Whatever Works Podcast

Brainstorming

Sometimes you encounter a tough problem, and you’re unsure how to make progress. You could be faced with a goal you don’t know how to reach or seeking an innovative approach to a conundrum you’ve approached previously. Brainstorming can open your mind to other aspects of the problem at hand, helping you look at the problem in a novel way and come up with an original way to tackle it.

Agenda Documents

Sometimes, it’s hard to remember what you wanted to discuss with people. This applies to coworkers, significant others, friends, family members, or even service providers. Agenda documents provide a written record of subjects you’d like to talk about.

Celebrate Success

Take the time to appreciate and celebrate your accomplishments. Life is more than just work, work, work. Highly productive people sometimes feel that they must always be doing something; many complete one project only to immediately move on to the next. This endless treadmill of productivity can lead to burnout and generate ever-increasing stress.

High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

An easier alternative to long training sessions comes in the form of HIIT—highly intense workout sessions lasting just a few minutes that can fit into almost any schedule. HIIT sessions are generally no more than ten minutes long; if you’re terribly short on time, even regular one- to two-minute sessions can be beneficial.

Agree to Be Hungry

Consciously listening to your body and agreeing to be hungry for a while can give you more control over your eating habits, allowing you to better meet your dietary goals. Additionally, there is some evidence to suggest that eating infrequently and allowing your stomach to empty between meals is healthy and helps digestion.

Remove Temptations

The human brain responds to immediate stimuli—what you see, you will want. To increase your sense of agency around food rather than succumb to instinctively eating whatever you crave, remove temptations from your environment.

The Pomodoro Technique

When you’re working on something that requires you to concentrate for an extended period of time, such as coding, writing, or analyzing data, you tend to get distracted after a short while. After a brief mental break, you will find it easier to resume focus and return to the task at hand.

Silent Date

There are times when you may want to spend time with your partner but, for one reason or another, you don’t want to make conversation. Perhaps you’ve had an argument, and the atmosphere between you is tense. Perhaps you haven’t seen each other for a while, and you want to reconnect slowly. Whatever your reasons, a silent date differs from simply hanging out without speaking. It’s a mutually agreed-upon commitment to refrain from speaking.

Morning Pages

Every morning, fill a few pages with stream-of-consciousness writing. By dumping the contents of your brain onto paper, you can process your emotions and find a private outlet for them. This can lessen their intensity and free up mental space, better equipping you to meet the day.

Kōans and Mu

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there, does it make a sound? Does a dog have Buddha-nature? Show me your original face before you were born. Such propositions defy our usual way of thinking, and any attempt to arrive at a definitive answer can be daunting or impossible. Nonetheless, there is value in asking them repeatedly and observing what the mind conjures in response.