Attachment theory applies to both childhood and adult relationships. The three main styles:<ul><li>Secure attachment: Comfortable with intimacy and independence</li><li>Anxious attachment: Fears rejection and seeks constant reassurance</li><li>Avoidant attachment: Uncomfortable with closeness and values self-sufficiency</li></ul>These patterns form in early childhood but persist throughout life, significantly influencing how we select partners and navigate romantic relationships. Unlike personality traits, attachment styles are specifically activated in close relationships.

Attachment Theory Basics

Attachment activation occurs when relationship triggers engage your attachment system:<ul><li>Secure people remain calm during relationship uncertainty</li><li>Anxious people become hyperactivated—flooding with worry and hypervigilance</li><li>Avoidant people become deactivated—shutting down emotions and seeking distance</li><li>Triggers include unresponsiveness, distance, or relationship threats</li><li>Physical responses accompany psychological reactions</li></ul>Understanding activation explains why the same situation causes dramatically different reactions in different people. These responses operate largely outside conscious awareness through deep brain mechanisms focused on attachment security.

Attachment Activation

Dependency is not a bad word. All of us are dependent on others for our happiness and well-being.

Anxious attachment creates specific behavioral patterns that typically backfire:
<ul>
<li>Protest behaviors include excessive messaging, hostility, and manipulation</li>
<li>Hypervigilance means constant monitoring for threat cues</li>
<li>Mind-reading attempts replace direct communication</li>
<li>Emotional reasoning overpowers logical assessment</li>
<li>Preoccupation with the relationship consumes mental resources</li>
</ul>
These behaviors make sense as attempts to restore connection but paradoxically create distance. Understanding these patterns helps anxiously attached people recognize when their attachment system is driving behavior rather than the actual situation.

Anxious Attachment Strategies

Deactivation strategies help avoidant people maintain emotional distance:
<ul>
<li>Finding flaws in partners to justify pulling away</li>
<li>Idealizing past relationships or singlehood</li>
<li>Sending mixed signals about commitment</li>
<li>Emphasizing independence and personal space</li>
<li>Creating conflict to establish distance</li>
</ul>
These patterns emerge unconsciously when intimacy reaches uncomfortable levels. The deactivating person experiences genuine relief when creating distance, making it difficult to recognize the pattern. Partners often mistake deactivation for falling out of love rather than a defense mechanism.

Avoidant Deactivation

Secure attachment enables healthy relationship functioning:<ul><li>Effective communication about needs and feelings</li><li>Comfortable with intimacy without losing independence</li><li>Reliable support during partner's distress</li><li>Constructive conflict without relationship threats</li><li>Accurate perception of partner's intentions</li></ul>Secure people view relationships as safe harbors rather than sources of anxiety or threats to autonomy. They can maintain perspective during conflicts and don't interpret problems as catastrophic. Their internal working model assumes basic trustworthiness in relationships.

Secure Attachment

Most people are only as needy as their unmet needs.

Attachment mismatches create predictable relationship patterns:<ul><li>Anxious-avoidant pairs create reinforcing negative cycles</li><li>Secure-anxious couples can stabilize with secure reassurance</li><li>Secure-avoidant relationships improve through secure consistency</li><li>Similar attachment styles share strengths and weaknesses</li><li>Awareness of patterns helps interrupt destructive cycles</li></ul>Understanding these typical dynamics helps explain why certain combinations create recurring problems. The most challenging pairing—anxious-avoidant—creates a pursuer-distancer pattern that confirms both partners' worst relationship fears.

Attachment Mismatches

Effective communication bridges attachment differences through specific approaches:
<ul>
<li>Use clear, non-accusatory statements about needs</li>
<li>Recognize attachment triggers in yourself and partner</li>
<li>Focus on solutions rather than blame</li>
<li>Acknowledge different perspectives as valid</li>
<li>Express appreciation for partner's efforts</li>
</ul>
These techniques work because they bypass the defensive reactions triggered when attachment fears activate. By creating safety in the conversation, partners can address needs directly without reinforcing negative attachment patterns.

