioning strength circuits plus 15-mins of high-intensity cardio intervals
• Wed: Running — hill sprint repeats combined with steady state for 40-60 mins
• Thu: Heavy weights plus metabolic-conditioning strength circuits plus 15-mins of high-intensity cardio intervals
• Fri: Running — longer distance running (over an hour, sometimes two) including some intervals
• Sat: Heavy weights plus metabolic-conditioning strength circuits plus 15-mins of high-intensity cardio intervals
• Sun: rest (although I often play soccer with the kids or do yardwork or sometimes go hiking)

I try to mix some yardwork and other activities in there when I’m not too tired. Oh, and I’m doing a marathon in Honolulu on Dec. 14!

So what are your health and fitness goals this holiday season? Do you plan to just eat whatever you like, or are you getting leaner too?

Our planet isn’t in very good shape right now. The air is polluted. The ocean is becoming plastic soup. We’re in a financial crisis.

Things don’t seem to be looking too good, huh?

There are a lot of people, that have a lot of answers. Everyone things their answer is right. We need cleaner, natural sources for energy. We need biodegradable products that if dumped, will simply disintegrate within a few weeks. As far as the financial crisis goes, that’s a little trickier. Some people say we need more regulation. Others say we need more jobs. Others still say the cost of living is increasing too fast for our incomes to keep up.

Everyone has answers.

The problem is, none of these answers address the fundamental problem:

We don’t need to do anything about it.

No, I didn’t stutter.

The answer isn’t in better solutions, fixes and different angles. The answer is… we need to do less.

There’s a fundamental rule in physics that says, energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transferred. I’m sure you’re familiar with this, we all learned it in school. And the same rule applies to everything in life, but I guess we didn’t listen very well.

See, the problem we’re in this big mess is really simple. It may seem like there’s so much we need to do, to make things right. And that’s the problem. We don’t need to do more. We don’t need to make more of an effort. We need to do less.

That’s why I don’t understand a lot of these “green enthusiasts.” They say we need greener products, with less of an environmental impact. They want to make our consumables more eco-friendly. I agree this is part of the answer, but the issue is really only a sliver of the type of things we consume. It’s how much we consume.

Consuming has caused the majority of our financial and environmental problems. We take more than we give. We know that we’ll need to repay our debt sooner or later, but we put it off. Interest accrues, financially and ecologically. It’s not until the problem gets so huge — and we can’t ignore it anymore — that we take action.

Just like energy cannot be created, or destroyed, we can’t magically make our financial or environmental debts disappear. The rubber band can only bend so far before it swings back.

So why do we avoid using less? Why are we so hungry to consume? Maybe it’s because we’re looking for the wrong things. Maybe what we really need is an internal revolution.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways we can use the power of less to restore balance.

• Driving less, walking more. Not only will you be saving the environment, you’ll be saving your heart as well. Bonus!
• Wanting less, appreciating more. Instead of wanting a big home you can’t afford, maybe you should settle for living in smaller home in a less expensive area. Enjoy your space more. By spending less money on mortgage, you’ll be saving more time. Time is life. Win/win.
• Talking less, listening more. We spend most of our time listening formulating our response. You’d be amazed how much people never really hear each other at all. Think about how your life can be improved by understanding people better. You’ll probably avoid a lot of unnecessary drama do to misunderstandings. When I do this, my wife gets mad at me less for not listening. That’s always nice. =)
• Buy things that are more expensive, but last longer. A double edged razor will last a lot longer than disposable razors. You’ll save money too. Use real dishes instead of plastic/paper. It may seem like a little more work to wash them, but it really isn’t. It takes more energy to mine that plastic, manufacture, package, distribute and purchase then it does to wash a dish. Rethink convenience.
• Spend more time being mindful. The more mindful we are, the more we’ll save. We often waste a lot of time rushing around, trying to do too many things at once. We try to print a report, make coffee, and talk on the phone at the same time. Doing this we run the risk of printing the wrong pages, accidentally forgetting the coffee filter and saying the wrong thing. We spend more time correcting ourselves than we would save simply being mindful.
• Less things. The more things we buy, the more we resources we take from the planet. The more we consume, the larger that debt becomes. Buying new clothes, appliances or phones isn’t really a bad thing. It’s our addiction to buy the newest and greatest each year or every few months that is dangerous. After all, that old thing has to go somewhere. And it’s probably in a landfill somewhere.

How can you use the power of less is to help save the planet? I would love to hear your ideas.

This article was written by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead of the Illuminated Mind blog. For more ways to do less (and get more), grab a subscription to Illuminated MInd.

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The holidays are a time of celebration for many — good food, lots of parties, gift-giving, family and friends, — but they can also be a time of mass consumption and hyper-consumerism.

I think with all the stresses of this season, and the expectations of our society, we often feel that we must give expensive gifts and throw lavish parties and cook up incredible amounts of food and drink — let’s admit it — what can only be called an unhealthy amount of alcohol.

It’s easy, with all this going on, to forget the true spirit of this season.

Recently I had a talk with my kids about how we shouldn’t think the holidays are all about getting gifts. How we should try to find other ways to celebrate, and get more into the spirit of giving. I’ve been reflecting on this a lot recently, and while none of this is anything original, I thought I’d share a few of my thoughts in hopes that it can keep things a little more sane for some people — and a little more joyful as well.

