Balanced Lifestyle

How can I build a business and lifestyle that doesn’t burn me out?

Last updated 2023 October 14 | More of my big questions

Sub-questions

  • How can I run a consulting business that lets me work on interesting projects without consuming all my time?
  • How can I run an author business that doesn’t take too much time away from writing?
  • Is it possible to run a business successfully without social media?
  • What does it look like to build rest and recovery into my lifestyle?
  • What builds energy and what uses it up?
  • How does my mindset need to change to overcome social conditioning to achieve and conform?

Bookshelf

Books I’ve read to think about this question since 2021. Links go to my book review.


Real Self-Care 👍👍
by Pooja Lakshmin
(self-help)
Indian-Am author
2023-06-26

Effortless
by Greg McKeown
(non-fiction, self-improvement)
2023-04-06

How to Calm Your Mind
👍👍
by Chris Bailey
(non-fiction, self-help)
2023-03-24

What Works 👍👍
by Tara McMullin
(productivity)
neurodivergent author
2023-03-08

Wintering
by Katherine May
(memoir)
autistic author
2023-01-17

Rest is Resistance
by Tricia Hersey
(non-fiction, memoir)
Black, queer author
2022-12-15

How to Keep House While Drowning 👍👍
by K.C. Davis
(non-fiction, organization)
neurodivergent author
2022-09-11

Notes on a Nervous Planet 👍
by Matt Haig
(self-help)
2022-09-09

Designing Your Work Life
by Bill Burnett + Dave Evans
(non-fiction, career)
2022-07-14

How to Live
by Derek Sivers
(self-help)
self-pub
2021-10-10

Four Thousand Weeks
👍👍
by Oliver Burkeman
(non-fiction, productivity)
2021-08-30

Your Music and People 👍
by Derek Sivers
(non-fiction, marketing)
self-pub
2021-05-29

Keep Moving
by Maggie Smith
(memoir / self-help)
2021-05-24

Burnout
by Amelia & Emily Nagoski
(non-fiction, self-help)
2021-04-03

Hell Yeah or No 👍👍
by Derek Sivers
(non-fiction, self-help)
self-pub
2021-01-08

How to Be Fine
by Jolenta Greenberg and Kristen Meinzer
(non-fiction, self-help)
2021-01-03

Workshops, podcasts + videos

Other media I’ve watched or listened to in considering this question.

Articles

Articles or longer responses I’ve written thinking about this question.

Notes

Bookmarks and quotes from articles I’ve read related to this question, with my commentary.

Rethinking career

Slowing the pace

Balancing life

Psychology of success

6 replies on “Balanced Lifestyle”

I have too many pages to fit in my nav! Here’s a sitemap of all the pages on this website. Blog Mind Garden Index Links to blog about Big Questions Big Questions Balanced Lifestyle Effective Creative Processes Writing Fiction Thinking Better Information Diet Future of the Internet Resisting Fascism Building Community Transforming Capitalism Collections Cool…

Spring is here — it was a big wildlife week in the neighborhood! Heard coyotes howling in the greenbelt and the frogs started their evening chorus, saw a doe in the backyard and a hummingbird out front, and spotted the first bees cruising. But, allergies also hit me hard 🤧

I downloaded my Google Takeout data. I’d forgotten they own Blogger and was delighted to discover they had atom feeds for all of my old college blogs! No photos, but still funny to see what I wrote about twenty years ago. I’ve marked the date of my very first post on my calendar so I can celebrate the anniversary come September 😁🥂
I’ve been working on keeping fewer tabs open on my phone. I was doing pretty well till yesterday but left six tabs open overnight 😂
Stuff I Did:

About eight hours of consulting work
Developed a new revision plan for my novel
Started exploring webfonts for my consulting website
Went to Homebrew Website Club
Watched a webinar about home design
Walked with a friend twice
Baked scones
One appointment

Reading:

Read Alien Mercenary’s Destiny by Mina Carter and re-read The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan
Started reading Effortless by Greg McKeown
DNF’d Breath of Life by Jocelynn Drake and Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
Added five books to my TBR

Words I looked up / concepts I learned:

cognate
caliginous
No free lunch theorem

New newsletter I’m trying out:

Ann Friedman’s newsletter

Pretty things I saw:

Ryan Swierczek of Swierczek Design Co — I like the color palettes, especially the photo tints, and the photo collages on their posters
Roland Kraemer on ThatBloom.com — lots of neat abstract natural photo series, and I thought the inverted cursor overlay was cool looking (although the size changing was a little confusing)
Parag Sahasrabudhe on parag.micro.blog — a series of colorful doors in Puerto Rico

Website Changes:
New organizing section!
I created a new section called “Big Questions” which organizes a lot of my notes and reading under broad questions that I’ve been thinking about a lot over the past couple years:

Balanced Lifestyle
Effective Creative Processes
Writing Fiction – this one hasn’t been populated yet
Thinking Better
Information Diet
Future of the Internet
Resisting Fascism
Building Community

I got some good ideas at Homebrew Website Club that I’ve only started implementing on the ‘balanced lifestyle’ page, so these still have some work to do. I also need to figure out what system I’m going to follow to update them since it’s all manual 😉
New page
I also finally published a page collecting “neat websites” as an addition to my pages for interesting people and cool artists and blogroll. I’d been sitting on it, feeling like it needed more content before I could post it, but whatev, may as well post now and can keep adding 🤷‍♀️