Effective Communication

The dependency paradox reveals a counterintuitive relationship truth:<ul><li>Greater security in relationships creates more independence</li><li>Denying attachment needs actually increases insecurity</li><li>Healthy dependency differs from codependency</li><li>Secure relationships encourage exploration and growth</li><li>Attachment security provides a base for autonomy</li></ul>This principle explains why avoidant strategies backfire—denying legitimate attachment needs doesn't eliminate them but intensifies their underground influence. True independence comes through secure connection rather than emotional isolation.

The Dependency Paradox

Once you identify your partner as someone who's not right for you, you'll be able to pinpoint exactly the ways in which they're unsuitable and the degree to which your well-being is compromised.

Attachment-based selection creates healthier relationship choices:
<ul>
<li>Identify your attachment style and its relationship patterns</li>
<li>Recognize early indicators of others' attachment styles</li>
<li>Consider attachment compatibility when dating</li>
<li>Watch behaviors rather than relying on chemistry</li>
<li>Create deliberate selection criteria based on needs</li>
</ul>
This approach prevents repeatedly selecting partners who confirm negative attachment expectations. While chemistry and attraction matter, consciously evaluating attachment compatibility helps break dysfunctional patterns that feel familiar but lead to relationship distress.

Attachment-Based Selection

Earned security means developing secure attachment despite different origins:<ul><li>Recognizing your patterns creates opportunity for change</li><li>Practicing secure behaviors eventually rewires responses</li><li>Self-regulation techniques help manage activation</li><li>Relationship choices can reinforce growth</li><li>Therapeutic relationships provide secure models</li></ul>While early experiences create powerful attachment templates, the brain maintains lifelong neuroplasticity. Through conscious effort and corrective relationships, people can develop more secure attachment patterns regardless of their starting point.

Earned Security

Ever wonder why some relationships feel effortless while others are constant struggle? This groundbreaking book reveals how childhood attachment patterns become your adult relationship blueprint. Authors Amir Levine and Rachel Heller identify three distinct attachment styles—secure, anxious, and avoidant—that determine how you connect with partners. Understanding your style helps explain why you might chase unavailable people, fear commitment, or enjoy stable relationships. Better yet, it provides specific strategies to find compatible partners or improve existing relationships regardless of style.

“Over a decade after its publication, one book on dating has people firmly in its grip.” —The New York Times We already rely on science to tell us what to eat, when to exercise, and how long to sleep. Why not use science to help us improve our relationships? In this revolutionary book, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller scientifically explain why why some people seem to navigate relationships effortlessly, while others struggle. Discover how an understanding of adult attachment—the most advanced relationship science in existence today—can help us find and sustain love. Pioneered by psychologist John Bowlby in the 1950s, the field of attachment posits that each of us behaves in relationships in one of three distinct ways:    • Anxious people are often preoccupied with their relationships and tend to worry about their partner's ability to love them back    • Avoidant people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness.    • Secure people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving. Attached guides readers in determining what attachment style they and their mate (or potential mate) follow, offering a road map for building stronger, more fulfilling connections with the people they love.

Dr Amir Levine, MD, is an adult, child and adolescent psychiatrist and neuroscientist. He has been conducting neuroscience research at Columbia University, New York, for several years under the mentorship of Nobel Prize laureate Eric Kandel.

Amir Levine

Rachel Heller is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Rachel Heller has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Rachel Heller's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

Rachel Heller

Attached

<ul><li>Develop in-demand skills over collecting degrees</li><li>Focus your time and energy on developing profitable, in-demand hard skills rather than simply collecting academic credentials</li><li>Many rich entrepreneurs and investors do not have college degrees</li><li>Optimize for acquiring applied skills that provide value to employers or customers</li></ul>

Beyond Degrees

<ul><li>The best education comes from real world hands-on experience, not just passive classroom learning</li><li>Seek internships, apprenticeships, and other opportunities to gain practical experience</li><li>Starting your own ventures, even small side hustles, provides invaluable learning</li></ul>

Learn By Doing Through Real Experience


<ul><li>Actively network and build relationships with people who are successfully doing what you aspire to do</li><li>Learn from mentors - successful entrepreneurs and practitioners in your field</li><li>Insights from real-world experience are more valuable than academic theories</li></ul>