A Time for Gratitude

For those of us in the U.S., this is Thanksgiving week. That often becomes a day of overeating more than anything else, but what I love about it is that I get to get together with my family. I see grandparents and parents, cousins and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and half-siblings — people I see only intermittently throughout the year, not enough to be honest.

We get together and catch up and share our joys and sorrows. Yes, we overeat. But who among us can resist homemade pumpkin pie? It’s my favorite all-time dessert, actually. :)

But what should Thanksgiving really be about, besides family and friends? It’s about giving thanks, and too often this fades into the background of the holiday.

So I’d like to take a moment to give my thanks, briefly:

• I am deeply grateful for my wife, Eva, and my kids (Chloe, Justin, Rain, Maia, Seth and Noelle) … I love them all, overwhelmingly. I am grateful for my mom, Shannon, my dad, Joe, my sisters Katrina, Ana, Tiara, my brothers Joe, Brandon, Austin, and everyone else I’m lucky enough to call family.
• I am truly, truly grateful to all of you, my readers, for your continual encouragement on this blog, for making my dreams of doing something I’m passionate about come true, for making this job an incredibly fun and gratifying job. I am blessed to have all of you.
• I am blessed to be healthy, to have a great job, to have all my needs and desires fulfilled, to live a simple and joyful life.

What are you grateful for? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments! Take time this week, and all through the holidays, to cultivate the gratitude habit. It can change your life.

A Time for Reflection

The holidays being at the end of the year, I also like to remember to take this time to reflect on my life, the year so far, and the direction I’m headed in. It’s a great time to take assessment, to adjust as needed, to figure out what you want to do in the upcoming year.

I like to use this time, also, to simplify my life. To remember what’s essential, to eliminate the non-essential.

It’s also a great time, as you’re simplifying, to get rid of clutter. I like to get rid of stuff that’s accumulated throughout the year — and even the best declutterers among us have this happen — and Eva and I also help the kids go through their closets to make room for the crazy amounts of stuff they’ll be getting in December.

A Time for Celebration

While I know many of you are not Christian, for those of us who celebrate Christmas this season is really about celebrating Christ, as well as all that he stands for. The rest of you, I know, have other reasons for celebrating, religious or not.

I think this act of celebration is important, because it helps us to remember what’s important, and brings joy into our lives. It spices up life, and who doesn’t need a little merry-making in their life?

I love the traditions that come along with this season. Yours may be different, of course, but these traditions become important, no matter how small. My mom always invites me and my sisters, for example, to come over to make Christmas cookies. The kids get involved and it’s so much fun!

There are lots of little traditions like this, from decorating the Christmas tree to kissing under the mistletoe to exchanging gifts that are a lot of fun. What are your traditions?

I think it’s important to find ways to celebrate without having to spend tons of money. Christmas and the other holidays you might celebrate are not about getting deeply into debt. And it doesn’t have to be that way — if your family usually spends a lot of money to celebrate the holidays, it might be a good time to have a talk and see if there are other ways that you can be merry without Visa or Mastercard.

Some ideas:

• Exchange home-made gifts or consummables.
• Go caroling.
• Volunteer for charity (see next section for more).
• Have a party with singing and dancing and games and food, but no gifts required.
• Get together to do a community project.

I’m sure you can think of many others.

A Time for Giving

Receiving gifts is always fun, of course, as is giving lots of gifts. But this season of giving doesn’t have to be about buying in order to give. You can make things, for example … or better yet, you can give in other ways:

• Volunteer for charity. We do this with our kids, from Salvation Army bell ringing (lots of fun because you sing carols and give people candy) to cooking and serving food for the homeless. It teaches the kids a lot about giving, and warms your heart to help others.
• Do something nice for people you love. Wash their car, do chores or errands for them, babysit so they can go on a date, cook them their favorite dish or treat, help them with a project.
• If you have a lot of money to burn (as it seems with all the spending we do!), give it to someone who needs it more. Donate to a good cause.

On Consumerism and All That Jazz

I’ve mentioned consumerism a few times now and I think I should say a few words about it. First, let me start by saying I am in no way immune from consumerism — I am a part of it just as much as anyone else, and so I criticize it from within the system, not from without.

What’s consumerism? Basically, equating happiness with material goods. Buying in order to bring happiness and solve problems. Spending more and more — and earning more and more to support the spending — in order to realize the dreams given to us by advertising and a consumerist society.

It’s good for the economy but bad for the individual. We end up in an endless cycle of spending and debt and working more and more, and end up with lives filled with goods but empty of meaning and happiness.

It gets to its worst point during the holidays — we become engaged in a consumerist frenzy that frankly scares me sometimes. Debt becomes a huge problem for a lot of people, and for what? So that people can end up with a mass of stuff they don’t need and often don’t really want. Even kids, who love getting gifts more than anyone else, don’t have time to play with all their new toys. They rip through the carefully-wrapped packages, take a quick look at their gift, and then move on to the next present. And here’s the kicker: they already have enough toys and gadgets! My kids have more than any kid should ever have (I didn’t buy all of it, in my shoddy defense), and they’re at the point when they’re really having to dig deep to think of things they want this Christmas. It’s too much.

So what’s the solution? Well the simple solution is to stop spending, to find other ways to give and to celebrate. But often that requires some changing of deeply-held traditions, and some uncomfortable discussions among families and friends. It means agreeing to do things differently, and perhaps being seen as a weirdo for doing so.

It can be done. We just need to realize that this season is not about buying stuff. It’s about celebrating, giving, spending time with family, reflecting, and gratitude.

