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With so many beautiful and unusual squashes showing up in markets right now, I can’t seem to come home without at least one knobby, colorful, speckled new squash in my bag. Happily, stuffed squash is a dish that will work for just about any winter squash I happen to pick up. You don’t really need a recipe — just a few basic steps and dinner practically makes itself.
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Kids love slime, kids love Jell-O, kids love eating whatever they’ve just spent the last hour throwing on the floor, and now that JELL-O is producing “Edible Slime,” all three of those things have converged.
As a mother of two small children, half of me is like, “Great, that’s 100 percent less of a chance that they’re going to swallow Borax this morning,” but the other half considers what the slime looks like by the time they’re done playing with it, and thinks, on second thought, that they should not put that anywhere near their mouths.
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Though everybody knows the Thanksgiving staples — cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, turkey — the quest to find the best recipe for each dish is ongoing. You want to make preparing dinner as simple as possible for yourself, without boring your guests or repeating the same recipes every year.
Thankfully, we have Pinterest, where similarly food-minded folks post 750 million recipes every year. On Pinterest, you’ll be able to find any Thanksgiving day recipe your heart desires. And if you’re still planning your menu, you might want to know which are the most popular. Below, find the top Thanksgiving recipe trends on Pinterest.
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Tasting wine isn’t just for sommeliers who can call what vineyard a wine came from in a single sniff. Blind tasting helps you hone in on what you actually like without being influenced by labels, prices, or marketing, so it’s something that anyone who likes wine should try a few times. Plus, it’s fun!
In order to find out what people really think of wines from Trader Joe’s, Aldi, and Costco, I strong-armed a few folks into blind tasting them. My tasters? Booth Hardy, owner of Barrel Thief Wine Shop and Cafe in Richmond, Virginia; my mom, Lynn; and my fiancée, Kate.
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You’d be hard-pressed to find somebody who’s favorite Thanksgiving dish is ham — or even turkey, if we’re being completely honest about who actually is the star of the holiday table (sorry, turkey fans).
While the main dishes are welcome additions to the smorgasbord that is the Thanksgiving lineup, the real stars of the table are the side dishes: mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and, my personal fave, stuffing. Unfortunately, that’s what a popular ham company found out when they asked America directly.
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We take our baked apples seriously and decided to transform this lazy, weeknight dessert into something extraordinary. Taking a cue from our favorite desserts, we used hollowed-out apples to hold an array of tasty fillings.
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While everyone knows Target’s home decor and fashion collections have been fiercely on point lately, not everyone thinks of the megastore as a go-to spot for DIY supplies. Although I like to support my local hardware or craft store when I’m working on a project at home, sometimes it’s just more convenient to throw sandpaper and stencils into my cart while I’m shopping for paper towels and shampoo.
The fact is that Target is packed with tons of project essentials that can really come in handy when you’re sprucing up your space or giving some furniture a mini-makeover. Here are some of its best hidden gems.
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Earlier this week, Hasbro released “Monopoly for Millennials,” a variation of your weird aunt’s favorite board game that replaces the familiar properties, utilities, and railroads with experiences like eating at a vegan bistro and attending a meditation retreat. The tagline for this game that exactly none of us want to ever play? “Forget real estate, you can’t afford it anyway!”
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I have spent much of my professional life fine-tuning my own productivity so that I can accomplish more without working longer hours and destroying my health. Read on to learn how “busyness” doesn’t equal productivity, how to cut out distractions, and how to accomplish more by actually doing less. Being mindful, learning to prioritize, and scheduling downtime and play are all important for a productive, happy life.
You can accomplish more, and you don’t need to work longer hours to do it. Here are seven ways to increase your productivity without sacrificing your health or happiness. #optimalhealth #healthylifestyle #chriskresser
Does any of this sound familiar?
If you can relate, there’s a good chance you’re in danger of having what author Max Strom called a “near-life experience” in his book There Is No App for Happiness. We’re busier than ever, and arguably unhappier as a result.
Instead of a badge of honor, I believe that busyness is a cultural disease. It’s a sign of just how disconnected we’ve become from what’s important in life. Our days are packed with one thing after another and full of distractions. The internet was supposed to revolutionize how we worked, helping us to be more productive, but everyone would agree that it’s a double-edged sword. The average person checks her smartphone 221 times per day. (2) We’re constantly switching between social media, texts, emails, and actual work—and less gets done as a result. “Busyness” starts to wear us down and might result in:
Too much stress and distraction wreak havoc on our health. Chronic stress, and the unhealthy habits that go along with it like low physical activity, poor eating habits, and lack of sleep, are related to a myriad of health problems, including:
I’m a “productivity hacker.” I have spent significant time actively working on increasing productivity while cutting out things that decrease it, and I’m going to share what I’ve learned with you. Here are seven practical tips that have helped me throughout my professional and personal life:
Did you notice if there were clouds in the sky this morning, or what they looked like? Did you even look up or were you staring at the phone attached to your hand? Later, when you waited for your lunch date, did you open your phone to check email or scroll through Facebook?