Learn From People Who Have Already Succeeded

Impact requires venturing into the unknown (whose risk most people avoid) and leadership (which acts as a multiplier of impact).Four steps:<ol><li>Get rid of debts, and have some savings.</li><li>Create room for experimentation in your current job.</li><li>Begin experimentation: Use money from step 1 to experiment around, while working.</li><li>Strike out on your own by following the direction set by a successful experiment from step 3.</li></ol>

Making An Impact: The Four Steps

<ul><li>Raw ideas and determined execution matter far more than degrees or credentials in the real world</li><li>Many highly credentialed people plateau in the middle of their careers</li><li>Don't rely on pedigree alone - develop skills and hustle</li></ul>

Ideas and Execution Matter More Than Degrees

Great networking is not about the back-and-forth, it’s about giving without expectation of anything in return.There are two basic ways to find great connections<ol><li>Find people with great future potential and help them in reaching their goals.</li><li>Add some value to the life of someone who is already established or connect them to someone where a connection could create a win-win potential for both parties.</li></ol>

Making Worthwhile Connections

<ul><li>The general perception of marketing is that it’s sleazy and manipulative.</li><li>The reality is that good marketing means making your potential customers know about you (or your company). Out of sight is out of mind.</li><li>A lot of businesses fail because they are not able to reach out to the right customers.</li></ul>

Marketing: Don't Let Your Company Remain Obscure

One can get better at a particular craft, but being able to sell oneself is equally important. <ul><li>Success is a skill – it consists of the skill of marketing, the skill of sales and the skill of leadership.</li><li>Sales are about knowing what a customer needs and, if you have a good solution/product, offering it.</li><li>Leadership is about being able to influence people, not control them.</li></ul>

Sales As A Leadership Skill

<ul><li> Adults need a reason to learn something.</li><li>They are involved in planning as well as evaluation, more interested in subjects having immediate relevance, more interested in problem-oriented (as opposed to content-oriented).</li><li>They also prefer more self-directed education (as opposed to classroom instruction).</li></ul>

Investing for Success: Learning as an Adult

Your brand is what people think about when they hear your name.The problem is, most people don’t realize that they can do better than work under someone else's brand. They just need to take some steps and build it. One should have a website under his/her name to establish a brand. A social media presence can also help.

Building Your Brand

<ul><li>An entrepreneurial mindset focuses on contribution, outcome, and moves toward big decisions even without authority.</li><li>The employee mindset, on the other hand, focuses on entitlement, and output, and turns away even from small decisions.</li><li>Entrepreneurs see current circumstances as temporary, but employees see them as permanent.</li></ul>

Entrepreneurial vs. Employee Mindset

<ul><li>Be wary of excessive student loan debt that constrains your options</li><li>Find creative alternatives to gain skills without expensive formal education</li><li>Debt impedes freedom, risk-taking, and flexibility</li></ul>

Avoid Burdensome Educational Debt


People don’t talk about the best-writing author; they talk about the best-selling author.

Some of the smartest, most successful people in the country didn’t finish college. None of them learned their most critical skills at an institution of higher education. And like them, most of what you’ll need to learn to be successful you’ll have to learn on your own, outside of school.Michael Ellsberg set out to fill in the missing pieces by interviewing a wide range of millionaires and billionaires who don’t have college de­grees, including fashion magnate Russell Simmons and Facebook found­ing president Sean Parker.This book is your guide to developing practical success skills in the real world: how to find great mentors, build a world-class network, make your work meaningful (and your meaning work), build the brand of you, and more. Learning these skills is a necessary addition to any education, whether you’re a high school dropout or graduate of Harvard Law School.