It is a rare person who lives without fear of one kind or another.  You may fear heights, or spiders, or new situations, or rejection–whatever your fears may be, you can either let those fears form boundaries beyond which you can’t move or grow, or you can face them head-on and allow them to become opportunities to move into new places in your life.  The choice is truly yours.

Fear can be paralyzing, literally, for some people.  As a camp counselor many years ago, I helped teach rappelling to high-school students, and there were some who were eager to step off the edge of the cliff and experience the thrill of zipping down on a rope.  But there were some who were so afraid of heights (or more specifically, of falling), that no matter how much I tried to assure them that the rope would not break, and that they could completely control their rate of descent, they simply froze up and could not take that first step over the edge.

Fear is not always a bad thing.  There are obviously some things about which we should be afraid and in which we should exercise appropriate caution.  But if our fears control us, or prevent us from taking certain risks, we allow those fears to define us, to limit us only to courses of action that we deem sufficiently safe, and as a result, many of us never achieve our potential–or we cheat ourselves out of the richness that life could otherwise hold for us.

1.  Realize that everyone is afraid of something.
I am the only person in my household who is not deathly afraid of spiders.  If a spider of any size or species turns up anywhere in my house and my wife or one of my children sees it, I have to drop whatever I am doing to deal with it.  Once, while I was out of town on a business trip, I got a phone call from my wife, who was in a state of panic because there was a spider in the kitchen.  (I had to make arrangements for a neighbor to come over and kill it.)  Spiders don’t bother me, but if a wasp gets anywhere near me, I simply have to leave.  On one occasion, I jumped from the top of a twenty-foot ladder while painting a house, fearing a wasp that was hovering nearby far more than the risk of injuring myself seriously by jumping off the ladder.

Others may not fear the same things you fear, but everyone fears something, and understanding this can help you not to feel isolated in your fear.  You’re not alone, and the fact that you are fearful in some area doesn’t make you a weak person.

Try this:  find someone to talk to about your fears–you may find that someone else has faced the same fears as you, and has found a way through them that can help you.

2.  You don’t have to overcome your fear all at once.
When my daughters were very young–still toddlers–we enrolled them in swimming lessons with a friend who taught children as young as six months old to swim.  She didn’t do this by just tossing the kids into the water on the first day.  She gradually introduced them to the water, holding them and allowing them to get used to it, teaching them how to float on their backs and so on, until eventually, they were able to jump in and swim on their own.

If you are fearful of public speaking, for example, you may not want to begin addressing this fear by booking a speaking gig in front of a thousand people.  As a high-school student, I was abnormally shy, so as you might imagine, my sophomore speech class was a serious challenge for me.  My first speech assignment was to introduce myself to the class with a five-minute talk about myself, and after about two minutes of stuttering through my notes in abject terror, my field of vision literally began to narrow, and I thought I might actually black out on the spot, so I just stopped and went back to my seat without finishing.  I got an “F” for that assignment, and my teacher, knowing that I was really struggling with stage fright, asked me come see her after school.  She was understanding and encouraging, and let me give her my speech one-on-one, and the next time I had to give a speech, I did much better.  I went on to study broadcast journalism in college, which involved reporting and occasionally anchoring our college television newscast, and one of my first jobs after college involved weekly talks to groups of teenagers.  These days I face a crowd of several hundred people every week, and although I still get a few butterflies now and then, I’m far more at ease than I was that day in high school.  But it didn’t happen all at once.  Remember:  baby steps are okay.

Try this:  write down something you are afraid of, some fear you want to overcome, and make a list of three small steps you think you CAN make to begin facing up to your fear.  Choose one and do it tomorrow.

3. Approach your fears as opportunities for growth.
You don’t really want to be afraid, do you?  If you think about what your life might be like if you weren’t afraid of that thing, whatever it is, you know that things would be better.  If you look beyond the fear to the benefits of overcoming the fear, you may see a world that might just be worth taking some risk to live in.

Take a few minutes and make a list of the pros and cons of dealing with the thing that you’re afraid of:

• What are the potential benefits of overcoming that fear?
• How might your life be different if you weren’t afraid of it?
• What would you be free to do that you aren’t free to do now because of your fear?
• What do you have to lose by giving up that fear?

If you can objectively appraise the advantages to moving past your fear, you may come to see your fear as an opportunity to grow.  The adage, “nothing ventured, nothing gained,” and all of its various permutations (e.g., “no guts, no glory”) are based on the time-tested principle that we can’t grow if we don’t allow ourselves to be stretched.  You know this is true in the physical realm–a muscle that isn’t regularly used eventually atrophies and becomes useless–and it is no less true in other areas of our lives.

Try this:  write a paragraph or two about how your life will be different when you overcome that fear that has dogged you for so long, and why the potential benefits are worth some risk.

4. Be careful how you talk to yourself about what you fear.
Sometimes we are fearful of what we imagine might happen if we step outside of our comfort zone.  It’s all too easy to convince yourself that your reasons for being afraid are all valid.   I once heard a wise man say, “More important than what happens to us is how we talk to ourselves about what happens to us.”  This is so true–we can imagine all sorts of negative things when we contemplate something we’re afraid of, but this doesn’t make those things real.

It is entirely natural to be fearful of the unknown.  You don’t know what might happen if you make that phone call to the person who intimidates you, or you’re not sure how the boss might react if you really speak your mind.  Why not go ahead and make a list of the possible outcomes?  What do you really have to lose if you take the risk?  Seeing that list on paper may help you see how irrational some of your fears really are.  Don’t forget to include in your list the possibility that things might turn out for the better.

