The 2 Simple Tools to Replace Social Media with Reading

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay We’ve all done it. I don’t normally like to talk about the bathroom, but let’s just be honest: whenever we head to the bathroom, we grab our phones. It’s automatic. It’s a habit. We will sit there, and we don’t want to just stare at the wall. In the […]

Success means playing the long game

Image by Peter Fischer from Pixabay “They’re good with your rate.” I honestly couldn’t believe those words when I saw them. They’re good with it? I thought for sure they would pass. Let me jump back – way back. In the middle of 2018, I was in the midst of a full-blown professional crisis. I […]

An Antidote to 21st Century “Book Burning”

We’ve forgotten about intent, and it’s leading us down a scary path. There’s a great scene in the TV shows Scrubs where JD, the main character, has just moved out of his apartment with his best friend, an African-American man named Turk, and into an apartment with his ex-girlfriend, a blonde named Elliott. Elliott does […]

“Everything happens for a reason.”

It’s one of those phrases that is retroactively positive, but mind-numbingly frustrating in the present. It’s always issued by well-meaning friends and loved ones, doing their best to encourage someone going through a rough time. “Everything happens for a reason.” In high school, I had to remind myself of it when I had girl troubles. […]

35 Things I’ve Learned at 35 Years Old

This Sunday, May 31st, 2020, is my 35th birthday. As someone who still feels like he’s twelve years old, this information is a little difficult to process. Thirty-five?! I remember when I used to joke about how long it would be until my golden birthday… and my golden birthday was four years ago now. I’ve […]

How I Use Todoist: Recurring Tasks

This post is part of an ongoing series on How I Use Todoist. If there’s one thing I’ve always needed from a to-do list manager, it’s recurring tasks. I’m a creature of habit. I don’t like to have to think about or remember certain tasks. I want them to just pop up on my list […]

How I Use Todoist: My End of Day Review

This is part of a new ongoing series I will be writing about how I use the Todoist app to manage my tasks. To see all the Todoist posts, just click here. Peace of mind is absolutely essential to me. I am a pretty level-headed guy, but if I feel like things are piling up […]

“Jesus was a Republican.”

I don’t remember the design of the shirt. I don’t really remember much about it at all, beyond the slogan plastered across the front of it. I do remember the girl wearing it, for a lot of reasons – none of them good. The year was 2005 or 2006. My hunch says ’06, because this […]

How I Work, 2020 Edition: The Office

For more than a decade, I’ve been writing for a living. And while the nature of that writing has ebbed and flowed over the years, the fact remains that I sit at a desk for hours every weekday, trying to force myself to tap words onto a screen for money. What does that even look […]

My 2019 Annual Review

I want to get into the habit of taking some time to publicly run through my previous year. During the last week of December, I spent a few days reviewing how my year went, taking down lots of notes and assessing where things worked and where things fell short. After several really bad years, 2019 […]