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

books

Books

Michael Ellsberg

The Education of Millionaires

<ul>
<li>Spontaneity is the state of being open to whatever situation is presented to you as it happens</li>
<li>This can mean anything from trying a new restaurant for lunch at your colleague's suggestion to waking up and deciding to go to the beach today.</li>
<li>Living in the moment opens you up to new experiences, which can boost happiness.</li>
</ul>

We Forgot To Be Spontaneous

<ul><li>Without moments of serendipitous interaction and activity, it's not a fully lived life.</li><li>Leisurely activities are often given concrete beginning and end times.</li><li>Constantly monitoring the time so you can make it to a friend's birthday party after your child's morning swim lessons distracts from the fact that leisure activities are supposed to be pleasurable.</li></ul>

The Curse of Overscheduling

<ul><li>Break out of fear-based responses, in which you feel threatened and make a choice to protect yourself.</li><li>Shift to more mindful-based thought processes to embrace spontaneity.</li><li>Have the time and space to be spontaneous: Don’t worry about money, you have expendable income.</li><li>Many off-the-cuff activities can be cost-free: Wearing an old band T-shirt you found in the back of a drawer.</li><li>Saying hello to other students at school.</li><li>Sending a text to a friend you haven't seen in a while.</li></ul>

How to Be More Spontaneous

A looser schedule can allow for serendipity.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

timemanagement

Time Management

Go ahead, be a little spontaneous

Since Spain started exporting oranges and other citrus fruit at the turn of the 20th century, it has developed a robust infrastructure producing fruit stickers, paper wrappers, and custom-printed fruit crates.These little gems of graphic design are now the subject of a new exhibition in Madrid. Featuring more than 300 Spanish brands, the aptly named Frutas de Diseño (Design Fruits) shines a light on the colorful history of fruit branding in Spain from the 1950s onward and the wild variety of graphics that have been used to market fruits there and abroad.

The World's tiniest Canvas for graphic designing

The use of branding on Spanish produce dates back to the country’s golden age of citrus exporting in the 1920s and 1930s. “They realized if they exported oranges with a name, they would sell more,” says Leandro Lattes, the creative director of Spanish design studio El Vivero, which curated the exhibition.Valencia oranges are famous around the world today, but when the export was booming, having a name like “Infinita” or “La Soculente” (The Succulent) helped businesses, often small family-run affairs, stand out from the crowd.

History of Branding

brands would hire artists to draw elaborate illustrations on the protective wrappers and sometimes even sign them. (After oranges were coated in wax to reduce spoiling, he says paper wrappers became all about the marketing.) To this day, some “Soculente” oranges come in a striking paper wrapper that portrays a slender hand complete with red nail polish and a sparkling ring holding half an orange over a juicer.

Noteworthy Designs

After World War II, the intricate illustrations gave way to more abstract graphics that made use of typography and striking colors. In recent years, some companies have continued to update their brand identity.The 1960s brand Filosófo, for example, once sported a paper wrapper with concentric circles, illustrated stars, and a serif typeface. Today, it features a more contemporary typeface and a pristine, watercolor-like rendition of oranges adorned with blossoms; the stickers are shaped like leaves).

Typography and Colors

Over the past few years, some companies have been experimenting with lasers, etching numbers, and brand names on the skin on the actual fruit. While in its early days, the practice might gain steam in countries like France, which banned disposable plastic packaging and produce stickers across 30 fruits and vegetables in January. (According to a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports, the ban may threaten the United States’ exports thereof stickered sweet potatoes and grapefruits, which together amount to $28 million in annual sales.)

The Future

A new exhibition celebrates the grocery-store gems, which have been around for almost a century.  


marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

business

Business

product

Product & Design

The delightful history of fruit stickers, the world’s tiniest canvases for graphic design

Psychologists have long identified the desire to feel connected to others as a basic human need, and interpersonal relationships have a significant impact on our mental health, health behaviour, physical health, and mortality risk.
Our physiological systems are highly responsive to positive social interactions. Close relationships are linked to health as they build certain biological systems that may protect against the adverse effects of stress. In response to social contact, the brain releases oxytocin, a powerful hormone linked to trustworthiness.

The Science Behind Positive Relationships at Work

Positive social interactions at work directly affect the body’s physiological processes. Positive social interactions serve to bolster physiological resourcefulness by fortifying the cardiovascular, immune, and neuroendocrine systems through immediate and enduring decreases in cardiovascular reactivity, strengthened immune responses, and healthier hormonal patterns.

