Other
Interesting
Stuff
‘A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.’ – Robert A. Heinlein
Life is made up of an infinite amount of ‘interesting stuff’.
In an ever-changing, limitless world, I am not a believer in pigeon-holing your interests, ideas and effort.
Here you will find articles that cover topics ranging from culture to books to thoughts about being human and beyond. Sign Up to get new posts straight to your Inbox.
Latest Posts
Straw Man Argument – The Ultimate Obstacle to True Progress
During any sort of testing times, circumstances or situations, it is very common to pick a side to stick by and defend. You and 'your people' have your argument, 'them' and 'their people' have their argument. The sticking point arises, of course, when you realise that...
6 Ways To Maximise The Benefits Of Offline Days
The first time that I came across the idea of "offline days" was when I was listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast episode a few years ago. Tim was chatting to Kevin Rose and it came up in conversation that Tim does something that he called 'Screenless Saturdays'. No...
Why Does Time Slow Down During a Pandemic?
For most people across the world, the first few of weeks of quarantine are over and done with. During this time though, many people report that they felt time slowing down to almost a halt. There were jokes about March lasting forever. There were jokes about March...
Other
Interesting
Stuff Archive
Straw Man Argument – The Ultimate Obstacle to True Progress
During any sort of testing times, circumstances or situations, it is very common to pick a side to stick by and defend. You and 'your people' have your argument, 'them' and 'their people' have their argument. The sticking point arises, of course, when you realise that...
6 Ways To Maximise The Benefits Of Offline Days
The first time that I came across the idea of "offline days" was when I was listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast episode a few years ago. Tim was chatting to Kevin Rose and it came up in conversation that Tim does something that he called 'Screenless Saturdays'. No...
Why Does Time Slow Down During a Pandemic?
For most people across the world, the first few of weeks of quarantine are over and done with. During this time though, many people report that they felt time slowing down to almost a halt. There were jokes about March lasting forever. There were jokes about March...
How to Focus on One Task At a Time in the Age of Distraction
In the age of distraction, one thing that every company, human and device are vying for is our attention. It is more difficult than ever to sit alone with our thoughts, to take time for true relaxation and perhaps most frustratingly, to sit down with one task and to...
Live Before You Die: Lessons From Mike Posner’s Walk Across America
Mike Posner is one awesome dude. You may know him from his hit songs ‘Cooler Than Me’ and ‘Took a Pill in Ibiza’ but not too long ago, he decided to take the not-so-light decision to walk across America. After travelling 2851 miles, he finally made it and not without...
How To Be Really Unproductive – 16 Ways to Waste Time
So here's what's been going on, folks: Coronavirus is slowly but surely taking over the world. In many cases, people's priorities are shifting from thriving to surviving - and that's okay. Different people are being affected at different magnitudes by this thing. Some...
What Would This Look Like If It Were Easy?
Tim Ferriss had a series of existential questions when he reached the age of 40. He had experienced book rejections, huge book success, had learnt several languages and had seen a number of his friends die. He realised that most of his life's planning revolved around...
Positives to Embrace During the Coronavirus
The Coronavirus, or COVID-19, is a virus that is to be taken extremely seriously. It is probably obvious to most people now that methods like washing your hands frequently and extreme social distancing are essential for slowing down the spread of the virus. These...
How To Be Productive Working From Home
Remote working and working from home have really taken off in the last few years. With the recent pandemic of COVID-19, many people have been forced into working from home against their will. Some people are going to hate it, others are going to see it as a blessing...
A Wall Is Built Brick by Brick, Not All At Once
In the 1970s, there was an electrician in Philadelphia. The man’s job was to install freezing cases in supermarkets where you can usually find your frozen pizzas and milk. To set up his own little workshop while he was carrying out the job, the man bought an old...
The Last Time
There will be a time in your life when you will have experienced everything for the last time. Memento Mori is a message from the Stoics that reminds us of this fact. You don't know when the curtain will draw on this life of yours, so any day could be your final act....
Forget Work-Life Balance, Try a Life-Rest Balance
The balance between work and life has long been an important one. The thinking is that if you work too much then your work will start to encroach into the rest of your life. For most people most of the time, this is a negative thing as work is not something that is...
We See People and Things Not As They Are, But As We Are
I read a quote on Twitter the other day that said "There are around seven billion different versions of reality" and that really got me thinking. I work from the same computer in the same workspace in the same city on most days. It's likely that you have a similar...
