On this page you'll find links to Everyday Systems Podcast audio files, approximate transcripts,
and bulletin board discussions.
Click the mp3 download links to
listen. Or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
| Episode 87: Variable-Height Glass Ceiling |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2024-08-09 |
| A more nuanced approach to systematically moderating alcohol (and other substances) |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 86: Motive Mixologist |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2024-06-30 |
| When you don't like what you want |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 85: Urban Ranger 2024 |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2024-06-02 |
| Urban Ranger, from scratch, as if I’d never spoken or written about it before. Draft chapter for the upcoming Everyday Systems Compendium, and hopefully interesting and useful in its own right. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 84: The Hygiene Hypothesis as the Explanation for Everything |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2024-03-30 |
| Cure all your ailments with dirt, pain and danger |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 83: The No S Diet 2024 |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2024-02-29 |
| The No S Diet, from scratch, as if I’d never spoken or written about it before. Draft chapter for the upcoming Everyday Systems Compendium, and hopefully interesting and useful in its own right. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 82: Clock & Calendar, your Sword & Shield |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2024-01-31 |
| Build habits by leaning on the clock and calendar rather than fighting against them. Beyond N and S days. Cutesy task phrases. Powerfully silly times. Calendar-First Tasking. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 81: State of the Systems 2023 |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2023-12-29 |
| Annual update on all the Everyday Systems and how they are doing for me personally |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 80: Antimantras & Repetitive Thought Injuries |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2023-11-30 |
| I think I mix about 14 metaphors in this episode: We’ve got a goose-stepping white bear baseball player with devil horns doing jiu jitsu on the death star. A ridiculous chimera, if you put it all together. But maybe just the guardian-gargoyle image you need to keep the antimantras at bay. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 79: My Pet Demon |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2023-10-25 |
| Self-saboteur? Time to stop playing with your pet demons (maybe). |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 78: Spider Hunter, a CBT for Anxiety Game |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2023-09-27 |
| Anxious? Here's a fun technique for getting over it. It's halfway between gamified mindfulness and exposure therapy. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 77: Aristotelian Self-Portrait |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2023-08-31 |
| Aristotle: "You are what you repeatedly do." Well, what do you repeatedly do? In this episode, an exercise for finding out. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 76: My Friend, ChatGPT |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2023-07-22 |
| Practice being human with AI |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 75: Apps for Mentats |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2023-05-31 |
| Everyday Systems as apps for human minds |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 74: Tidiness for Demihumans |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2023-04-29 |
| Four catchphrases for tidier habits. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 73: Demihuman |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2023-03-17 |
| A lighthearted approach to imposter syndrome. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 72: State of the Systems 2022 |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2023-02-07 |
| A little later and much shorter than last year. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 71: Last Wordism |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2022-11-16 |
| A two-word anti-mantra to snap you and your family out of automatic bickering. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 70: Surgical Flogging |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2022-11-04 |
| Food logging: apparently it works. But it's torture to do long term. I discuss a way you can practice a limited, strategic, surgical form of food logging with the No S Diet (or any other diet) that gives you the benefits of food logging – which are real, potentially at least – without the protracted and probably futile misery. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 69: Shovelglove Recovery |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2022-09-21 |
| After 20 years of swinging my sledgehammer injury-free, I discovered that that even Shovelglove can cause or at least be impacted by injury. How Shovelglove principles like "schedulalistically insignificant time" and "maintenance is more important that progress" have been key to my recovery. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 68: How to be Ordinary |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2022-08-23 |
| Be a Mensch, not a rockstar. It's surprisingly hard, even though you probably don't have any alternative. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 67: Demogorgon Whack-a-mole |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2022-07-09 |
| What to do when your appetites keep routing around your rules to contain them |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 66: Right Relationship with Robots |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2022-06-03 |
| Technology for habits, and habits for technology. Also a story about my Roomba. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 65: Mindful Bagful |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2022-04-30 |
| A lighthearted "Jedi mind trick" for calming yourself down in certain mundane situations |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 64: State of the Systems 2021, Part 3 (Meta Systems) |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2022-03-30 |