Our Psychological Health

Social interactions play an essential role in wellbeing, which, in turn, has a positive impact on employee engagement. 
Organizations with higher levels of employee engagement indicated lower business costs, improved performance outcomes, lower staff turnover and absenteeism, and fewer safety incidents

Employee Engagement

Social interaction can lead to knowledge and productivity spillover from trained to untrained workers in collaborative team settings or between senior and junior workers, particularly in low-skilled tasks and occupations. 
For instance, one research team found that productivity was improved when employees were assigned to work alongside faster, more knowledgeable coworkers.

Knowledge Sharing

Employees who are satisfied with the overall quality of their workplace relationships are likely to be more attached to the organization. 
Leaders who encourage informal interactions, such as after-hours social gatherings, can foster the development of more positive relationships and significantly influence and improve employee satisfaction

More Attachment To The Organization

A lack of social interaction in the workplace can have potentially negative consequences in relation to social support. Several studies have indicated that the sense of isolation that comes from this lack of social support is associated with a host of negative health consequences, including a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, compromised immunity, increased risk of depression, and shortened lifespan.

Lack Of Social Interaction at the Workplace

Strong within-group ties with coworkers (characterized by frequent social interactions) provide opportunities to facilitate innovative thinking. The strong ties developed by social interactions assist innovators in the search for inspiration, sponsorship, and support within the workplace.

Strong Bonds

Social interactions in the workplace help to ensure everyone in a group is on the same page. Peer relationships (also referred to as equivalent-status relationships) represent the most common type of employee interaction.These relations exist between coworkers with no formal authority over one another and act as an important source of informational and emotional support for employees. Coworkers who possess knowledge about and an understanding of their specific workplace experience are given opportunities to feel connected and included through the sharing of information.

Peer Relations: All In The Same Boat

Social interactions in the workplace have been found to increase self-reported positive feelings at the end of the workday.Repeated positive social interactions cultivate greater shared experiences and the gradual development of more trusting relationships.

Building Trust

The information collated through social interaction can help a team collectively improve its performance and the precision of its estimates.

Collating Information

Social interaction and positive relationships are important for various attitudinal, wellbeing, and performance-related outcomes. 
Employees in both low- and high-status positions reported higher levels of motivation when interpersonal relationships with coworkers were good.

Better Outcomes

At their very best, interactions can be a source of enrichment and vitality that helps and encourages individuals, groups, and organizations as a whole to thrive and flourish.Conversely, negative workplace interactions have the potential to be a source of psychological distress, depletion, and dysfunction.

Importance Of Positive Interactions

Positive interactions in the workplace have been shown to improve job satisfaction and positively influence staff turnover, as employees who experience support from colleagues are more likely to remain in an organization long term.

The Big Picture

According to the Society for Human Resource Management’s 2016 Employee Job Satisfaction and Employee Report, relationships with colleagues were the number one contributor to employee engagement, with 77% of respondents listing workplace connections as a priority.It is therefore crucial that leaders and managers determine ways to promote positive workplace relationships.

How to Foster Employee Interaction in the Workplace

With the advent of digital communication, we’re now only ever a few clicks away from contact with virtually anyone anywhere in the world. 
While the internet has facilitated communication on a scale hereto unrivaled, there’s a lot to be said for traditional face-to-face interaction. An email might be easier, but we lose the nuances of nonverbal cues and tone.

Promote Face-To-Face Interaction

The upward trend in telecommuting is expected to continue over the coming years, with more employees working from home (or otherwise remotely), posing fresh challenges for the relationship-centric organization.
Where in-person interaction isn’t feasible, face-to-face interaction can still be facilitated using social technology. Using video-conferencing software regularly can help to foster positive social relationships for remote workers.

Include Remote Workers

Dedicating time to specifically promoting positive social interactions in the workplace can be a powerful route to ensuring the relationship-centric approach doesn’t fall by the wayside amidst organizational pressure to achieve.
Set aside time for employees to interact; focus on interests and experiences out of work to direct attention to shared interests to allow for employees to discover commonalities and relatedness.

