There’s never enough time. You want to exercise, eat well and be healthy. But the day slips by and you don’t go to the gym. You eat that muffin for lunch, instead of the salad you thought you would. You want to do great work, advance your career, produce something meaningful. But your email inbox […]
How to Cultivate Mental Stamina
One of the common questions I get asked about my ultralearning projects, such as the MIT Challenge, is how to keep up hard mental effort for long periods of time. During that project, for instance, my starting point was to study for 11-12 hours per day, five days a week. Starting at six in the […]
How to Push Past Your Analysis Paralysis
You know you should really get started but you can’t. What if you make the wrong choice? What if you start it out the wrong way, and it all gets ruined? You start to feel that weight in your stomach, that tension in your chest, as you feel a little panic about the idea of […]
Stress, Not Working Too Much, Causes Burnout
Burnout is awful. You feel like a zombie. Motivation is near-zero. Even if you take an night, weekend or several days off, you still feel as exhausted as you did before. It’s common to blame working too much as the cause of burnout. Psychologist Roy Baumeister, argues that ego depletion, the draining of your ability […]