1.9 – Recap

This blog is structured by weekly topics. Every Thursday, the week’s topic is summarized with clear and actionable implementation steps. You can find all these summary posts in this category.

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Recap: Positive Emotions

Over the past couple of weeks, you’ve heard a lot about the Big Five primitive emotions responsible for so much pain and suffering in today’s world. The Big Five include Craving, Ego, Sloth, Frustration, and Worry.  

This week, we introduced some positive emotions that can help bring balance to the system. I like to call these guys the Great Five: Inspiration, Altruism, Flow, Tolerance, and Excitement. 

This post summarizes some useful techniques for inviting the Great Five into your life. 

The checklist

Here are three simple steps to experiencing more positive emotions:

  1. Get to know the Great Five by heart.
    • It’s also very valuable to learn the Big Five equivalent to each member of the Great Five.
  2. Open up your awareness to the Great Five in your emotion safaris.
    • Every time you encounter a member of the Big Five, just bring your awareness to it’s Great Five equivalent. 
    • No need to overthink – just become mindful and observe what happens.
  3. Gradually introduce more members of the Great Five into your life.
    • Create some strategies for increasing Inspiration, Flow and Excitement.
    • Commit to lots of practice and repetition for Altruism and Tolerance.  

The Great Five positive emotions are natural predators to the Big Five primitive emotions. If you manage to introduce more of them in your mental wildlife reserve, you’ll create a more balanced and harmonious ecosystem. 

Such emotional balance is crucial for effective living in the modern world. Next week, we’ll delve deeper into this interesting topic of balance. 

But before that, I’ll see you tomorrow for another bit of Amateur Creativity 🙂

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Recap: Emotion safari

The emotion safari is a rather strange, but strangely effective technique for demystifying the primitive emotions causing so much trouble in today’s world. 

If you give it a chance, it will give you a mental spotlight to catch these primitive emotions before they get close enough to cause serious harm. Such a spotlight is a very cool thing to have!

Interesting things happen in your mind when you use the fun metaphor of the Big Five to see these formerly abstract feelings as concrete creatures. See for yourself 🙂

The checklist

Here is the 1-2-3 of a good emotion safari:

  1. Get to know the Big Five primitive emotions.
    • They are first introduced here and described in more detail here. 
  2. Take a short safari every day.
    • All you need is five minutes and an open mind. 
    • Some clear guidelines are given here.
  3. Practice using your mental spotlight in day-to-day living.
    • Your safaris will give you the ability to see the Big Five coming much earlier than usual.
    • If you put them in the spotlight early enough, they often run away! 

So, there you have it. I really hope it works as well for you as it did for me 🙂

See you tomorrow for the September edition of Practice What You Preach. 

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Recap: Primitive Emotions

Change is the only constant.

Over the past 0.1% of human history, these five words have emerged as the dominant force in our lives.

Yes, our society has changed so dramatically over the past 200 years that many of the instincts we evolved over the first 99.9% of human history are now badly outdated. As a result, our default actions often hurt more than they help, causing heaps of self-inflicted suffering. 

The second chapter of the Supermorning series will address this fundamental issue directly. And the foundation of the approach we’ll follow is summarized below:

The checklist

Here are the three key actions required to build a solid foundation:

  1. Form a clear understanding of the underlying problem of outdated emotions.
    1. Understand that, for all practical purposes, we are cavemen stuck in the future.
    2. This is the fundamental reason why we find it so hard to consistently do the right things. 
  2. Make sure you know the Big Five primitive emotions by heart.
    1. It’s important that you’re able to identify them instantly when they arise. 
    2. We’ll talk a lot more about the Big Five in coming weeks.
  3. Give your caveman a name.
    1. This fun technique can immediately increase your control over your primitive emotions.
    2. Your job is to patiently train your caveman for effective living in the modern world. 

I really hope this philosophy can benefit you as much as it did me 🙂 

May you and your caveman have a pleasant weekend! 

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Recap: Morning Routine

After nearly 50 posts about morning routines, we’ve reached the finishing line! Next week, we’ll move on to the interesting psychology involved in getting genuine control over your mind and body. 

But first, let’s formally wrap up the critical topic of maintaining a proper daily morning routine. 