Plan Collaborative Events

Both employees and employers require meaningful relationships with others in the workplace, and yet these needs may be impeded by counterproductive and destructive workplace practices (Bolden & Gosling, 2006).
Organizational leaders should attempt to minimize negative interactions between employees by proactively mediating and resolving differences and building a culture of open communication that fosters trust and relationship building.

Effectively Mediate Conflict

By establishing consistent patterns of behavior that exemplify the desired culture, you can promote an emotional environment of inclusivity and positivity.Positive psychology founding father Martin Seligman’s (2011) PERMA model highlights five critical elements for mental wellbeing, which business leaders can adopt to promote a positive culture that encourages belonging.The five elements of the PERMA model are:<ul><li>Positive emotion</li><li>Engagement</li><li>Positive relationships</li><li>Meaning</li><li>Achievement/accomplishment</li></ul>

The PERMA Model: Leading By Example

How to Collaborate, Build trust and other tips to create a smooth transition in your new endeavour

teamwork

Teamwork

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

career

Career

communication

Communication

Joining A New Team

We look at the science behind positive relationships at work, the importance of positive interactions, and their role in workplace wellbeing.

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

The Importance of Positive Relationships in the Workplace

Upwork reported that 36% of the US workforce freelanced in 2020. The same report finds that 58% of traditional workers who started working remotely during the pandemic consider freelancing. Experts predict that the majority of US workers will engage in independent work by 2023. Many of these workers will fall into the category "solopreneur", an independent worker who works alone.

The solopreneur

<ul><li>The freelancer markets a specific skill-set to multiple clients - e.g. website creation, admin support, etc.</li><li>The creative is a sub-category of freelancers, e.g. graphic design, writing, etc.</li><li>The consultant advises people on how to do better.</li><li>The content creator monetises what they do in a way that does not require direct one-on-one services, for example, course creators, bloggers, etc.</li><li>The side hustler does any of these things while also working full-time.</li><li>The gig worker works for a company that has built its business model on independent workers.</li><li>The brick and mortar, e.g. personal trainers.</li></ul>

Common types of solopreneurs

The 8 types of solopreneur

We all need uninterrupted work time every day, regardless of our role. Unbroken work makes us more motivated and focused. Yet uninterrupted calendar blocks are hard to design into a schedule. 
We can't productively attend to meeting-heavy days while also spending hours on uninterrupted work time. We need to manage our expectations about what we can accomplish.

Manage your expectations

Accomplishing all your goals without burning out is a skill.
<ul>
<li>Know your internal clock. Your energy levels will change throughout the day. Schedule your focused work for when your energy peaks.</li>
<li>Chunk your time. Set time aside for uninterrupted focus time.</li>
<li>Get off the grid. Set work apps on Do Not Disturb outside work hours.</li>
<li>Rely on peers for accountability.</li>
<li>Reflect. At the end of each workday, observe how you spent your time and what you accomplished.</li>
</ul>

Balance energy and goals

<ul>
<li>Build a habit. Identify what you need to do to reach your goals. Practise those steps daily.</li>
<li>Communicate. Share your intention with your team, so they know when you're available.</li>
<li>Assess your work environment. Your teammates have equally important energy management needs. Design your work to meet your expectations and your colleagues' expectations of you.</li>
</ul>

Build systems for meeting your goals

productivity

Productivity

remotework

Remote Work

Manage your energy to thrive at work | Zapier

Anyone wanting to start something new, like creating art, authoring a book, volunteering, or building their brand faces the problem of time constraints, unable to accommodate any space in the already busy and overloaded life.
We need to create a structure for all the existing stuff in our lives and then carve out space for the new.

Creating Space For The New

Our existing responsibilities can be overwhelming, the neverending tasks at home and work. This burdens the mind more once it is overdue and we are feeling behind. Creating structure and allotting certain time and days helps us deal with the workload.
We can allot different days for paying our bills, doing grocery shopping, doing administrative work, answering emails, and even allot time for self-care and playtime.

