Zenhabits Continues to Inspire

Leo put up a new post today over at zenhabits regarding success.  I always marvel at how well he puts things in perspective as it relates to simple living and placing value on the things that really matter.

Suffice it to say that his latest post is no exception, exploring how we define success.  His main point is that rather than consistently striving for more and more success, that time would be better spent examining what’s truly important to us. The enjoyment and satisfaction that comes from knowing we love the things with which we fill our lives, regardless of how someone else feels about those choices.

This really spoke to me.  Recently I had someone ask me if I wished our blog was more successful.  I thought about it a while and essentially come to the same conclusion that Leo is talking about.  Sure I wouldn’t mind having more subscribers or ad revenue, but at the end of the day I love writing here.  Even the exhaustive posts are a joy to work through and as long as it stays enjoyable, I’m sure Nicole and I will continue blogging indefinitely.

What’s your definition of success?


6 Changes

Leo Babauta, creator of the most excellent zenhabits recently created a new site, 6changes, which is aimed solely at helping people starting with the new year who want to make positive life changes.  His rationale for 6 changes is namely that it takes small, consistent changes over a period of a couple months combined with public accountability to really ingrain a healthy new habit such as exercising regularly, for example.  So, the math is 1 habit every 2 months, 6 times a year.

Because running this site with Nicole has been a great way to publicly make a fool of myself or offer some insight a few of you can appreciate, I felt this was the best place for me to publicly commit to a positive change in my life.  As of today, I have begun taking baby steps toward exercising each day, with the remaining 5 habits I wish to develop being listed here as I reach those milestones.

This isn’t me tooting my own horn or trying to point out how much more active I am than you, it’s simply my attempt to harness the power of the internet’s criticisms in a positive light to propel me toward sticking to a goal in my personal life.  So here goes- From here on out over the next 8 weeks I will post an additional update each week regarding my progress.  If you all feel I’m slacking or need to stay on it better, please email me your best FAIL pictures to joshua [at] geekspodcast.com.

Minimalist Gmail

GmailOne of my favorite websites is zenhabits.net.  It’s an inspiring place to be sure from author Leo Babauta where he almost daily posts about personal productivity, minimizing, and ultimately simplifying your life.  Considering Gmail is  essential to my daily communications, I was amazed at just how much you can pare down the already fairly minimalist Gmail interface.  If you’re tired of distractions when trying to get work done in your inbox, head on over and check out his post about how to streamline everyone’s favorite webmail.