Before we get to the checklist, I just want to reemphasize that a morning routine is much more liberating than restrictive. Being disciplined in the first and last hours of the day gives you much greater freedom and control over all the hours in between.

Please keep this in mind if you still have doubts about committing to a proper morning routine. 

But now, let’s move on to…

The checklist

Here’s the 1-2-3 of of implementing and maintaining a good morning routine:

  1. Commit! Any halfhearted attempts at building a morning routine will fail. 
  2. Decide which elements you want to include. The recaps of the different options covered on this blog are linked below:
  3. Experiment. Everyone’s situation is unique, so you’ll need some trial and error to find your ideal routine. 
    • Have a plan for those inevitable difficult mornings.
    • Make sure you give yourself a fair chance at making this work by prioritizing sleep. 
    • Try to incorporate a lovely flow into your routine. Mine is detailed here as an example.  

So, that’s it. The topic of morning routines is officially done and dusted!

If you have any feedback or suggestions that can help me improve these morning routine guidelines, please use the form below.

Your message will not be publicly visible, so please don’t hold back. Having gone through the scientific peer-review publication process about 100 times, I’m used to critical feedback 🙂

The Supermorning blog will run on an annually repeating basis, so this time next year I will present an improved version of these morning routine guidelines. Your feedback is important to make sure that next year’s version really offers a clear improvement.

Thanks in advance!

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Recap: Morning Routines in the Real World

Win the morning, win the day. 

Actually, it should be: build a bulletproof morning routine, win the morning, win the day. 

The bulletproofing part is very important. The bullets can come flying from any direction. Maybe your child cries the whole night, maybe your best friend had a bachelor’s party, maybe your company booked you into a crappy hotel. 

All of these obstacles can easily derail a budding morning routine. Your job is to nurse it through this trying time until it truly takes root. If you reach that point, you’re home and dry 🙂 

The checklist

So, let’s summarize how to make this happen:

  1. Make sure you have a short version for the elements of your routine that take more than a minute or two.
    • Short versions should be so easy that it would be downright embarrassing to skip them. 
    • Make sure to do at least the short version every morning to form a strong habit. 
  2. Anticipate when your budding morning routine could come under attack.
  3. Ensure that you have a clear reason for maintaining a world-class morning routine. 

These simple tips will give you a strong and loyal morning routine that will serve you faithfully until the day you die. Get yourself one of those! They are a man’s (or woman’s) best friend 🙂

See you tomorrow!

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Recap: Getting a Good Night’s Sleep

Having a Supermorning is key to having a great day. And a good night’s sleep is key to having a Supermorning. 

Sadly, the world is in the midst of a sleep-deprivation epidemic. Some are too busy to sleep, some are too stressed, others just lead lives that are too chaotic.

Whatever your reason is, better sleep can probably help to fix it (ironic, isn’t it?). You just need to break the cycle. 

So, let’s do just that…

The checklist

Here is the simple 1-2-3 to getting a good night’s sleep:

  1. Give sleep the respect it deserves.
    • Recognize the central importance of sleep by watching the TED talk below.
    • Install the Sleep Cycle app on your phone as described on Monday. 
    • Commit to giving yourself enough time in bed.
  2. Establish an evening routine in the hour before bed.
    • As discussed in Tuesday’s post, it works to go all in! 
    • Things to include: soothing music or other audio, slow yoga and/or meditation, light reading, taking a hot bath or shower. 
    • Things to avoid: working or other mentally stimulating activity, any type of screen-time, eating or drinking, bright lights and loud music. 
  3. Get your mind out of fight or flight mode.
    • Commit to a proactive personal development journey as described yesterday.

I wish you an active and exciting day followed by a deserved night of peaceful sleep 🙂

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Recap: Super Breakfast

Making the right choices early in the morning can help you get a whole lot more out of the rest of your day. 

The way you fuel your body is one critical choice within this golden time window. Do it poorly and you’ll be fighting cravings and irregular energy fluctuations all day long. Do it well and your body will just work the way it’s supposed to, allowing you to get on with your day undisturbed. 

Aside from the productivity boost, a healthy morning meal also makes it easier to keep eating healthily throughout the day. Indeed, a super breakfast will protect you against self-destructive snacking. 

