How to Enjoy Your Life and Your Job by Dale Carnegie

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File under: Work/Life Balance

This Blink wasn’t something I chose, but I figured I’d listen since it was auto-playing. As someone who struggles with work/life balance and who admittedly puts more weight on work—especially regarding my self-worth—I figured it might have something for me. It did, although it’s as corny as it sounds.

Most of what’s in here felt like good reminders:

• Emotional struggle and boredom can exhaust us.

• We want to be challenged.

• Criticism is good for us, assuming we are open to it.

• People are self-centered. Knowing this and using it can relieve personal stress and help you influence others.

I consider myself motivated by challenges and positive reinforcement. I am much more collaborative than I am competitive. So much of this resonated with me. What didn’t was that Carnegie, or Blinkist, paints much of this as manipulative—perhaps unintentionally.

Regardless, I think many of the tips here are effective, and the Blink was a good reminder of strategies I can use to make my work/life balance a bit easier.

The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma

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File under: Better Living

Routine works well for me. Or that it is; it works well for me when I stick to it, which, frankly, isn’t often—especially the last few years. I’ve struggled with motivation, distraction, and energy throughout my day. A lot of this is external stressors; the previous few years, basically ever since COVID dropped, have been hard on everyone. But it is what it is, and I’ve started doing whatever I can to try and break my way out of the funk I’ve been in. One thing I’ve been trying is waking up earlier, working towards a morning routine that primes me for a focused day and provides me time to do important things—work, write, plan, reflect, etc.—without distraction.

To that end, I’m giving the routine found in The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning, Elevate Your Life by Robin Sharma a try. Sort of.

It’s a relatively simple formula, which I like, and it dovetails nicely with my goals, family situation, work schedule, etc. However, my schedule with work makes it a little challenging to get up at 5 AM daily. So, I’m trying this when I wake up, and slowly, over time, I’ll attempt to shift to an earlier start time. I’ll likely never make it to 5. I’m ok with that. I’m working on building a flexible routine, and the routine found here will be only a part of that and a basis from which to modify. I’ve also got a few other things I like to do with my mornings that work well with the routine outlined here: getting outside with the sunrise, a cold shower (some days, heh), and some playtime with the pup.

We’ll see how it goes.

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A few notes and things that suck with me:

• Most people lack the cognitive bandwidth to be effective every day. This is greatly exacerbated by constant distraction and context switching. For most of us, our work and daily lives make it so we can’t avoid things that destroy our focus.

• Waking up early gives us a time and space that, if done with purpose, is free from daily distractions and allows for natural focus. There is also some science going on here. Without getting too far into it, our brains are primed first thing in the morning, and with some exercise and mindfulness, we can place ourselves in an excellent position to be more focused throughout the day.

• The concept of day stacking is essentially doing small things daily—as opposed to occasional grand efforts—to build skill and mastery.

• How to spend that first hour:

  • 20 minutes of exercise. Move, sweat, and relieve lingering cortisol while priming your brain to think faster.

  • 20 minutes of mindfulness. Meditate, reflect and journal.

  • 20 minutes of growth and learning. Read, listen to a podcast or study something you want to learn.

• How to wind down the day:

  • No screens after 8 pm.

  • Try and be in bed and ready for sleep by 10 pm.