Try this:  instead of convincing yourself to believe the worst about something you fear, try imagining the best.

5. Failure isn’t necessarily the end of the world.
If there is one fear that is common to nearly all of us, it is the fear of failure.  While there are some scenarios in which failure is potentially devastating, or perhaps even life-threatening, most of the time it isn’t.  Yet the fear of failure short-circuits ideas, stymies careers and deprives us of experiences and opportunities that could enrich our lives.

If you have an idea and don’t try it for fear of failure, you’ve just given someone else the chance to try it instead–and someone else will, if you don’t.  Thomas Edison is often credited with the invention of the incandescent light bulb in 1878, but the truth is that the light bulb was actually invented decades earlier.  In 1802, Sir Humphrey Davy discovered that electricity could make a thin strip of platinum glow and give off light, but because platinum was so expensive, he didn’t develop the idea much further.  In 1840, James Bowman Lindsay put a platinum filament into a glass bulb and removed most of the air so that the filament wouldn’t oxidize, and thus the first working light bulb was created.  But again, the expense of platinum prevented him from producing the bulb commercially.  Edison came along more than 30 years later, bought the previous patents, and experimented with thousands of different materials for filaments that could be commercially produced, eventually developing a filament from carbonized bamboo that would last for 1200 hours.  He didn’t stop there–Edison went on to design an electric power distribution system that would make the use of light bulbs practical and profitable.

One could argue that all but one of Edison’s attempts to perfect the electric light bulb was a failure.  Edison considered each failed filament to be an important lesson–he had learned yet another material that would not work.  But perhaps more importantly, he didn’t let the road blocks that others had met deter him.

Our failures can be dead-ends or learning experiences that can lead us to try other routes to success, depending on how we treat them.  “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”  That’s a very old saying, but it’s great advice.

Try this:  if you’re afraid to fail at something, make yourself a list of the things you can try if you do fail at first.  It never hurts to plan ahead.  (They put redundant systems on the Space Shuttle for this very reason.)

So what are you afraid of?

Doug Heacock writes about how to be more successful working at home at Underpants Office.

Recently I read an old post about why another blogger doesn’t like Zen Habits, and it centered around the idea that she thought I was preaching to readers as if I’m perfect. And I thought to myself, “Boy, I hope people don’t think I’m perfect!”

Because the truth is, I’m far from it. I have problems like everyone else. I struggle with productivity and procrastination and losing weight and losing my patience and everything else, just like you do.

So I’ve decided to share some of my struggles and failures, just to dispell the myth that I’m perfect. As I said in my story almost two years ago (I really should update that), I’m just a regular guy, trying to improve my life and enjoy life, just like everyone else.

Here are a few things I’ve been struggling with lately, just to put your mind at ease:

1. Junk food. I’ve actually been eating pretty healthy lately, but almost every day I cheat a little from my diet (more of a meal plan than a “diet”). I’ll have a sweet treat, some of my kids’ french fries, some pizza, or something along those lines. I don’t drink soda, I rarely eat grains these days, and I eat almost all whole food with lots of protein and fruits and veggies … but not all the time. I cheat. What I learned: Junk food is a habit, just as hard to break as cigarettes or alcohol. I will either have to go cold turkey and quit the habit, just like I did with smoking, or accept it as a part of my life.
2. Procrastination. While I tend to get the important stuff done, there have been a couple of projects I’ve pushed to the back burner, even though I really want to do them. I just get busy, and lazy, and my life has other priorities (getting in shape and spending time with my family foremost among them). So things have been pushed on the back burner, and I feel guilty. What I learned: First, don’t stress about it. You can’t do everything — you’ve got to prioritize, which I’ve done. So don’t stress those things that don’t get done — you’ll never have a day when everything on your list is done. Second, I find it useful when I clear my schedule and focus on a project for a day. I did this recently with an ebook and got a lot done.
3. Patience. I generally try to be a pretty patient person and a patient father. But I admit I fail often. Having six kids is a lot of fun and extremely rewarding, but can be a bit of a test at times. I sometimes lose my patience. OK, almost every day. And I’ll yell, and feel guilty about it afterwards. What I learned: well, I haven’t conquered this one yet, so I can’t claim to know how to do it. But I have accepted a couple things. First, I’m not a perfect parent and I don’t know if such a parent exists. We do our best, and what’s more important than our failures is that we care and we try. Second, my kids are not perfect either, and if I can accept my imperfections, I have to accept theirs too. Put myself in their place, and understand why they fail. Empathize.
4. Online reading. I tend to get really interested in a topic and will spend days reading about it, often online, devouring every article I can find on the subject. Recently, I confess that I’ve been on a fitness reading binge. Seriously, if you added up the amount of time I’ve spent in the last month reading fitness blogs and magazines (online), it would amount to days. Not just a couple days either. A bunch of days. Just a few of my favs: Mark’s Daily Apple, Crossfit (including forums), Ross Training, the IF Life, Stronglifts, Fitness Black Book, Mizfit Online, Men’s Health, Runner’s World, Go Healthy Go Fit, Lean & Hungry Fitness, Fat Man Unleashed, Zen To Fitness, Modern Forager, Turbulence Training, TriHardist … actually I could go on all day but you get my point. What I learned: Actually, a whole lot about fitness! :) But I’ve also learned to prioritize my time, so that I get the important stuff done first and then get to my reading later.

