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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Nick Trenton
Started reading
August 18, 2025
If you find yourself returning to distressing memories from the past, take a moment to deliberately lay out your history, perhaps even writing it down or laying it out on a chart. Break down events into episodes and look for themes, patterns, and a thread that links them all together. See how the present moment ties into the past, then ask yourself what you can do to take charge of your own narrative.
You can see the whole picture—one of growth and progress.
One mindset shift is to see rest and relaxation as important and worthy of your focus, and not just something you tack onto the end of a day once more important things are done.
A positive attitude is one of your most valuable resources in life—why
Stress management is about removing those unnecessary stressors, but it’s also about proactively making room for those things in life that we enjoy and which refresh and regenerate us.
Take time to laugh a little, to play and joke, and to do something simply because it makes you happy.
If there’s not enough time in the day for all that and her work? That means her work isn’t right for her.
It’s a way to structure your entire life and manage the architecture of your living so that you spend your resources and energy on those things that matter most.
It’s up to us to consciously steer the direction of life so that we make the most of the time and energy we have.
you may discover that you highly value contemplative alone time, your independence, and the opportunity to be creative and make art.
There’s no point talking about time management without knowing what your goals and priorities are. Good time management depends entirely on the outcomes you’re aiming for, and you need to know what you value first.
Think process rather than outcome. If you focus on daily helpful habits, you’ll achieve more in the long term than if you focused on quick results and perfectionism.
Continually weight up your actions to your bigger goals and ask, does this bring me closer or take me further away? Then act accordingly.
If you procrastinate, you may benefit from breaking things down into small tasks and rewarding yourself for each mini-milestone.
What works for people with this tendency is to have firmer boundaries and a better consideration for the kind of environment they work in.
such a person could learn to delegate more effectively and better distinguish between issues that are important and those that are urgent.
Allen’s technique claims that unless you plan ahead for how you respond, you’re probably doing it sub-optimally.
With a plan, you don’t have to waste precious time and energy scanning each new input as it comes along; you just make a quick decision and move on to what’s really important.
The trouble is letting inputs accumulate and cause you stress.
If you must act, ask if you have to do it right away
specific about what needs to be done and when, or even delegate it entirely.
what’s most important is that you are consistent.
Does this activity build toward my goals, satisfy my values, or fit with my ideal vision of myself?
clear, achievable goals and measurable success.
focus required to set concrete goals is the single biggest predictor for their fulfilment.
goal-setting is “the first step in turning the invisible into the visible”—in other words, they carry us fr...
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Goal-setting matters because a huge source of anxiety and rumination is uncertainty, lack of clarity, and diffused possibility.
the more proactively we engage with the unknown (i.e., by making goals to shape it), the more in control we’ll feel.
SMART goals are a roadmap from where you are to where you want to be:
With a SMART goal, you are basically plotting a journey from the present to the future, and any activity is bound to be more successful when there’s a clear and logical plan for it.
a vague and diffused goal is actually bringing more stress into your life.
a clear, proactive, and appropriate focus on what matters makes you more determined to fulfill your plan—and less stressed.
Kanban is a visual system for managing workflows, but you can use many of its principles to enhance your personal productivity.
the actual flow of work and how we can improve it.
Make constant, incremental changes for the better
The idea is that you actually achieve more by pursuing small, cumulative baby steps rather than trying to make big (intimidating!) quantum leaps.
you need to build in time to consistently check in with how you’re doing, adjust, and repeat.
With constant feedback loops comes constant improvement.
If you make the effort to structure and organize your time according to your values and goals, you will naturally find that your stress levels become more manageable, and overthinking ebbs a little.
we are not subject to the whims of our bodies or the random churning
consciously and deliberately shape our state of mind—and the more we practice, the more masterful we can be.
incorporating imagery from the natural world has measurable benefits—plus,
guided imagery help reduce anxiety levels, but it’s also known to help people access wisdom that they hold on a subconscious level.
Forget about what your visualization should be—rather, stretch your mental legs and let your imagination have fun with creating a world exactly as you like it.
setting deliberate and conscious limits to worry.
is a method for distinguishing between those situations and simple overthinking. We can ask ourselves the question: is this worry a 1) genuine problem that 2) I can do something about right now?
act—don’t worry. Worry and overthinking are useless, particularly when appropriate action is what’s called for. Here,
Once you’ve decided that something is not worth worrying about, be ruthless. Imagine
Genuine stress management, taking charge of our mental models and attitudes, building more relaxation into life, and being proactive with how we use our time are all foolproof ways of getting a handle on anxious overthinking.
working at the level of thoughts alone is unlikely to be effective unless you also consider all the other aspects of the overthinking puzzle.