In everyday moments that once presented the opportunity for reflection and quiet presence, many of us are more likely to be thinking about what we have to tackle next on our to-do lists, what we already did or didn’t do (with regret), or what others are doing. We compound this when we pick up our phones and browse the internet, as if that will help us find the answers. We instantly respond to texts that can wait. We click on headlines and read news stories that aren’t urgent. All these little distractions are actually rewiring our brains.
A three-second distraction—enough time to pick up a phone to view a notification—can disrupt our brains from a “sequential task” (following directions, for instance) so effectively that we’re likely to make twice as many errors when we return to the task. (11)
In our quest to constantly be “on” and be productive, we have forgotten how to be mindful and present. Mindfulness, originally derived from Buddhist philosophy, means being aware of thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and the surrounding environment on a moment-to-moment basis. It means paying attention to what is rather than getting lost in thoughts about the future or the past.
Mindfulness meditation improves both interpersonal and intrapersonal skills. It’s been shown to:
The brain is able to reorganize in response to stimuli, an ability called neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the idea that we have the power to change the function and structure of our brains through our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. In a way, neuroplasticity lets us rewire our brains—to focus on positive occurrences instead of negative, for example, or to be more aware and mindful. By measuring neuroplasticity, researchers can directly observe and quantify the effects of mindfulness meditation on the brain. (19, 20, 21)
Through changing the brain, mindfulness changes the entire body. The vagus nerve, involved in regulating functions such as heart rate and digestion, sends messages between the brain and our internal organs. (22) Vagal tone, a measure of its functional fitness, correlates to healthy bodily function and increased positive feelings. (23, 24) Low vagal tone is related to inflammation, poor cardiac function, and gastrointestinal dysfunction. (25, 26) (With regard to the gut, for example, communication between the brain and gut can be influenced by neurotransmitters created by gut bacteria.) (27) Mindfulness meditation, deep breathing, and emotional tools to foster self-love and kindness can all improve vagal tone. (28, 29, 30)
Mindfulness meditation has been linked to major health benefits, including:
If you have never meditated before, it can feel excruciating at first. Start small. You don’t need to spend hours each day meditating. Instead of committing to something unrealistic on day one, try meditating for just five minutes. Studies show that a mere 10 minutes a day yields a host of benefits. (42)
Here are some tips from Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of mindfulness-based stress reduction:
For additional resources, consider enrolling in Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program. Two meditation books I recommend are Meditation for Beginners and Buddha in Blue Jeans. A group at UCLA creates a new, free, 30-minute guided meditation every week. The Headspace app has been helpful for many people (as long as the extra app doesn’t contribute to more distraction!).
The term “multitasking” was first used to describe parallel processing abilities of computers. Today, of course, multitasking refers to a person’s ability to do multiple activities simultaneously, like talking on the phone with a client while answering emails. In some workplaces, multitasking is simply part of the job.
According to the late Stanford neuroscientist Clifford Nass, multitasking should be renamed “multi-switching,” and no matter what you call it, it’s actually a buzzkill for productivity.
People who think they are good at multitasking may simply be proficient at rapidly shifting attention between two tasks they have already mastered. That’s not really multitasking—it’s just switching between a couple of things you’re already good at. (Think of an experienced chef who can prep and cook lots of dishes without missing a beat.) And most of us can’t do it well. Furthermore, research suggests that those who consider themselves to be effective “multitaskers” actually aren’t good at multitasking at all, and their productivity suffers.
Students who engaged in high levels of multitasking reported significant issues with academic work. (43) In a study of college students, those who focused on a single task at a time outperformed multitaskers in a series of experiments. And when the experiment involved multitasking, the participants who were not considered multitaskers still came out ahead. (44)
Media multitaskers, those who, for example, scroll through social media while watching TV, especially have reduced attention control, greater susceptibility to distractions, and a general tendency toward diffuse or shallow attention. (45, 46, 47) A study at Stanford found that 25 percent of students use four or more media devices at once. (48) They’re writing a paper, they’re on Instagram, they’re in a text conversation, and they have music playing. But this is becoming increasingly common in the workforce as well; workers will be answering the phone while replying to an email and texting friends.
