When I was in elementary school, a teacher came up to me to quietly tell me that I was sitting incorrectly. I was reading a book and I had my ankle on my knee. She told me that it was impolite; that’s how men sit. According to her, women sit with their legs crossed more closely, one thigh over the other.

What? I remember feeling embarrassed but confused. It didn’t make sense to me. …

I, like most people I know, get stuck all the time — stuck on thoughts, feelings, physical challenges, creative projects. And when I get stuck on something, The first thing I do is attempt to work through it: I try to unpack the thought, unwind the feeling, bust the plateau, or force the creative insight.

Sometimes this works. Often it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, the best thing I can do is step away. But it’s also the hardest. My brain, like most human brains, hates leaving things undone. I face a strong urge to lean in and continue picking at…

Human beings crave progress. That craving distorts what we work on. Vital pursuits with less tangible progress are frequently sidelined for trivialities we can check off a to-do list.

Think of the last time you updated your computer. Just having the progress bar made the wait more bearable. The inching left to right may have been inconsistent. It may have been downright misleading, as the frustration at witnessing it stall forever at exactly 99% can attest.

But imagine how much harder it would be to wait if the progress bar weren’t even there.

Many people crave stronger, more authentic friendships as an adult. But the process of building these relationships can prove slow and frustrating when our free time is already scarce.

How do you skip the awkward chit chat phase and hit the fast forward button on a potential friendship? As a therapist, I’ve learned a few things about building quick rapport with someone.

First, give yourself permission to bore people

We all know the safe topics to broach when you first meet someone. We stick to sports, the weather, and work because we worry that our specific interests, and our zeal for them, will scare people away. …

Famed director Quentin Tarantino “never use[s] a typewriter or computer.” He prefers to write screenplays by hand in a notebook.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri writes her books with pen and paper, then types them up on a computer without internet.

Jonathan Franzen, the writer Time magazine called the “Great American Novelist,” believes “you can’t write serious fiction on a computer that’s connected to the Internet.”

These methods may seem extreme, but desperate times call for desperate measures. …

“I’ll tell you one thing, I’m sick of this damn Covid thing.” Carl and I had never met before, but on this we immediately found common ground.

Carl came out to our family’s cabin in New Hampshire to make some long-overdue repairs. We chatted about the weather and the astronomical price of lumber before talking about the pandemic.

In many ways, Carl and I were completely different: I lived in an apartment in New York City; he lived in the countryside on 10 acres with his dog. I spent most of the pandemic in the hospital treating patients; he spent…

For the last day or two, I’ve been thinking about this excellent Vox essay by Beatrice Forman titled, “The soothing, slightly sinister world of productivity hacks,” partly because while it’s nominally about the new generation of air-quote, Influencers (some of whom are not legally old enough to drink), who are doling out productivity advice on TikTok, it’s also about venerating work for its own sake.

I share Forman’s repulsion to the surface idea of it. I think work can be deeply gratifying but it is not inherently**, and I know this because I’ve worked the customer service desk at a…

The other day I had to decline a work opportunity that I’d previously expressed enthusiasm for. We had scheduled (and rescheduled) a phone call to go over the brief, I had expressed interest on the call, and was awaiting some paperwork for me to sign so we could progress further.

Overnight, I realized that the opportunity wasn’t quite the right fit for my post-pandemic work life—one where I’m trying to be hyper-cautious about effort in for money out so I can attain my ultimate goal: working less.

I agonized over how to tell her via email. I thought about how…