These aren’t the only failures I’ve had but they’re probably my most recent ones. And I don’t think you’d want a catalog of my life’s failures (how much time do you have anyway?) … I just wanted to point out that I fail, just like everyone. I struggle with motivation and habit changes. I am imperfect.

And yet, like many of you, I have made progress with these struggles. I learn from my failures and do better the next time. I have had many successes, and those have been wonderful. I succeed despite (or perhaps because of) these failures, with small incremental changes, by celebrating my successes and keeping a positive attitude, by loving the journey.

And I know that my imperfections make me who I am. I try not to beat myself up too much, and feel good about the good things in me. Because there are many good things in me: I am caring, I am kind, I am passionate, I am (fairly) intelligent, and also I have a nice butt. Well, that last one is according to my wife. :)

“Smile, breathe and go slowly.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Sarah, a psychiatrist of How to Cope with Pain.

Ever have one of those days when it seems there’s not a minute to catch your breath, let alone meditate or relax? A day when you feel like the proverbial busy bee, with no time to admire the fragrant flowers you’re landing on?

Leo has given us some wise ways to relax, simplify, and take life more slowly, but you might still find it tricky to always put these suggestions to use. Or, perhaps for you, some days flow smoothly, but there are still some - or many - during which taking a break feels impossible.

On those days, instead of an evening, an hour, or even 15 minutes to relax, could you spare 6 seconds?

Yes, that’s right… 6 seconds. That’s the time it takes to let yourself have 1 relaxing breath. 2 seconds breathing in through your nose, and 4 seconds exhaling through your mouth. Right now, I’m going to ask you to take 12 seconds for an experiment. At the end of this sentence, practice that relaxing breath… 2 seconds in and 4 seconds out.

That’s right. And once again at the end of this sentence.

Even that little amount of time – 6 seconds - can help your body and mind relax. Let your heart rate slow. Let some of the stress slide away.

Now how can you give yourself the gift of relaxing breaths during even your busiest days? One answer is to pair a relaxing breath with an activity that comes up repeatedly during your day. For example, let’s say you’re a secretary. Each time your phone rings, breathe before you answer it. (6 seconds is less than the time it takes for the phone to ring again, so no one will even notice you’re taking time for yourself.)

Here are some other examples of fitting in a single breath, using - you guessed it - BREATHE:

B: If you’re a Blogger, take a breath each time you click “save” when writing an article for your blog.
R: If you make Reservations for an airline, take a breath each time you book a flight going east.
E: If you’re an Engineer, take a breath each time you use your calculator.
A: If you’re an Accountant, take a breath each time you see a number ending in 6.
T: If you’re a Teacher, take a breath each time the school bell rings.
H: If you’re a Highway tollbooth operator, take a breath each time a white car comes through your lane.
E: If you’re an Editor, take a breath each time you correct a comma.

Now it’s time to put your creativity to work for yourself. You’re invited to fill in the blanks below, and then share in the comments what you’ll do to regularly sneak in relaxed breathing during your day.

I’m a _________________, so I’ll take a breath each time I ________________________.

Will you commit to try this exercise today? Remember, even busy bees rest. The American Bee Journal says so. And if they can do it, so can you!

How to Cope with Pain, hosted by a psychiatrist specializing in chronic pain management, frequently writes about breathing, relaxing, and managing stress.

I’ll be answering any questions you might have about writing and blogging in the comments of the “Ask Leo” post. I’ve committed to doing this for four hours, so be sure to come on over before 9:00 p.m. Eastern U.S. time.

Update: This session is now over. Thanks for those who participated!

Fire Fly Manifesto

My friend Jonathan Fields has launched the Career Renegade site, and with it he’s giving away a great free ebook called the Fire Fly Manifesto … click on the link to go get it for free. It’s a great manifesto that shows us that this bad economy, downsizing and all, is actually a great opportunity to do a whole bunch of things with your career, if you look at things in a new way. I love it.

Go get it now! No email address required. Pass it on to friends you think might like it.

Launch of Productive Magazine

My fellow productivity fanatics will love this new magazine: Productive Magazine. It just launched, created by the creator of productivity software Nozbe, and it features some great articles … including one about Zen To Done, an interview with GTD’s David Allen, essential productivity tools, a GTD primer, learning productivity tips and tricks in 2 minutes, and much more. And it’s a free download!

“Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are.  When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” - Lao Tzu

Article by Leo Babauta. (Follow me on Twitter.)

For many years, I was a packrat, clinging to possessions like a safety blanket, like trophies, like you might cling to the past. My life was filled with clutter, from my closets to my living room to my countertops to my desk at work.

That changed about a decade ago, when I realized that I simply had too much stuff.

I was owned by my possessions, and they were no longer making me happy. I wanted to conquer my clutter.

And so I did, one heap at a time. I think I saved the closets for last, because they were way too intimidating. But slowly, I made progress, and simplifying my possessions was (and is) an ongoing project.

Today I’m pretty happy with the way I’ve simplified my home (and workspace). I’m pretty minimalist, and while clutter still does accumulate when I’m not vigilant, I tackle it head on every now and then to keep things fairly clutter-free.

I’m not saying everyone needs to be as minimalist as I am. Take my minimalist workspace, for example — I don’t expect anyone to reduce clutter that much, nor do I think they’d even want to. Everyone has their ideal level of simplicity — what matters most is keeping what’s essential to you, and getting rid of the rest.