The Impermanence of Everything Makes Life Tolerable
I am currently reading an entertaining and fascinating little book called 'Sum: Forty tales from the afterlives'. This book isn't anything to do with people's near-death experiences or what some loon who apparently came back from the dead can tell us about what's...
Familiar Joys Are The Best Kinds Of Joy
I'm quite a big fan of travel and seeing the world. I'm extremely lucky that some of my most memorable experiences have come from reasonably expensive journeys to many different parts of the world. Discovering new cultures, gaining new experiences and ultimately,...
How To Change Someone’s Mind: Become a Friend, Not a Foe
If you haven't already noticed, people hate changing their minds. Reality is a tough thing to grasp and over the course of thousands of years, our brain has developed ways to cope with this cognitive and existential load - through simplification. We don't just...
Complex Systems Are Everywhere (And What It Means For Us)
Have you ever thought about how your watch keeps the time? You might be wearing one now or at least, have an analogue clock in your house that ticks every second that passes. How does the clock know when to tick? How does it know when what we call 'one second' has...
Living Forever and the Value That Comes From Scarcity
I used to love coming home from university. After being away for several weeks at a time, those last couple of days were always filled with excitement about the people I was going to see, the things I was going to do and all of the home comforts that I was going to...
Habits Are About Becoming Someone, Not About Doing Something
When I was a kid, I wanted to be Andrés Iniesta. He was one of the best footballers in the world, played in the same position as I did, always came across as a really nice guy and even sold ice cream on the side. What a man. I watched videos about how he played the...
How To Decide What To Do With Your Life
"Back in my day, we didn't have a choice. You worked where you were told or wherever there was work. None of this fancy 'what do I want to do with my life shit'. I miss those days." - Your Grandad (maybe). Whilst grandad might genuinely miss those days, not knowing...
How To Work When You Don’t Want To – 3 Main Reasons You’re Putting Off
Three things in life are certain: death, taxes and you putting off work that you know you should be doing. It isn't just you though, with every human being suffering from the disease of procrastination from time to time. Maybe it's 'work work' that you always put off...
Review Your Resolutions and Habits 1 Week into the New Year
Although it might seem strange to some that we humans have big parties whenever the earth completes another circle around the sun, it's just kind of what we do. Not only is it a great time to sip champagne, spend time with loved ones and make horrifically-good 'see...
Joy Of Missing Out: Forget FOMO, It’s Time For JOMO
The Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO, only recently made it into the Oxford Dictionary. For years, the English language didn't have a word for that feeling of anxiety, regret and fear that comes with hearing about a social event and needing to be there in case you miss...
The BIG Review of Books 2019 – Quotes, Excerpts and Life Lessons
The Big Review of Books 2019 is back for its second instalment and I hope that many of you find the same amount of value from this as you did the first. Each year I look back on all of the books that I have read, give a brief description, a few personal thoughts and...
Exhalation by Ted Chiang: Themes and Ideas From the Novelette
Yesterday, I read a memoir from a scientist of a highly advanced, but now extinct, race of mechanical beings from another universe. Despite our obvious differences, namely them being mechanical and me organic, the message I received still managed to relate quite...
How to Remember What You Read in 8 Simple Steps
Reading and retaining information from books doesn't really change much from the school days. There are people who are amazing at absorbing everything they read, others can't remember what they read five minutes ago. Nothing is more frustrating than learning something...
The Meaning of Boredom – Life’s Most Uncomfortable State
What is the meaning of boredom? It may seem like a trivial question but it is one that I have been asking myself a lot lately and one that you might have pondered over yourself at some point. Everybody gets bored, but why? And why is it such an uncomfortable emotion?...
What is the Difference Between Strategy and Tactics? A Short Explanation
With the new year rolling around and people, including myself, reflecting on the past year and looking forward to the next one, it is as good a time as ever to consider strategy and tactics for the coming year. But what is the difference between strategy and tactics?...
How To Use Blinkist Effectively: My 3 Years of Experience
Every once a while, a revolutionary app comes along that changes how you do a lot of things. Whether it be Uber on the transport front, Tinder on the dating front or BUDGT on the finance front, sometimes certain applications come along and cause a bit of a mini...
The Power of Small Ideas (vs Big Ones)
Everyone loves a good superhero movie. The general public are at the mercy of a terrible villain, death is imminent for the innocent from the threat of psychopaths, aliens or Godzilla until all of a sudden, the hero manages to swoop in and save the day. It's...
How To Deal With Conflicting Health Advice
It's great that you are trying to look after your health. Maybe you have some recommendations from your friend, have seen what the news is telling you or have seen a few articles online about how to lose a few kilos in a month. The blessing of the age that we live in...