| Meta systems are systems for tracking and bolstering other systems. Systems discussed include: Personal Punch Cards, The Life Log, Mantrafication, and Loose Lips Sink Ships |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 63: State of the Systems 2021, Part 2 (Soul Systems) |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2022-02-28 |
| Soul systems are systems for detaching yourself from the frenzy of everyday life to reflect, for learning, for recovering, for devoting more of your limited time to what’s important, for figuring out what’s important to begin with. Systems discussed include: Audiodidact. The Study Habit. Demogorgon vs. Asmodeus, Timebox Lord, G-Ray Vision, VC Cat, Posifactive and Weekend Luddite.. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 62: State of the Systems 2021, Part 1 (Body & Spirits) |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2022-01-14 |
| 2021 was miserable in most respects, but it’s been another fantastic opportunity to test the true mettle of Everyday Systems. Part 1 reviews Body and Spirits systems: The No S Diet, Shoveglove, Urban Ranger, Lawful Good Biker, Glass Ceiling, Low Smoking. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 61: VC Cat |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2021-12-06 |
| An inspiringly ridiculous image to ward off the dreaded "what the hell" effect. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 60: The Study Habit, Part 2 (Behavioral) |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2021-11-15 |
| Specific techniques for making study a daily habit. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 59: The Study Habit |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2021-10-03 |
| How to go from 'study=cramming' to making learning a lifelong habit. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 58: Loose Lips Sink Ships |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2021-09-14 |
| Image from WWII propaganda to keep you from sabotaging your own self-improvement efforts. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 57: Posifactive |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2021-07-15 |
| All the self-help books ever written distilled into one word. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 56: Good Redundancy |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2021-05-31 |
| Engineer intentional redundancy into your habit systems to make them fault tolerant. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 55: The Lifelog |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2021-04-30 |
| Habit tracking when apps or magic markers won't cut it. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 54: State of the Systems 2020 |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2020-12-31 |
| How pandemic proof are the Everyday systems? A quick review of 14 systems and how they are holding up. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 53: Timebox Lord |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2020-12-08 |
| A system for balancing "infinite work" with "first things." |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 52: Demogorgon vs. Asmodeus |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2020-10-28 |
| How to ingore both of the evil voices in your head and attain comic detachment from your psychomachia. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 51: Mantrafication |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2020-04-02 |
| Reflect on what is giving you trouble with your self improvement system. Write a contract with yourself on a 4*6 index card. Record yourself speaking it. Listen to this recorded mantra every day. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 50: 2016 State of the Systems Check-In (Spiritual) |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2016-07-29 |
| No S for the Soul! 14-Year Jubilee updates on 8 "spiritual" systems: Weekend Luddite, Audiodidact, Chain of Self-command, Low Smoking, G-Ray Vision, Monthly Resolution, Lawful Good Biker and The Study Habit. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 49: 2016 State of the Systems Check-In (Physical) |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2016-06-24 |
| It's been 14 years since everyday systems first went online. How are they holding up? In this episode I report on the four physical systems: the No S Diet, Shovelglove, Urban Ranger, and Glass ceiling. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 48: The No S Diet Audiobook, Chapter 1 (Rough!) |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2016-01-29 |
| Are my low podcast production values good enough to produce an audiobook? You be the judge! For this episode, an experimental reading of Chapter 1 of the No S Diet book. Let me know if a few tweaks here and there might do the trick, or if I had better rethink this whole project. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 47: The Heroics of Tidiness |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2015-12-29 |
| Habit is powerful. But is it always the answer? Is there room for one-time, decisive actions in the realm of self-improvement? I think there is -- but perhaps not quite where you expect it. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 46: S-days vs. Cheat Days |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2015-11-30 |
| S-days aren't cheat days -- in an important way, they're the opposite. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 45: Einstein's Soup |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2015-11-24 |
| An Einsteinian justification for my irregular podcasting |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 44: The Return of the General |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2014-01-08 |
| Long term planning with index cards is back! You can now capture your entire life strategy, operations, and tactics in three index cards. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 43: Scribal Filter and medium-term task management |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2014-01-02 |
| No-tech medium term task managment with index cards. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 42: Personal Punchcards Redux |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2013-11-26 |
| Low-tech, high-psychology productivity tracking gets even simpler. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 41: The "What the Hell" Effect and Negative Qualification. |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2012-03-02 |
| The "what the hell" effect sounds funny but it can seriously screw you up. How can everyday systems practitioners defend against it? |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 40: No Solitary Snacking -- even on S days. |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2011-11-10 |
