Every morning I glance at my phone to see what time it is when I wake up. I also check the temperature.
This morning an article popped up that caught my eye. “3 morning habits to help you be happier and more productive at work, according to psychologists” by Morgan Smith on CNBC.
I have an established morning routine that I have followed for years. I developed the routine while reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I journal three pages. It’s a brain dump consisting of everything that’s making me anxious, plus a to do list for the upcoming day. Then I use an app called Laudate and either read or listen to daily Bible readings followed by prayer. Last, I go for my morning walk.
It’s a routine that helps me feel grounded. I was curious what the article would say about morning routines and if my morning routine hit their three suggestions to be happier and more productive.
I’m missing the first step.
Set an intention for the day.
Your to-do list might be doing more harm than good, psychologist Jessica Jackson warns.
Checking your emails, calendar or to-do list soon after you wake up “immediately starts the day off on a stressful note, and tells your brain to go into panic mode,” Jackson, who is also the global clinical diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging manager at Modern Health, tells CNBC Make It.
Instead, Jackson recommends all of her clients start their day with an intention meditation: taking a few minutes to sit in silence, take a couple of deep breaths, and choose a single word, or sentence, to be their “north star” for the day.
“You can tell yourself, ‘My intention for today is to feel successful’ or ‘I want to be comfortable today’ and think about what you can realistically accomplish in the next 24 hours to feel that way,” Jackson explains. “It can also be a single, powerful word like ‘gratitude’ that will guide how you react to and reflect on whatever happens throughout the day.”
Step two I do with my morning pages. The suggestion is to set an offline ritual and stick with it. My morning walks also fit the bill.
Step three is to have fun. I thought I was missing that also, but I play Wordle every morning. That’s my bit of fun. We realize how important recess is for kids at school, the article explained. But what do we do for fun?
What is your morning routine? Do you hit all three of the steps in the CNBC article?
My pretty kitty Olive sitting on the back of a sofa. No, this photo has nothing to do with my post.
I saw an article that said that many college graduates regret their major. The number one regret was journalism.
I was Communications Major in Editorial Journalism from the University of Washington in Seattle.
I enjoyed the experience. During my last year of school I was assigned to be a reporter at a local paper. I reported to the editor and worked there five days a week. I turned in my articles to my professor to be graded.
Then, I went to the state Capitol and was assigned to a local paper as a stringer. I’d write three and four articles a day about the goings on at the state Capitol. We were a group of 12 journalism students living and working together.
When I got into the workforce I had a nice portfolio of news clips. I ended up in Public Relations and wrote stories and newsletters I was assigned. I soon found out it was a LOW paying job. Especially my first one. I was making less than $1,000 a month in the mid 1980s.
The article from CNN listed these majors as the ones graduates most regret:
The article states that people who make more money are more satisfied with their majors. Who’d have thunk it? Read the article HERE to find out what the top 10 favorite majors are.
What was your major? Would you select something else if you had a chance?
Yesterday’s Wordle. I used my son’s three starter words. Then figured out the answer.
I saw a series of articles from different news sources — from NY Post to CNBC — that said cheating on Wordle is on the rise.
Why? What’s the point?
To be totally honest, I cheated once. I couldn’t figure out the word. I had four of the letters so I googled “Five letter words with R U P E….” rupee came up which I didn’t know was a currency from India — let along a word.
How did I feel after I cheated? Like there was no point in playing the game if I had to look up the answer. I haven’t done that again. I felt like a cheater. We had a t-shirt for our swim team that had this saying on the back: “Cheaters never win. Winners never cheat.”
In the NY Post there’s an article called “‘Everyone is cheating at Wordle’ and these are most guilty states: study” by Ben Cost.
Here’s an excerpt:
These are Wordle’s biggest cheaters. A recent study by data compiler Wordfinderx found that online answer searches increased 196% since the Times acquired the puzzle, in which players get five attempts to guess a new five-letter word each day.
“Cheating for the game is at an all-time high and only growing,” read the study.
Per the research, the US state that most frequently cheated was New Hampshire with the word “swill.” Coincidentally, the Granite State ranked third among US states with the most Wordle prowess, per a study last week by Wordtip.
CNBC’s article about Wordle cheaters by Mikaela Cohen was under the category “SUCCESS” and called “It seems like a lot of you are cheating at Wordle: Study.”
The jig is up — we know you’re cheating on your daily Wordle.
Or, at least, it would certainly appear that a growing number of people have been looking online for answers to the popular five-letter word guessing game — possibly to avoid putting a stop to a winning streak.
That’s according to a recent study by Wordfinderx, a reference website for word games like Wordle and Scrabble, which used Google Trends data to determine that Google searches for the answer to Wordle’s daily puzzle have nearly tripled ever since The New York Times acquired Wordle in January.