The checklist

Sound good? Here’s the 1-2-3 of a super breakfast:

  1. Give breakfast an honorary position in your morning routine.
    • Don’t rush it off or skip it! 
    • In fact, breakfast should be your biggest meal of the day.
  2. Critically evaluate your current breakfast foods against the criteria given here.
    • A super breakfast maximizes health, taste, convenience and value.
  3. Put some time into designing the perfect breakfast for you.
    • Try to include as many of the foods listed here as possible.
    • My two breakfasts are given here as an example.

There you have it. Make breakfast a super wholesome activity you look forward to every day 🙂

See you tomorrow for this week’s Amateur Creativity!

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Recap: To-Do List

A to-do list is a very simple productivity tool that everyone knows, but far too few of us manage to implement. 

If you still have doubts about getting started, here’s a last bit of inspiration: Aside from increasing productivity, to-do listing can give a strong boost to your eating habits, energy and motivation. As described in detail here, these positive effects really were surprisingly large in my case. 

Having a serious to-do list gives a sense of purpose to your day and protects you from the boredom and distraction that often lead to unhealthy eating habits. The use of recurring to-do’s is also a great way to train your superpower of consistency. 

So, even if productivity is not your main goal, a to-do list still promises great value. It really is highly recommended!

The checklist

Here’s the simple 1-2-3 to a highly efficient to-do list:

  1. Start using Google Tasks.
    • Create a Google account if you don’t have one.
    • Install the Google Tasks app on your phone and link it to your Google account.  
    • Decide which Google app you will use most and set that to your default web page. Google tasks can be displayed to the right of Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets or Slides. 
  2. Set up several recurring to-do’s and not-do-do’s to maximize your consistency.
    • Using Google Tasks, you just need to set it up once.
  3. Integrate to-do listing into your life.
    • Make your to-do list for the day as part of your morning routine.
    • Whenever you think of a new to-do, immediately enter it into Google Tasks. 

That’s it! I hope you find efficient to-do listing as rewarding a I did 🙂 

See you tomorrow for another bit of Amateur Creativity!

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Recap: Graph of Life

There is an old saying that you can’t improve something you don’t measure. 

If you measure something, you automatically become more focused on it. You also get immediate feedback to help you quickly correct course when you go off track. 

Consistency is a tricky customer to measure, but the Graph of Life does just that. Since consistency is the underlying enabler of most of the good things life has to offer, measuring it sure is worth your while.

The checklist

So, here is the 1-2-3 of getting you Graph of Life up and running:

  1. Download the Excel template and spend a couple of minutes learning how to use it.
    • The file and a short video tutorial can be found here. 
    • My offer to help you customize it to your particular needs still stands.  
  2. Fill out your Graph of Life first thing each day. It takes less than a minute.
    • Make it a fixed part of your morning routine. 
  3. Use your graph to avoid downwards spirals and accelerate upwards spirals.
    • When you graph starts pointing downwards, do whatever it takes to correct course.
    • When you have an upwards streak going, ride the wave as long as possible. 

There you have it. Simple, but very powerful. Please give it a try!

See you tomorrow for this week’s edition of Amateur Creativity!

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Recap: Personal Constitution

OK, we’ve now spent a good two weeks on the idea of a personal constitution. Time to wrap up. 

The purpose of maintaining a personal constitution to do the right things every day, not because you’re forcing yourself, but simply because of who you are. It lets you become the best version of yourself. 

Getting ourselves to do the small things right every day is the central theme of this blog. It’s the key to unlocking the superpower of consistency and the most powerful force in the universe: compounding. 

A good personal constitution is therefore a fundamental building block of a great life. 

I really hope you’ll give it a try!

The checklist

Here is the short and simple blueprint to a good personal constitution:

  1. Draft your own version with elements for health, creativity, people and burdens.
    • Make it as personal to yourself as possible.
    • Keep it simple and short.
  2. Passionately recite your constitution for a minute or two each morning.
    • Integrate it into your morning routine to ensure consistency. 
    • You need to feel it, not just ramble it off.
    • Preferably get some inspirational background music.
  3. Be patient. It will take several weeks before you start noticing behavioral changes.
    1. Be aware of these changes and pat yourself on the back when they happen.
    2. If a certain part of your constitution is not working or becomes outdated, modify or replace it. 

So, there you have it: a simple 1-2-3 to a good personal constitution 🙂

Good luck!

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