Fewer Things Better

We'd love to hear from you! One day can make a big difference. This episode explores the idea of everyday days as a big gift in small doses. Time with no agenda offers an open playground to your brain. Not having to pay attention to a clock is a mental vacation, no travel required. Sometimes the best way to take good care is to take good time with yourself.   

We'd love to hear from you! This episode explores how the brain is wired to respond to the promise of a reward. Our wiring for action (or inaction) runs along key pathways in the brain but the behavior gets reinforced from what we repeat. Recognizing our reward response helps us see where our decisions form a pattern and what subtle changes can help us find more positive, productive rewards. 

We'd love to hear from you! Your time and talent are valuable. There will be times where we get all that we are worth and times where we certainly don't.  Worth and value carry different meanings and this episode explores the difference. There will be fluctuations on the what, when, and how much on the current market of worth, but it’s up to us to never discount our own value. 

We'd love to hear from you! If you don’t pick a day to relax, your body will pick one for you.  And when it does, you're not in charge of the agenda. I recently lived this after being sick for two weeks and it was an exercise in curiosity as well as patience. While the body brings in immunity support, the brain has its own role to play in our wellness. This episode explores what goes on i...

We'd love to hear from you! Flow is a meta skill that enables us to better learn, enhance, and expand our existing skills. The more time you spend in flow, the more access you have to it. This goes beyond a productivity practice – it’s a conscious key that helps unlock the brain. And this key can be used to do fewer things deeper (and better). 

We'd love to hear from you! If you're always trying to track your to-do's or find a better way to remember all-the-things, this episode is for you. We'll explore concepts from science, psychology, and add a dash of practical magic to see how a good-enough approach can increase productivity and free up some of that cognitive clutter. Show note: More on the Magical Number 7 concep...

We'd love to hear from you! This episode explores ideas on where to add or upgrade elements of your regular routine with small dashes of delight. Neuroscience shows that small, positive changes can have a significant impact on our brain function and overall wellbeing. Small doses of special in certain areas could enhance or extend how we enjoy our everyday things.    Show Note: Link to Ramit S...

We'd love to hear from you! In our productivity quest, sometimes an effective way to take action is to swap opposite actions.  This episode introduces the concept of One More & One Less as an introduction to a new routine, behavior, or accountability by using the power of positive psychology.

We'd love to hear from you! This episode is about how we often take our wants and convince ourselves that they are needs.  We're stressed if we don't have something and then we're stressed when we have too many somethings.  This conversation shares science, psychology, physiology, research, and a dash of poetry to explore how to enjoy what we have and sort the trinkets from the...

We'd love to hear from you! What we say doesn’t always match what we mean. We aren’t always aware of the subliminal messages that sit behind our words. This only gets further complicated in our digital world as we communicate across multiple mediums. This episode explores the subtle signals that can reveal how we feel about what we are saying. 

We'd love to hear from you! We all have days where things don't go as planned. Mishaps, delays, distractions are all part of the bumps on the ride. Helping to make the bumps smoother is the difference between how we react vs. how we respond. This episode explores how your reaction is an instinct, and your response is a choice.   

We'd love to hear from you! Helping others is a noble effort. A steady supply of good deeds, however, can lead to a pattern of disruption. This episode explores when other people (and other people’s problems) become a distraction to our own time, goals, and progress.  

We'd love to hear from you! Today’s topic offers a buy-one-get-one concept as it relates to a technique that can help improve our communications and also our productivity.  When we’re offering words or undertaking actions, it’s really easy to stretch and do too much and end up overwhelming ourselves or others – or both. Identifying the Most Important Next Step is a game changer in how you get...

We'd love to hear from you! Our brains are wired to look for information, and this built-in distraction feature is part of what extends our daily to-do list. This episode outlines a simple-yet-effective practice of selecting a "key three" focus at the start of your day and how its clarity can cut through the daily mental clutter. 

We'd love to hear from you! I recently had a chance to return to the Chicago college where I went as a very ordinary 18-year-old and spoke about the path that led to an extraordinary life. This episode highlights seven key lessons I shared with students and alumni of what I wish I knew a few decades ago about confidence, achievement, wealth, and building a reputation.  

We'd love to hear from you! Deferring your enjoyment of happiness is one sure way to dilute the very essence of it. Happiness gets to be a yes-and; it can be present today and be amplified with future actions and enjoyment.  Unlock your brain from the delaying the good and relishing in the joy snacks of the here-and-now. 

We'd love to hear from you! We humans love a good reward. What isn’t sexy is the doing – the daily grind. The monotony of routine without right-now results. Growth occurs in spurts - and it's the grind that gets you there. Oftentimes your brain needs a boost to get past the blahs, a little encouragement to keep going. This episode offers a few tips (and a little rah rah). 

We'd love to hear from you! There is a lot of research from the biological, neurological, and psychological camps about different elements that can boost or drain your day. This episode focuses on how you spend the first 30 minutes of your day and outlines four quick actions that can have big returns on your energy and focus the rest of the day. 

We'd love to hear from you! This episode is celebrating progress over perfection. It explores our conditioning of why we are challenged to accept good and burn harder to try to achieve great.  We can be so busy preparing, perfecting, and polishing that we miss the here-and-now. The messy parts of us are important parts of us. We’re not supposed to sand it all away. If we do, we miss the opport...

We'd love to hear from you! Any previous time, money, or effort that has already been expended is known in financial principles as a Sunk Cost . It is an investment that has already occurred and cannot be recouped. This episode explores how our brains assign value to actions already taken, investments already made, and where we sometimes continue to ask give more without even being asked.  It...

We'd love to hear from you! This episode explores the Rule of 100, which says you can dramatically improve a skill through 100 hours of learning or practicing. That amount of time gets you past the plateaus and frustration points as you gain skill proficiency. 100 hours over the course of a year comes out to 18 minutes a day. Learn more about this concept and how big things can come from small...

We'd love to hear from you! A goal without a plan is just a wish. A habit without momentum is just a goal. This episode leans into the wisdom of the power of 5 good minutes, as mentioned in a conversation between habit authors Tim Ferriss and James Clear, based on Ferriss' January 6, 2023 podcast interview with Clear (see link below). Learn three tips to try to power 5 good minutes throug...

We'd love to hear from you! We make thousands of decisions every day. Some are conscious, clear choices and others are subconscious routines. There are also the Yes and No answers that are obvious and immediate. Other times, we find ourselves stuck between the Yes and the No and grapple with how to decide and then how to share that decision. This episode looks at the root of that resistance, h...

We'd love to hear from you! This roundup episode offers quick clips from six previous podcast conversations. Listen to a collection of brain snacks that includes how the attention economy affects our daily lives, the people we allow to make deposits (or withdrawals) from our energy, the science and psychology of decision making, what happens when we take too many productivity shortcuts, three...

We'd love to hear from you! We don't have to buy, buy, buy in order to give. This episode highlights 10 ideas on how to give from the heart (and the brain) versus from the wallet. See if any kickstart ideas for the people in your life or inspire ideas on future gifts you'd like to get.