The study found that searches for Feb. 15′s “AROMA” and Feb. 19′s “SWILL” daily Wordle solutions reached a 100 out of 100 on Google’s search popularity scale, which compares search results on a topic and then rates them on a scale of 0 to 100 “based on a topic’s proportion to all searches on all topics,” according to Google.
Why do you think more people are cheating at Wordle? One theory is that from the end of 2021 to today more people are playing, hence more cheating. But why does the cheating coincide with NY Times buying Wordle?
Have you cheated at Wordle or other games? Have you thought about cheating? Have you noticed a difference in Wordle since the NY Times took over? Do you have a strategy to play?
Every morning, my husband brings me coffee in bed. He gets up hours earlier than I do. Around the time I wake up, he’ll bring a cup of coffee to my nightstand. Sometimes I’m still asleep and it’s sitting there ready for me when I open my eyes.
She has three tips on how to drink coffee and the first one applies to me. You are supposed to wait to drink your coffee. You’re not supposed to have it first thing.
Management and behavioral science expert Daniel Pink has examined the science of timing and how it can affect our productivity. In his book “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing,” Pink notes, based on research from several studies, that the best time to have your first cup of coffee is about 60-90 minutes after you wake up. That’s because caffeine interferes with the production of cortisol, the hormone that signals your body to be awake and responsive. According to this research, cortisol levels usually peak around 8:30 a.m.
Her other two tips are selecting the right ingredients and drinking coffee before a nap. First of all, I don’t nap. Second, I like my ingredients just fine. I like the coffee I like. Also, I like my coffee in bed and think it’s sweet my husband has done that for our entire marriage. But, today I wrote my three pages, walked and came back to make my own coffee. I’ll let you know if my caffeine is working better or not. So far, it just makes me a little bit sad.
Do you like to drink coffee or tea first thing in the morning or do you wait for your first cup?If you only drink one or two cups of coffee per day, what effect do you think timing has on caffeine?
Me and my brother who were fortunate to be raised by an exceptional mom.
I kept noticing an article on CNBC.com called, A psychologist shares the 7 biggest parenting mistakes that destroy kids’ confidence and self-esteem. I didn’t want to read it because I figured it would spell out all the mistakes I made as a parent. It’s written by Amy Morin is a psychotherapist and instructor at Northeastern University.
I was pleased to see I didn’t do all of them — I think there were one or two things I avoided. Yikes.
Here’s the opening paragraph and a list of seven things we’ve done wrong as parents that crush the confidence of our kids. The real article if you click the link above will offer the reason for each item on the list. It’s worth a read.
Every parent wants their kids to feel good about themselves — and with good reason.
But some of those strategies can backfire, creating a vicious cycle where kids struggle to feel good about who they are. As a result, parents may find themselves working overtime trying to boost their children’s self-esteem.
Here are the seven biggest parenting mistakes that crush kids’ confidence:
1. Letting them escape responsibility
2. Preventing them from making mistakes
3. Protecting them from their emotions
4. Condoning a victim mentality
5. Being overprotective
6. Expecting perfection
7. Punishing, rather than disciplining
Looking back on how my mom raised us, I have to say she didn’t do any of the above. So, why did I fall short? Was it a new age of parenting? Or was my mom an exceptional parent? She used to say her job as a parent was to let us fly from the nest and be free. That when she was needed anymore, she would know she had done her job.
Mom and me in the early 90s.
Which of the seven mistakes that crush our kids’ confidence are you guilty of doing?
Youth sports is a multi-billion dollar industry and as a sports mom myself, I know we were big contributors to it. In an article on CNBC.com, Lorie Konish writes that 27 percent of parents spend $500 or more a month on their children’s sports. That seems crazy high, right? But, especially if you have more than one child, it’s not hard at all to spend that much on sports. Trust me, I know.
As parents of two swimmers we easily did that, especially as the kids got older. We traveled to meets, stayed in hotels and ate out. Then we had the plan to buy an RV to eliminate the hotel stays. There’s some rocket science for you. Do you have any idea what it costs to own an RV? Yep. Pretty much a lot more than a few nights in a hotel per month.
Besides the travel, there were monthly dues for the club team which go up as your children get faster. Private lessons at $50 to $80 an hour to ensure your kids DO get faster. Then, the $485 “fast suit” to super make sure your kids are fast.
Here’s an excerpt from the article and some ideas to ensure you don’t go broke before your kids become super stars making beaucoup bucks–and you can afford your own retirement in case that plan doesn’t pan out–or you don’t win the lottery:
“Your child’s sports could be sabotaging your financial health”
Parents are spending more than ever on their children’s sports with the hopes that they will make it to the big leagues.
And dads are often the ones likely to shell out the most cash on their children’s activities, according to a new survey from TD Ameritrade.
Yet spending more with the hope that your child will make it big could have consequences for your finances, particularly your own retirement.
The survey, which was conducted online between February and March, included 1,001 adults ages 30 through 60. Of those respondents, those who were considered “sports parents” had one or more children in elite or club competitive sports and had more than $25,000 in investable assets.
