“We’ve become so used to the idea that the only reward for getting better is moving toward higher income and increased responsibilities that we forget that the fruits of pursuing quality can also be harvested in the form of a more sustainable lifestyle.”

Recently, I’ve been listening to the Founders podcast. The host said something that really stuck with me: “Actions express priority.”

Ric Machuga, a community college philosophy professor who profoundly changed my life, had a remarkable concluding question for interviews with anyone who might replace him in his role. He said that after asking all the usual stuff, he would playfully end the interview by saying, “Oh yes, and just for fun, one final question: What would you do if you won the lottery tomorrow?”

Most of my troubles are because I am unwilling to be surprised. When I am frustrated, tired, resentful, or going through any other negative state, I notice that part of me decides that is just how things are going to be.

We recently had just enough snow for the children to play in. As I supervised my son playing with our neighbors, I sipped a warm cup of coffee and thought the following, “There are two ways to stay warm: drinking coffee or playing in the snow.”

In this season of Advent, we are full of joyful expectation as we await the coming of Christ. I imagine that the people who met the infant Jesus were filled with greater gratitude because of how much they waited for his arrival.

“Once you get used to accomplishing a specific type of task at the same time on the same days, the overhead required for their execution plummets.” This is one of the key ideas behind what Cal Newport calls the “autopilot schedule.”

As my two year old son played with kinetic sand, I said to him, “Make me three cakes.” He replied, “OK, Daddy!” and got to work shaping the cakes.

Marketing experts teach that people are more motivated by pain than they are by pleasure. If someone promises us that their product will remove a pain point, we are more likely to buy it than if they sell the positive good it provides.

While creating a clay model for a stone sculpture, Anna Rubincam says, “A lot of people don’t recognize the fact that clay is an easy substance. It’s soft. You can move it around very fast. You can build it up really fast and so there is no point in being really precious about it. If you make a mistake you can just discard it and start again.”

The ancient Romans had a saying, festīnā lentē, which means “hurry slowly.” Cal Newport’s book Slow Productivity is a modern exploration of this concept.

In the absence of clear standards for high-quality work, people often resort to what Cal Newport calls “pseudo-productivity.” We fill up our time with activities that look like work but don’t really create results.

As research for his book, Slow Productivity, Cal Newport surveyed close to 700 people asking them to define productivity for their particular field. The answers varied wildly, but a common theme emerged.

As I write issue number 200 of The Good Leaven Letter, I find myself thinking about the power of repetition. What we repeatedly do shapes who we become.

We knew that we were going back to the campsite; we just didn’t know how we’d get there. Spending the night in the cold with seven small children was not an option. We had to get back.

Podcasts. Audiobooks. Youtube. At times I feel pressure to make ordinary activities like driving a car, doing the dishes, or rocking a baby to sleep more valuable; lately, however, it’s been fun to ask the question, “Could this be enough?”

One toilet and zero showers. That’s what we were down to for four adults and seven children.

You procrastinate and give yourself just enough time to meet your deadlines—or perhaps you even miss some. You feel like you are pulled along by your deadlines rather than freely working toward them.

Ok, I guess I'll get around to doing the thing that I'm supposed to. If I don't, I'll get in some sort of trouble—my boss will be angry, my spouse will be upset, my children will be sad. So I do the stuff I have to do to avoid trouble.

Have you ever tried to balance the different areas of your life? While finding the right amount of time and effort for the parts of our lives is important, relating to this challenge as a balancing act is limiting.