| Hate your S-days because they make you feel out of control? Here's a mod to help you enjoy them again. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 39: Lawful Good Biker |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2010-08-13 |
| Change your biker-alignment to Lawful Good. Be flamboyantly, comically observant of traffic rules. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 38: 14 minutes of ANYTHING |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2010-03-05 |
| Looking for an exercise routine but not so into the idea swinging a sledgehammer around? Introducing shovelglove without the sledgehammer. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 37: The Mods and Tweaks Trilogy Part III: When a mere mod isn't enough |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2009-08-02 |
| How to roll your own everyday system from scratch. Introducing the idea of Systematic Moderation. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 36: The Mods and Tweaks Trilogy Part II: How To Tweak |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2009-05-30 |
| Still want to tweak an Everyday System? Here's how. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 35: The Mods and Tweaks Trilogy Part I: To Tweak Or Not To Tweak |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2009-04-29 |
| Want to modify an Everyday System? It's possible -- but risky, as this episode emphasizes. Subtitled: 'In Praise of Vanilla.' |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 34: S-days Gone Wild |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2008-05-12 |
| Feel like over the top S-days are undoing all your hard work during the week? Here's how to diagnose and correct this problem. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 33: 2007 Annual Compliance Review |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2008-01-28 |
| How well do I practice what I preach? What level of compliance is necessary for big picture success? What's the hardest everyday system? I attempt to answer these questions in my first annual self performance review. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 32: The Bigger (8x11) Picture |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2007-12-19 |
| Just as your daily task list should fit on a single 3x5 index card (see Chain of Self Command and Personal Punch Cards), your life strategy should fit on an single 8x11 sheet of paper |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 31: What is the best piece of exercise equipment money can buy? |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2007-11-12 |
| You may think you know the answer to this already -- or at least, the answer I am going to give you. But you're probably wrong. Because it's not a sledgehammer. Or even a sledgehammer with a sweater wrapper around it. It's a timer. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 30: Introducing the HabitCal |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2007-07-05 |
| The HabitCal is a free online tool I came up with to track and build habits. In this podcast I explain how to use it and why. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 29: Top 5 health and fitness books (sort of) |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2007-07-05 |
| I've been asked to talk about the top five health and fitness books I've read. Unfortunately I don't think I've read that many health and fitness books in my entire life, and they certainly weren't all worth recommending. So I'm going to have to narrow it down to four. And I'll be cheating a little because one of them hasn't even been published yet. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 28: A 90% diet solution -- in 2 words |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2007-05-23 |
| According to data from the Continuing Surveys of Food Intake by Individuals, conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 90% of our increased calorie consumption since 1977 has come from increased between-meal eating. Calories consumed at meals have stayed about the same. If this statistic is accurate, snacking is not only the biggest problem in terms of dietary excess, it is almost the entire problem. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 27: Audiodidact (Output) |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2007-03-28 |
| Talk to yourself -- and record it. Why? Autotherapy. Catch all those great ideas that would have gotten away otherwise. Nag yourself into doing impossible tasks. Keep an even-keel diary that reflects a broader range of experience. Give serious books the serious attention they require. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 26: Audiodidact (Input) |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2007-03-12 |
| No time to read? Hate mindless but necessary chores? Solve both problems at once by listening to audiobooks while you do housework. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 25: Compound and Atomic Tasks |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2007-03-02 |
| Consolidate well-understood routine tasks into compound tasks. Break up poorly understood novel tasks into atomic components. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 24: Put the Scale in Perspective |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2007-02-14 |
| How I lost 10 pounds, overnight, without even trying. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 23: Intelligent Dietary Defaults |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2007-02-07 |
| Convenience is stronger than you are. Accept this fact. But with a little planning, the convenient thing doesn't have to be too awful. Case in point: 'optimize your oatmeal.' |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 22: In Defense of 'Failure' |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2007-01-31 |
| Stop using evasive euphemisms. Own up to 'failure' or you become it. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 21: Extreme Moderation |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2007-01-25 |
| Moderation isn't mushy. Learn from extremists by drawing hard lines -- just draw them in different places. Get the clarity of cold turkey abstinence without the sweeping deprivation. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 20: When you don't have 14 minutes |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2007-01-17 |