The result: 27% of parents spend $500 or more per month on youth sports.
This was especially true for fathers, 20% of whom spend $500 to $999 each month per child on youth sports. Meanwhile, 7% of dads admitted they spend $1,000 or more.
That money is going towards everything from equipment to private coaching to tournaments out of town, according to Dara Luber, senior manager of retirement at TD Ameritrade.
Those dads may be reliving their youth or reviving their own professional sports aspirations, Luber said.
But the one thing those fathers — and all parents — need to be wary of is whether those costs will force them to make sacrifices in other important areas.
For the parents surveyed, that could mean cutting back on spending on entertainment or vacations. It could also mean taking on a second job or delaying retirement.
One in 5 dads surveyed said they worry about how their spending on their children’s sports will impact their retirement savings.
TD Ameritrade also found that sports parents are less likely to save for retirement through a 401(k) plan or individual retirement account than they were three years ago.
“There is nothing wrong with helping your son or daughter realize their sports dreams, but it definitely shouldn’t come at the expense of your own retirement or understate your family’s needs,” Luber said.
Swimming forces one to take a break from social media.
In an article titled, “I quit Instagram and Facebook and it made me a lot happier — and that’s a big problem for social media companies,” Christina Farr from CNBC explains how a three-month break from social media changed her life.
CNBC health-tech reporter Christina Farr took a break from social media after realizing that she spent far more time on Instagram than she realized.
It’s been three months without checking Facebook and Instagram.
Here’s what happened.
Social media companies, most notably Facebook, have faced a reckoning in the past year, with reports surfacing about an infiltration of Russian propaganda to influence elections, misuse user data, and countless other examples of the platform being used for ill.
#DeleteFacebook, once unthinkable, is now a very real trend. And it poses a growing threat to Facebook’s bottom line, and its future.
Against this backdrop, in August I made a big decision. I removed Facebook and Instagram apps off my phone, and logged out on the web. I didn’t get around to fully disabling or deleting them, as I wanted to see first how I’d respond to a month-long break. Baby steps, I told myself.
I haven’t been back, and I don’t really miss them at all.
Time not well spent
My break came around the time when Facebook and Instagram introduced “time well spent” features in the summer, which allow users to check how many hours they’ve spent on social media. I checked the activity dashboard after reporting on these changes for CNBC, and learned that I spent more than five hours on Instagram in a single week.
Five hours!
Five hours might not seem like that much, but it surprised me. I would have guessed an hour or two.
I told myself that my usage was limited to moments where I was standing in line for coffee or sitting in an Uber in traffic, with nothing better to do.
But if I’m honest with myself, I was sucked in a lot more than that, especially once I started following personal stylists, entrepreneurs and other glamorous influencers on Instagram who served as a kind of benchmark about success in my own life. Some nights, I’d pull up my phone and scroll through their feeds for inspiration about new meals to cook or new outfits to buy.
I started thinking: With five more hours every week, I could read a book, volunteer, spend quality time with a friend, even learn a new language. Maybe I’d be fluent in French again in six months if I took a break from these apps.
We take social media for granted these days. What was life like before Facebook and DMs and PMs took over as one of our major ways of communicating? I find myself using social media less and less. Maybe because I don’t have my kids around to post constant pictures of them. Or, maybe because looking at everyone’s happy faces and wondering why I wasn’t invited, doesn’t make me feel that great!
During the past few days I’ve spent with my daughter, we were looking through Facebook together. She made a comment that I’ve often repeated myself — “thank goodness there wasn’t Facebook when I was growing up!” Amen to that! I would have been a totally out of control Facebook mom, posting every step and who knows about potty training!
In the article by Farr, she brings up several points that are cause for concern. Studies are being done that may show that Facebook causes anxiety and depression. Right now, she said, the results aren’t in, but she feels less anxious without it.
Also, Farr talked with one of the program manager and he explained that it is an addictive platform and was designed to be that way:
That got me thinking more deeply about a conversation I had about four years ago with a former Google project manager, Tristan Harris, who I first met when working on a story about habit-forming apps. He described social media back then as “hijacking our minds.”
Harris was among the first to make the connection between neuroscience and social media, and question whether it’s even possible for many people to use social media constructively.
One example he used is the “bottomless bowl,” referring to studies that show that humans will often consume more out of self-refilling bowls than regular ones. The news feed format pioneered by Facebook, he says, is just like that, in the way it seduces us to keep scrolling through an endless stream of content for far longer than we planned to.
I found this to be an interesting article which made me think more about social media and how I use it. I’ve written about social media before and wonder what will happen to our kids raised on selfies. But, it’s also important to think about what happens to us, who use social media to connect and communicate with people online. Is it having an affect on our brains, moods and relationships?
The beach makes a perfect escape from social media, too.
What are your thoughts about quitting social media? If you’ve taken a break, how did it change your daily life?
