One of the most common problems among people I work with and coach is the feeling of always being busy.And then it becomes a rationalization: I can’t honor my commitments because I’m too busy! I can’t be with my family or friends because I’m too busy. I can’t work out, meditate, shut down at night to get to sleep, or make time for solitude and disconnection … because I’m too busy. Is it true? Or can we develop a habit of not being busy, even with the same workload?

Zen Habits Favorites

Creating the Habit of Not Being Busy

Our lives are spent building up to more important moments, later, the moments when we’ll be happy. But when those moments come, we’re not happier. In fact, we’re already looking ahead.

The Moment You’ve Been Waiting For

For the most part, everything is normal. We’re managing. On good days, things go pretty well. On bad days, frustration and stress get to us. But what if we could shift everything in a magical way?

The Magic of Seeing Everything as Sacred

It happens to all of us: we don’t get done what we hoped to get done, then we feel stressed or guilty about it. It’s time to let that go, because it’s not helping us. We can build resiliency around this, with a little mental training. And it will help us in magical ways. Think about whether you’ve done any of these things....

Mental Resiliency: Letting Go of the Guilt of Not Getting Things Done

When I write these articles, they’re as much a reminder to myself about what I’ve found to work as they are a reminder to all of you. I’ve found them to work, but that doesn’t mean I always remember to practice them. It doesn’t mean I’m perfect, by any means.

Why I’m Always in a Hurry, & What I’m Doing About It

I used to think, as many people do, that if we’re unhappy with ourselves, we’ll be driven to get better. And if we were all of a sudden content with ourselves, we’d stop doing anything. I no longer believe this.

A Guide to Dealing with Dissatisfaction with Ourselves

The next time you experience frustration, just notice it. Just be mindful that you’re unhappy with something or someone, that you’re feeling frustration in your body somehow. Now notice what it is in this moment that you wish were different. What is missing from this moment that is frustrating you? Frustration stems from what you don’t have.

A Mindful Shift of Focus

As you sit here reading these words, you are breathing … stop for a moment and notice this breath. You could control the breath, and make it behave as you like … or you can simply let yourself breathe. There is peace in just letting your body breathe, without having to do anything about it.

Let Everything Breathe

The question I’ve been asking myself lately, before I do anything, is a deceptively simple one: “What’s the most loving thing you can do in this situation?“

What’s the Most Loving Thing You Can Do?

When I remember to do this — and I very, very often don’t — it lifts the difficulty that I’ve been facing internally and shift my focus to understanding and empathizing with other people, seeing how I can give them compassion.

Removing Ourselves From the Center of Everything

If you’re on Facebook looking at your friends’ food pictures or vacation photos, that will shape your reality. If you’re on porn sites, that’s what your reality is. If you follow people on Twitter who complain all the time, that affects your life in a major way.

Your Internet Habits Create Your Reality

There’s a part of today’s consumerist world that drives us to want more, buy more, act on our impulses, hoard, spend to solve our problems, create comfort through shopping, seek thrills through travel, do more, be more. What would happen if we broke from our addiction to wanting and buying more?

How to Want Very Little

You can read entire books on productivity, dozens of blog posts, and implement half a dozen different productivity systems. But at the end of the day, you’d have gotten nothing important done. The truth is, productivity is fairly simple, in theory.

My Most Important Productivity Method

We think we need to improve ourselves and our current situation, because we’re dissatisfied (at least a little bit) with how things are. So we strive for change — exercise more, eat better, read more, be more mindful, do more meaningful work, be more disciplined. And yet, we struggle with change. Why is that?

Why We Struggle with Change

When we feel difficult emotions in real life, we can stop believing in the story, and start to see the reality of what’s happening: there’s just physical objects around us, moving. There are atoms and molecules, living organisms, people who can talk and create.

The Miracle of Suspending Mis-Belief

Each episode of Zen Habits Favorites features a select blog post written by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits, read by Chris Calabro. Zen Habits is about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives. It’s about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what’s important, create something amazing, find happiness.

hubhopper

Zen Habits Favorites

hubhopper