Supritha S

When you believe your mood necessarily means something is wrong, that something can only be you, or the world around you. You feel like have to fix one or both, and of course you don’t know how, so you feel worse.

There’s a twist to this that I didn’t appreciate until recently. Productivity momentum only kicks in when you’re confident of success. Otherwise, the half-finished work just sits there and stares at you.

It might be painful now to put in the work required to get in shape or become a better athlete, but as your skills improve over time you'll remember the experience as a positive one.

There is one caveat with the Seinfeld Strategy. You need to pick a task that is meaningful enough to make a difference, but simple enough that you can get it done.

Just leave the narrative unfinished—not that they ever can be finished—and go back to what you were doing before the storytelling started. That’s where life actually happens.

Productivity momentum is a simple, obvious idea: tasks become easier to do once you’ve started on them.

Yes, the world around you shapes your habits and choices, but there is something important to realize: someone had to shape that world in the first place. Now, that someone can be you.

It's easy to worry about making the right choices with your life. However, if you choose to pursue things where the pain of the experience is largely in the beginning — like building a business, losing weight, or creating art — then you will tend to look back on those experiences fondly because they improve over time.