Creating Structure

Once we have all our workload listed and scheduled, we can observe the list and our working style to eliminate, join, delegate or simplify certain tasks:
<ol>
<li>Get out of useless commitments.</li>
<li>Say No to people who ask for obligations and favours that take our time and energy.</li>
<li>Postpone the work that is unnecessary but cannot be avoided.</li>
<li>Cut out all the distractions, like social media and mindless news reading.</li>
</ol>
Doing so creates space in our lives and o

Carving Out Space

Once we create structure and start to allow meaningful work to happen, we need to maintain it so that it is not hijacked by seemingly urgent tasks that keep cropping up. One way is to create focus blocks, certain times in the day that are completely allotted to a specific meaningful task, and it is non-negotiable.
When disruptions happen, and they will remember to not get angry, let it go, breathe deeply a few times, and return to the meaningful task with complete focus.

Focus Blocks And Disruptions

Focusing is hard when we are already drained and not having the bandwidth to face anything. We need to recharge our batteries, giving ourselves nourishment and nurturing. 
A hot bath, a good sleep, 30 minutes of walking in nature, or a Yoga session can help us get back to work with full life force.

Replenishing Yourself

Work is stressful because we don’t want to do it, but have to do it.
We won’t feel so drained and discouraged with our job if we could light up our dull routines with joy, freedom and vitality. It is something that needs to be explored, as everyone cannot leave their jobs and rush to do what they love to do, right away.

Freedom And Joy In Every Activity

habits

Habits

Wanting More Time for Your Meaningful Work - zen habits

When most people want to improve their productivity, they make small changes, like creating a daily schedule or waking up early. However, you can also increase your productivity by moving abroad.
Moving to a country with a less expensive cost of living can enable you to work less, thereby devoting your spare time to other projects.

Moving abroad as a productivity hack

If you run a business, moving to a cheaper country means hiring local experts for less. 
With the saving, you could employ people such as domestic help, allowing you to devote the time saved on household tasks to your work.

Moving abroad: saving on employee costs

If you can work remotely from your computer, you can take advantage of living somewhere where the time zone gives you a head start on your clients based on where you are now.
You could also have a few hours each morning to complete other tasks before your clients are ready for their working day.

Moving abroad: getting a head start on projects

It might seem like a crazy concept, but moving abroad could be the productivity hack you’ve been looking for in your life.

Is Moving Abroad A Good Productivity Hack? - Productivityist

It's a productivity system that teaches how to take a simple approach to improving your productivity, by encouraging you to focus on forming one productivity-boosting habit at a time.

Zen to Done (ZTD)

<ul>
<li>Collect: Get ideas and to-dos out of your brain and onto a list.</li>
<li>Process: Review your list daily and decide how to act on each item.</li>
<li>Plan: Pick a few high priority items to accomplish each week and every day.</li>
<li>Do: Schedule time to accomplish your selected to-dos without interruptions.</li></ul>

The Minimalist Habits of Zen to Done

To clear your mind and improve focus, get your ideas and to-dos out of your mind and onto a list. 
Documenting to-dos in the moment lessens the likelihood that you'll forget to do something and gives you a master list of to-dos to reference when you're trying to decide where to direct your time.

The Collect Habit

For your to-do list:
<ul>
<li>If the task takes less than 2 minutes to complete, do it immediately and get it off your list.</li>
<li>If the task takes longer than 2 minutes to complete, set it aside for later.</li>
<li>If someone else should do the task, send it to that person right away.</li>
<li>If the task doesn't require any action, delete it immediately to get it off your list.</li>
<li>If you just need to file the item for reference, put it where it needs to go right away.</li>
</ul>

The Process Habit

...says that when working on big rocks (the most important tasks), you need to minimize distractions as much as possible.
You're more likely to complete small tasks in a single working session, and more likely to make better progress on big tasks/projects that you need to work on over multiple sessions.

The Do Habit

Read about the most popular productivity systems and choose the one that fits you best

problemsolving

Problem Solving

Productivity Systems

There's a reason New Year's Resolutions are so hard to keep: Reinventing the way you live overnight requires a willpower that most of us don't have. And yet-many popular productivity systems ask you to uproot your work in just that way. Changing a single habit is...

Attached

The Education of Millionaires

Go ahead, be a little spontaneous

The delightful history of fruit stickers, the world’s tiniest canvases for graphic design

The Importance of Positive Relationships in the Workplace

Cody