And so today I’ll take a look at how you can conquer your clutter, no matter what your goals are or how bad things are now. Note: I’ve written about this topic a number of times before, but I thought I’d gather together the best strategies and tips into one powerful guide, useful both for those who have read previous articles and for those who haven’t.

First: Why Should You Simplify?

What’s the problem with clutter? Well, nothing, if that’s the way you like things. Everyone lives differently, and I’m not saying the decluttered lifestyle is better than the cluttered one.

However, I’ve found some benefits of decluttering from my decade or so of experience with this issue:

• Less stressful. Clutter can be a lot of visual distraction and mental stress. It’s basically a bunch of things you have to do (put away clothes, file papers, pay bills, get rid of junk, etc.) that you’re procrastinating on. While you don’t want to think about them, in the back of your mind you know they’re there.
• More efficient. I don’t know about you, but I work much better in an uncluttered home or workspace. There aren’t as many distractions, which means I can focus better.
• More peaceful. I can really relax in an uncluttered home. It’s just serene.
• More attractive. When you’re trying to sell your home, real estate agents will tell you that decluttering a home will really increase your odds of selling at a good price. That’s because people think uncluttered homes are more attractive. The same applies to when you have visitors — they will think your house is nicer just because it’s uncluttered.
• Saves time. Clutter comes with a time cost — you have to look for things, move things, store things, take things out of storage. Decluttering takes up some time, but in the long run I’ve found it saves a lot of time.
• Saves money. Clutter comes with a price tag as well — you need a bigger home and bigger closets and other storage space for all the clutter. Sometimes people buy extra storage space in other facilities to store all their stuff. Moving is a big hassles too, and costly. Other people will buy or build a shed or other storage structure in their own home.
• Frees up space. Less clutter means more space for living and playing and working. A garage is a good example — some people have so much clutter that their car(s) don’t fit in the garage, meaning they have to park outside. But declutter your garage and you have room for the car, or maybe a home gym instead.

Fundamental Simplicity Principles

Before you tackle your clutter, there are four basic steps to decluttering to keep in mind. Let’s take the example of decluttering a single drawer. These are the fundamental steps:

1. Collect. Take out everything and put it in a pile. Empty the entire drawer, and pile it all on a counter or a table. Take everything out, down to the last paper clip.
2. Choose. Pick out only the few things you love and use and that are important to you. Just sort through the pile, picking out the really essential stuff. Be very selective. Put the important stuff you pick out into a separate, smaller pile.
3. Eliminate. Toss the rest out. You know you’ll never need those manuals again. Don’t be sentimental with this step. Either throw everything into a big trash bag, or find a new home for some of the items if you think someone might have a use for them — donate them to charity or give them to a friend who would love them. And yes, you have to toss out all the chopsticks.
4. Organize. Put back the essential things, neatly, with space around things. Clean the drawer out first, of course, and put the very small pile of things you chose back in the drawer, grouping like things together and leaving space around the groups. Having space around things makes everything look neater and simpler.

This process is repeated for every drawer, shelf, table top, counter space, floor, closet, or any other area you’re trying to declutter.

10 Ways to Get Started

When you first decide to tackle your clutter, things can be overwhelming. Don’t let that intimidate you! Just get started, and tackle one small thing at a time. Don’t worry about the entire mess — focus on one area. Just that one area. It could be a countertop. It could be a drawer. It could be just a little corner of a room. It doesn’t matter what you choose — just start small.

Here are some different strategies for getting started — choose one and give it a try. If it turns out to be too hard, try another. It doesn’t matter which one you choose — what matters is starting.

1. Start clearing a starting zone. What you want to do is clear one area. This is your no-clutter zone. It can be a counter, or your kitchen table, or the three-foot perimeter around your couch. Wherever you start, make a rule: nothing can be placed there that’s not actually in use. Everything must be put away. Once you have that clutter-free zone, keep it that way! Now, each day, slowly expand your no-clutter zone until it envelopes the whole house! Unfortunately, the neighbors don’t seem to like it when you try to expand the no-clutter zone to their house, and start hauling away their unused exercise equipment and torn underwear when they’re not at home. Some people don’t appreciate simplicity, I guess.
2. Clear off a counter. You want to get your house so that all flat spaces are clear of clutter. Maybe they have a toaster on them, maybe a decorative candle, but not a lot of clutter. So start with one counter. Clear off everything possible, except maybe one or two essential things. Have a blender you haven’t used since jazzercise was all the rage? Put it in the cupboard! Clear off all papers and all the other junk you’ve been tossing on the counter too.
3. Pick a shelf. Now that you’ve done a counter, try a shelf. It doesn’t matter what shelf. Could be a shelf in a closet, or on a bookshelf. Don’t tackle the whole bookshelf — just one shelf. Clear all non-essential things and leave it looking neat and clutter-free.
4. Schedule a decluttering weekend. Maybe you don’t feel like doing a huge decluttering session right now. But if you take the time to schedule it for later this month, you can clear your schedule, and if you have a family, get them involved too. The more hands pitching in, the better. Get boxes and trash bags ready, and plan a trip to a charity to drop off donated items. You might not get the entire house decluttered during the weekend, but you’ll probably make great progress.
5. Pick up 5 things, and find places for them. These should be things that you actually use, but that you just seem to put anywhere, because they don’t have good places. If you don’t know exactly where things belong, you have to designate a good spot. Take a minute to think it through — where would be a good spot? Then always put those things in those spots when you’re done using them. Do this for everything in your home, a few things at a time.
6. Spend a few minutes visualizing the room. When I’m decluttering, I like to take a moment to take a look at a room, and think about how I want it to look. What are the most essential pieces of furniture? What doesn’t belong in the room but has just gravitated there? What is on the floor (hint: only furniture and rugs belong there) and what is on the other flat surfaces? Once I’ve visualized how the room will look uncluttered, and figured out what is essential, I get rid of the rest.
7. Put a load in your car for charity. If you’ve decluttered a bunch of stuff, you might have a “to donate” pile that’s just taking up space in a corner of your room. Take a few minutes to box it up and put it in your trunk. Then tomorrow, drop it off.
8. Pull out some clothes you don’t wear. As you’re getting ready for work, and going through your closet for something to wear, spend a few minutes pulling out ones you haven’t worn in a few months. If they’re seasonal clothes, store them in a box. Get rid of the rest. Do this a little at a time until your closet (and then your drawers) only contains stuff you actually wear.
9. Clear out your medicine cabinet. If you don’t have one spot for medicines, create one now. Go through everything for the outdated medicines, the stuff you’ll never use again, the dirty-looking bandages, the creams that you’ve found you’re allergic to, the ointments that never had an effect on your energy or your eye wrinkles. Simplify to the essential.
10. Pull everything out of a drawer. Just take the drawer out and empty it on a table. Then sort the drawer into three piles: 1) stuff that really should go in the drawer; 2) stuff that belongs elsewhere; 3) stuff to get rid of. Clean the drawer out nice, then put the stuff in the first pile back neatly and orderly. Deal with the other piles immediately!