| No time to exercise? Get philosophical. Use enlightened self-mockery, a neo-Kantian personal categorical imperative, and an existential leap of action to get you moving. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 19: Personal Punch Cards |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2007-01-10 |
| How to use index cards for todo lists at the three scales of the chain of command: daily, monthly, yearly. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 18: Chain of Self-Command |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2007-01-03 |
| Organize your self improvement efforts on three temporal scales: year=general, month=officer, day=footsoldier. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 17: Personal Olympics |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-12-14 |
| Make your goals fun, important, and attainable with Personal Olympics. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 16: Monthly Resolution |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-12-06 |
| A month is a much better granularity than the more typical yearly resolution we make on new years, because you can estimate better on that smaller scale, and recover and reset faster. And it's long enough (over 21 days!) for some habituation to occur, even with a slip up or two. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 15: Season's Warnings |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-11-29 |
| Limit your celebratory eating to the holidays themselves. Adjust your expectations so that your goal is mere maintenance. If you screw up, don't wait till new years to get back on the wagon. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 14: Top 5 Arbitrary Numbers |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-11-22 |
| One thing that every self help guru can agree on is that you have to have an arbitrary number in your system. It is a little weird that the most rational concepts we have available to us -- numbers -- are so irrationally inspiring. But it clearly is the case. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 13: Strictness |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-11-15 |
| Strictness builds habit faster. Dumb down what to be strict about with fence around the law. Avoid punishment and reparations. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 12: 21 days and Negative Tracking |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-11-09 |
| Use the full habit traffic light for 21 days to build your habit, then switch to more efficient negative tracking. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 11: Habit Tracking with the Habit Traffic Light |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-11-02 |
| Need to keep track of something? Keep track of behavior, not results, with the Habit Traffic Light. Mark each calendar day with green for success, red for failure, yellow for exempt (S-days). It's cheap and keeps you focused on what you can control. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 10: Habit Friendly Behaviors |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-10-26 |
| How to identify behaviors that are easily automated into unconscious habit. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 9: Habit Management |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-10-18 |
| Want results? Frame your goals in terms of behavior. Results goals are just wishful thinking. Automate conscious behaviors into unconscious habits. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 8: Glass Ceiling |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-10-11 |
| Smooth out dangerous and humiliating binge drinking into moderate and pleasurable moderate drinking with a 2 drink a day glass ceiling. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 7: Weekend Luddite |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-10-05 |
| For every labor saving device there seem to be at least two time consuming devices to soak up all that freed time again. As T.S. Eliot put it, we are "distracted by distraction from distraction." Weekend Luddite is a system that addresses (at least in part) this problem of distraction management. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 6: Urban Ranger |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-09-27 |
| Reimagine yourself so that walking becomes the most important, the most exciting thing you could possibly be doing. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 5: Shovelglove Time |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-09-20 |
| 14 minutes is one minute less than the smallest unit of schedulistically significant time. No calendar has a finer granularity than 15 minutes. No one ever has a meeting that starts at 9:05 or 9:14. You have no excuse not to do this. Time-wise, it doesn't even register. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 4: Shovelglove Sledgehammer Workout Overview |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-09-13 |
| Take a sledgehammer and wrap an old sweater around it. This is your "shovelglove." Every week day morning, set a timer for 14 minutes. Use the shovelglove to perform shoveling, butter churning, wood chopping and other motions until the timer goes off. Stop. Rest on weekends and holidays. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 3: No S Diet Rules |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-09-05 |
| Last week I gave a high level overview of the no s diet to give you a sense of how something this simple could possibly work. This week I'm going to zoom in a little to a smaller scale and go over each of the rules in a bit of detail. |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 2: No S Diet Overview |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-08-30 |
| A life altering diet plan in 14 words. How can something this simple possibly work? |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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| Episode 1: Everyday Systems Overview |
| Posted by Reinhard on 2006-08-30 |
| Five years ago, I had all the usual self improvement problems. I was fat. I smoked too much. I drank too much. I exercised too little. And I diddled away all my free time in front of the computer. Low self esteem, that problem I guess I didn't really have, beyond what can be expected of a fat, slothful, drunk who wastes all his free time. So I came up with a bunch of simple, common sense self improvement systems to fix these problems. And they worked... |
| Transcript | mp3 | discuss |
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By Reinhard Engels
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