Today I have an extract from Reframe the Day: Embracing the Craft of Life, One Day at a Time.

The author is donating all profits from book sales to the Covid-19 response efforts of Direct Relief.

First of all, here’s the book info

Requests and to-dos bombard your phone and inbox, day and night. Information and distractions claw at your time and attention. You’re always busy, always searching for the finish line … or at least the pause button. Life feels like an endless series of “what’s nexts”—what’s the next meeting, task, obligation, goal, achievement?

Adam M. Lowenstein emerged from the nonstop, striving-obsessed world of American politics convinced that everyone, no matter who you are or what you do, has the power to build more fulfilling days. You don’t have to undertake a radical transformation. You don’t have to quit your job or move halfway around the world. 

You can simply tweak how you approach each day. Find meaning in your daily burdens and commitments. Resist the allure of busyness. Make more time for what matters to you (and feel less guilty when you do).

In Reframe the Day, Lowenstein offers ten tips, tactics, and techniques for nudging your days in a more fulfilling direction. Combining concrete advice with tools for self-reflection, Reframe the Day shows you how to reframe the way you see and spend your days and, over time, reshape your life.

Extract

The toy maker LEGO nearly collapsed in the early 2000s. In Brick by Brick, a book chronicling the company’s struggles and subsequent revitalization, David Robertson and Bill Breen describe how LEGO conducted countless focus groups to better understand the types of toys that engaged children. Among their observations was that children are driven by “the notion of mastery.” As Robertson and Breen write, “whether it was flipping skateboarding tricks or obsessing over the design and history of warplanes, kids demonstrated an innate desire to dig into a discipline and conquer it.”

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