The Next Steps

Once you’ve gotten a start, here are some other steps you can take to keep your momentum going:

1. Tackle one spot at a time. After doing one or two spots in the section above, choose another. Just do one spot at a time — don’t worry about the rest of the house. Each time you tackle a spot, you’re making another uncluttered space. Set aside a little time each day to do this, or big chunks if you can find them.
2. Designate a spot for incoming papers. Papers often account for a lot of our clutter. This is because we put them in different spots — on the counter, on the table, on our desk, in a drawer, on top of our dresser, in our car. No wonder we can’t find anything! Designate an in-box tray or spot in your home (or at your office, for that matter) and don’t put down papers anywhere but that spot. Got mail? Put it in the inbox. Got school papers? Put it in the inbox. Receipts, warranties, manuals, notices, flyers? In the inbox! This one little change can really transform your paperwork.
3. Create a “maybe” box. Sometimes when you’re going through a pile of stuff, you know exactly what to keep (the stuff you love and use) and what to trash or donate. But then there’s the stuff you don’t use, but think you might want it or need it someday. You can’t bear to get rid of that stuff! So create a “maybe” box, and put this stuff there. Then store the box somewhere hidden, out of the way. Put a note on your calendar six months from now to look in the box. Then pull it out, six months later, and see if it’s anything you really needed. Usually, you can just dump the whole box, because you never needed that stuff.
4. Create a 30-day list. The problem with decluttering is that we can declutter our butts off (don’t actually try that — it’s painful) but it just comes back because we buy more stuff. So fight that tendency by nipping it in the bud: don’t buy the stuff in the first place. Take a minute to create a 30-day list, and every time you want to buy something that’s not absolutely necessary (and no, that new Macbook Air isn’t absolutely necessary), put it on the list with the date it was added to the list. Make a rule never to buy anything (except necessities) unless they’ve been on the list for 30 days. Often you’ll lose the urge to buy the stuff and you’ll save yourself a lot of money and clutter.
5. Learn to file quickly. Once you’ve created your simple filing system, you just need to learn to use it regularly. Take a handful of papers from your pile, or your inbox, and go through them one at a time, starting from the top paper and working down. Make quick decisions: trash them, file them immediately, or make a note of the action required and put them in an “action” file. Don’t put anything back on the pile, and don’t put them anywhere but in a folder (and no cheating “to be filed” folders!) or in the trash/recycling bin.
6. Teach your kids where things belong. This only applies to the parents among us, of course, but if you teach your kids where things go, and start teaching them the habit of putting them there, you’ll go a long way to keeping your house uncluttered. Of course, they won’t learn the habit overnight, so you’ll have to be very very patient with them and just keep teaching them until they’ve got it. And better yet, set the example for them and get into the habit yourself.
7. Set up some simple folders. Sometimes our papers pile up high because we don’t have good places to put them. Create some simple folders with labels for your major bills and similar paperwork. Put them in one spot. Your system doesn’t have to be complete, but keep some extra folders and labels in case you need to quickly create a new file.
8. Have a conversation with your SO or roommate. Sometimes the problem isn’t just with us, it’s with the person or people we live with. An uncluttered home is the result of a shared philosophy of simplicity of all the people living in the house. If you take a few minutes to explain that you really want to have an uncluttered house, and that you could use their help, you can go a long way to getting to that point. Try to be persuasive and encouraging rather than nagging and negative. Read more about living with a pack rat.
9. Learn to love the uncluttered look. Once you’ve gotten an area decluttered, you should take the time to enjoy that look. It’s a lovely look. Make that your standard! Learn to hate clutter! Then catch clutter and kill it wherever it crops up.

Keeping It Uncluttered

Once you’ve tackled most of your clutter, you want to keep it fairly uncluttered from here on out. And trust me, clutter will come back if you let it. You have to make decluttering a continuous process — not necessarily every day or week, but something that you regularly revisit. More importantly, create systems and habits that will keep the clutter from overwhelming you once again.