Why Is It So Damn Hard To Take Your Own Advice?
‘We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain.’ — Tom Stoppard *** We all do it. It’s a hilarious human quirk that we all dabble in from time to time. You give out not just some decent guidelines to your friends, but the very best advice that the world has...
The Art Of Choosing Different Mentors For Different Areas Of Life
A few months ago I was having a chat with a friend over Skype. Like me and probably you too, he has a vested interest in the trials and methods, maybe even the art, of becoming a better person. We discussed almost everything from expectations to relationships to...
Why Do People Buy Lottery Tickets?
Why do people buy lottery tickets? It's relatively well known that people who win the lottery are (still) unhappy in the long term. They also continue to buy tickets after they've won. So maybe it isn't about winning. It's relatively well known that the odds are...
6 Things They Don’t Tell You About Self-Development
The world of self-development is certainly a strange one. While it is without a doubt one of the best journeys that I and many other people could imagine embarking on, it is, like most things, full of unexpected problems. Much of the plushy world of self-growth,...
How To Construct Your Own Environment For Success
There are many different theories out there that attempt to explain why successful people are in fact, successful. However, building an environment for success rarely comes into consideration. When you picture someone successful, you no doubt picture them having an...
Don’t Forget How Strange This All Is – An Original Post From Raptitude
Upon browsing the interwebs this week, I came across a fascinating and hilarious post on Raptitude.com It is titled 'Don't Forget How Strange This All Is' and refers to the weirdness of everyday life, our strange human tendency of trying to ascribe meaning to...
5 More Go-To Podcasts For Upgrading Your Life – April 2019
Affiliate Disclosure You may remember back in September 2018 when I published 'My 5 Go-To Podcasts Right Now'. That list is a great list for anyone looking to improve any and every facet of their life: from mental to physical to spiritual health. About 7 months on, I...
3 Journaling Methods and Tips for Maximising Their Benefits
This post is the follow-up to the benefits of journaling. If you haven't checked that out already, make sure you head there first! So we have covered just some of the numerous benefits that journaling can create in your life, but how do we go about getting those...
9 Big Benefits of Journaling – Better Sleep, Clarity, Reduced Stress…
Affiliate Disclosure Journaling has been around basically forever and the benefits of journaling are both numerous and enormous. From cave dwellers who 'journaled' about their battles on the walls to ancient philosophers such as Marcus Aurelius whose journals have...
The BIG Review of Books – 2018
Affiliate Disclosure In 2018, I read quite a bit. While in the past I have dabbled in the odd book here and there, going through droughts and splurges of page turning, in 2018 I kept it pretty consistent, often while juggling a few books at the same time. This list...
How to keep your New Year’s resolutions
It's that time of year again. You're sick of turkey sandwiches, the festivities have died down, hopefully you've made some good memories with those you care about most and it's time to look forward to the New Year. And a New Year means new resolutions, new goals, new...
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
The stories we tell ourselves may seem like a fairly harmless and insignificant part of our lives but they are actually the underlying mechanism running the whole show. We all see things through our own unique lens based on our experiences, our genetics and a...
The 1 Day Extreme Gratitude Challenge
So we've seen many 'challenges' over the internet doing the rounds in the last few years or so. There has been the likes of the Ice Bucket Challenge, The Harlem Shake and The Cinnamon Challenge. All very good fun, except from maybe the last one. And you have to...
7 Well-Paid Jobs You Didn’t Even Know Existed
Welcome to my list of 7 well-paid jobs you didn't even know existed. Whilst I know that each of these jobs isn't for everyone, it is just a bit of fun with the not-so-subliminal message that there are a lot more possible paths out there that you can take outside of...
The Game of Life – A Poem
This week's post is a little different. I wanted to share with you this poem that features on the Aubrey Marcus Podcast. Below you can see the video of it being read out and I have provided a transcript below that for your convenience. The poem is about the nature of...
My 5 Go-To Podcasts Right Now – September 2018
To tell you the truth, I think that my podcast list is pretty fire right now. For me, it's got the perfect mix of topics that I'm interested in. Go-to podcasts for when I need some specific guidance on anything physical, mental or spiritual. Stuff for general interest...
6 World Facts That Will Change Your View Of The World
It's easy to get caught up in the negativity that surrounds modern media. Whether that's turning on the news in the evening or having a scroll through a social media channel, you are bound to find someone or something that either directly or indirectly screams that...