Five Easy Ways to Make Your Life Better for 10/4/20
How to Make Friends as an Adult
(Marisa Franco | Psyche | 3,250 words)
Having a network of friends is one of the biggest factors in happiness. But making new friends once you leave school is difficult for many people.
To do so, you should first assume that people will like you. Then put in the effort to initiate things and connect with people, rather than just assuming friendships will happen automatically. Get vulnerable with people so you can have meaningful shared emotional experiences.
One less obvious suggestion is to find situations where you will repeatedly interact with people, such as classes, book clubs, co-working spaces, church, or community organizations. It’s easier to make friends with people you see over and over than in one-off situations like a networking event.
16 Incredibly Easy Ways to Be More Organized At Home
(Steven Ray Marks | Self Helping Yourself | 2,000 words)
Ways to improve your home that take no willpower, minimal cost, and will ultimately save you time and effort.
Highlights include:
- Make sure every item has a place that it belongs
- Keep pens, a notepad, knife or box-cutter, scissors, kleenex, and small trash can in every room
- Use pill organizers
- Store things with other items that are used together
- Use painter’s tape to label things
- Write expiration dates in easy-to-read sharpie
30 Things Men Wish Women Knew in Dating
(January Nelson summarizing a Reddit thread | Thought Catalog | 1,200 words)
The key takeaways from this thread are:
Be straightforward in your communication, don’t play games, and don’t expect a man to be a mind-reader. Also recognize that men are straightforward and mean what they say.
Be willing to make compromises, and let him have his own space, hobbies, time, and friends.
Treat him well and show him he’s loved. Things like affection, gifts, compliments, and initiating intimacy are appreciated.
Don’t expect men to change, and especially don’t think you can change a man.
If you aren’t interested in a man or want to break up, tell him directly and as soon as possible. “Letting him down easy,” giving hints, or “waiting for the right time,” is much crueler.
As a man who’s been happily married for 13 years, I agree with all this advice. (And I think much of it applies to women as well.)
5 Steps to Put and End to Your Worries
(Dr. Tchiki Davis | Relationship Development & Transformation | 625 words)
To worry less:
- Explore the origins of your worries.
- Identify your particular worry pattern
- Catastrophizing
- Minimization
- All-or-nothing thinking
- Overgeneralization
- Negative attention
- Rumination
- Mind-reading
- Exercise
- Try mindfulness
- Talk to someone
Improve Your Marriage By Watching Romantic Comedies Together
(Sarah Dillon | The Ladders | 650 words)
Couples that watch a romantic comedy together and then spend half an hour discussing it can reduce their chances of divorce down the line by up to 50%.
It gives them an opportunity to discuss relationship behaviors and mistakes in a non-threatening environment, by looking through the lens of fictional characters. This allows them to understand their partner’s needs and wants, and adjust their own behaviors.
Bonus Boost
Intermittent Fasting is Easy When You Call It Skipping Breakfast
(Steven Ray Marks | Self Helping Yourself | 625 words)
“Intermittent Fasting” is a popular diet trend, that you may have dismissed as way too hard.
But it’s really a fancy and intimidating name given to the practice of limiting your meals to an eight hour window each day.
Which you can easily do, simply by skipping breakfast.
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