• Deliberate Living

    Doing A Media Fast

    How much time per day do you spend consuming media? I'm talking about news, magazines, social media and websites. Has it increased with the pandemic? Is it doing you good? Or is it making you anxious and depressed? A media fast can help us break the cycle that news has over us. At a time when we need to be focusing on personal circumstances, keeping up with the media can distract us, or even worse, derail us completely and offer us an unhealthy escape.

  • Deliberate Living

    Changing Jobs: Let’s Do The Math

    How do you know if a new job is the right way to go? If all other factors are equal, how do you know that you're not actually taking a cut in pay? I get asked this question - a lot - because people know I can do the math. (The price to pay of an engineering degree and a teaching license in math, I guess). So today I wanted to get the article out there so other people can see how to work through it. Bear in mind that this is just the money numbers. There is a price tag on happiness and sanity, and the following article doesn't take into account dysfunctional workplaces or job dissatisfaction.

  • Balance

    10 Commandments of Stress Reduction

    There is too much stress in our lives. We're so busy and overwhelmed that our stress levels creep up. And it's not good for us. Prolonged exposure to stress can lead to mood disorders, cardiovascular disease, digestive problems, eating disorders and more. It's a killer. But it's easy to recognize stress, but not so easy to rein it in. So today we'll take (what I hope) is a light-hearted look at how to reduce stress with the 10 commandments of stress reduction.

  • Overwhelm

    How to Deal With Information Overload

    There is so much information coming at us today. We get it from the media, internet, email, social media. We can try to escape, but as long as we have our phones, we have even more information at our fingertips. Some of this information is very useful - the internet presents a reference like we've never seen before in the history of man. We have at our fingertips all the knowledge we could possibly use to accomplish just about anything. But at the same time, some of this information is either useless or even harmful. If useless, it takes up our attention and energy. If harmful, it spurs feelings of jealousy, anger and even hatred. All this information is overwhelming. And without deliberate management, it can cause overload, where we are no longer able to process the information coming at us. So what can a single person…