Here are some ideas:

• One in, two out. Make it a rule: for every new item that comes into your life, you need to remove two. That means gifts, clothes, shoes, books, magazines, anything. It’s great to have a place where you put things you’re going to get rid of … whether to give to other people or to donate to charity or to take to a used book store. Then you can just grab the stuff on your way out to do errands.
• Limited storage. I like this rule because it fits in with my philosophy of self-set limitations: don’t allow yourself to have tons of storage space. The more storage you have, the more stuff you’ll keep. Instead, have limited storage and if stuff doesn’t fit in there, get rid of it. That forces you to make choices. They key is making those choices … if you don’t, you’ll end up with clutter.
• Clear floors and flat surfaces. Keep them clear. A room looks so much cleaner if all flat surfaces, from the floor to tabletops to countertops, are clear of clutter. Remove everything from these surfaces except perhaps one or two decorative items (don’t clutter with knick knacks). If you find stuff making its way here, clear it out. Clearing surfaces once a day or every couple days is a good routine.
• Designate a home for everything, and be fanatic. When you find stuff on flat surfaces, or draping over a chair, it might be because you don’t have a designated spot for that kind of thing. If you don’t, designate a spot for it immediately. If stuff doesn’t have a home in your home, you need to get rid of it, or it will forever wander around the house. The other problem might be that you have already designated a spot for it, but you’re just not good at putting it away. In that case, take a month to build up the habit of putting things where they belong immediately. It’ll make a huge difference.
• Regular decluttering sessions. Put in your calendar. Even the best of us need to declutter regularly. If you’ve decluttered your home, things might be great now, but you’ll need to do clutter maintenance. Put it in your calendar: perhaps once a month, once a week, or once every few months. Experiment to see what interval works for your life.
• Reduce your desires for more. If clutter is coming into your life at a rate that’s too great for you to handle, you might need to look at your buying habits. Do you go shopping for clothes or gadgets or shoes or books every week (or more)? Are you always buying stuff online? If so, is it out of real necessity, or do you just like to buy stuff? It’s important that you take a look at these desires, and see if you can address them. Reducing your desires will go a long way to reducing your need to fight clutter.
• Change your habits. Clutter didn’t create itself. It’s there because you put it there. What habits do you have that created the clutter? There may be many of them, some of them already mentioned above: you buy a lot, you don’t designate a home for things, you don’t put things away, you buy but don’t remove things … you may have other habits that create clutter. Change those habits, one at a time. Take 30 days and focus on a clutter habit, and see if you can create a new habit that will reduce your clutter.

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” - William Morris

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While I’ve never been a big fan of fear mongering, it’s clear that the US economy is in a little more than a slump. There are many ways we can live more frugally, and that includes spending less on groceries and being more conscious of the things we buy.

I’m not recommending that we buy less quality foods for the sake of cutting costs. I won’t recommend buying conventional over organic in order to save money. I don’t think you should have to sacrifice quality in order to have less of an impact on your wallet. There are, however, some great frugal tips that I’ve learned to help save money at the market.

1. Don’t buy plastic wrap, tin foil, sandwich bags, etc. For everything that you could think of needing  - a sandwich baggy, tin foil, or other disposable nonsense - there is a non-disposable alternative. Use tupperware instead.
2. Buy in bulk. Certain things like rice, beans and grains are much cheaper when purchased in bulk.
3. Don’t buy in bulk. Sometimes when you buy in bulk, you’ll have a tendency to eat things faster. If you have a 400 count box of twinkies, you’ll likely eat them much quicker than one with only 4. Try to buy things in bulk that you know won’t tempt you to binge on.
4. Don’t buy pre-made. If you cook something often, you’ll save a lot more buying the ingredients and cooking yourself, than buying it frozen.
5. Shop at farmer’s markets. Often local farmers can match or beat supermarket prices because they don’t have to pay overhead and transportation costs. Check this site out to do a search for a farmers market in your area.
6. Grow your own. I know I’m not the only one who doesn’t have the time or space (I live in an apartment) to grow much of my own food. Little things like herbs or indoor tomatoes, however, can be easily grown in your kitchen without much hassle. Basil, oregano, cherry tomatoes, alfalfa sprouts and mint are easily grown in your kitchen window.
7. Eat leftovers, instead of eating out. The convenience of eating out is often hard to resist. One way to avoid this temptation is preparing meals that can be eaten more than one day. Try making casseroles or lasagna that will last 2 or 3 days.
8. Eat out intelligently. Take advantage of restaurants that have 2 for 1 buffet, or lunch specials. Or make eating out a ritual on a certain day of the week. My wife and I only eat out on Fridays. Having a set day that we only eat out
9. Use coupons. It never hurts to do a little old fashioned coupon clipping. Now, however, you don’t have to clip them, you can print them.
10. Don’t shop hungry. If you don’t follow any of these tips, follow this one. Every time that I have spent way more than I expected at the grocery store, it was because I went there hungry. When you shop hungry, everything looks good and you want to buy everything. After you get home and eat, you’ll probably find yourself wondering what you’re going to do with all of that food. And much of it inevitably spoils and goes bad. If you do nothing else, don’t shop hungry.

Do you have any tips for saving money on food? Share with us in the comments.

This article was written by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead of the Illuminated Mind blog. For more ways to improve your life, grab a subscription to Illuminated MInd.

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