The loss of productivity that comes from switching tasks frequently is called the “switch cost.” (49) The switch costs can manifest in various ways:
Almost without question, you will be more productive if you focus on one task at a time instead of trying to multitask. Consider a focus-intensive task such as writing. It takes a while to settle into the zone of concentration. If you come out of it to check email, you might not be able to get back into the same level of concentration quickly. One study by researchers at UC Irvine monitored work interruptions among office workers. They found that workers took an average of 25 minutes to recover from interruptions such as phone calls or answering emails and return to their original task. (50)
If, while you’re fixed in the zone, another to-do item comes into your head, don’t shift tasks. Don’t open a tasks app in your phone to type a reminder. Instead, jot down a few words on a physical notepad and deal with it later so that you can stay focused on the task at hand.
If you enjoy working with music in the background, check out Focus@Will. The site provides music that is designed to modulate at intervals that match up with how frequently your brain begins to search a new stimulus. They call it “scientifically optimized music to help you focus.”
Frequently checking email and browsing online is guaranteed to reduce your overall productivity. And, unfortunately, you’re checking email and social media more than you think. One study from 2015 found that, on average, people check their smartphones twice as often as they thought they did. (51) These statistics might surprise you:
If you’re interested in the plain, hard truth of how you’re spending (read: wasting) your time, download the web-based application RescueTime. It tracks the time you spend on different tasks, like social media, email, Microsoft Office, and any other programs or sites.
Instead of checking email constantly throughout the day, schedule two to four focused sessions per day to devote to email. Schedule these times into your calendar, just as you would a meeting, and don’t even have the email application open on the computer otherwise. Checking email (and texts) has become addictive for most of us, and it can take some time to break the habit of constantly wanting to click on it—but once you take the plunge and schedule your email activity, you’ll free up larger chunks of time to work on tasks that require intense focus.
Group similar tasks together within the day (or week if more applicable). Batching works for more than just email. For example, instead of having meetings scheduled for 9:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., and 2:00 p.m., schedule all of them within a single block of time, like between 3:00 and 4:30 p.m., for example. This frees up blocks of time for uninterrupted work. Other examples of this would include doing all in-town errands on the same day or having a dedicated day to meal prep for several days’ worth of meals.
I know that I am more productive and focused in the morning, and so that’s when I will focus on writing or content development. I leave errands, meetings, emails, and so forth for later in the day. Evaluate what works best for you.
As I mentioned above, multitasking doesn’t really work. All the little notification boxes that pop up when someone likes your status or comments on your post shift your focus and break your concentration. Most apps have notifications turned on by default, but you can manually turn them off. If you really want a reprieve from the constant distraction, try following the “notification zero” movement and disable push notifications entirely.
Of course, you might need to keep certain notifications enabled, but you know what they are, and you can turn off the rest. At the very least, putting your phone face down is helpful because you won’t be tempted by a screen that lights up as soon as “news” comes in.
Research indicates that the mere presence of a phone can be distracting! (55) If you keep the ringer on, you won’t miss that important phone call you’ve been waiting for, but the phone will be safely out of reach.
It might be hard to hear, but no, you can’t do it all. We get so frazzled trying to keep up with dozens of people, projects, and activities, that we lose sight of what we’re working towards.
This tip is meant especially for the people-pleasers. As I said, you can’t do it all—you shouldn’t try, and you shouldn’t feel like you have to. Focus on what’s important and let the rest go.
From Facebook tiffs to in-person drama, these arguments will drain your energy and often sour your mood, both of which will negatively impact your productivity.
Being courteous and kind to everyone is a good rule of thumb, but not everyone has to be your best friend. Steer clear of negative people or those who tend to stress you out.
As a monthly practice, identify your five most important projects or goals. (Put a note in your calendar to do this—you could choose the first Monday of the month so that it’s a logical fit with your schedule.) Don’t skip this step—you have to know your target to aim correctly. Each week, identify tasks to move you closer to those goals. (Again, Monday makes sense, but some advance planners may like doing this on a Friday, in preparation for the week to come.) At the start of each day, list the three most important tasks to follow.
By setting aside specific times for tasks, schedules prevent things from staying on your to-do list indefinitely. Pencil it in!
Here is where I will start to lose people. That’s because the remaining three productivity hacks have less to do with work itself than with supporting productivity while you are not working. But they are just as important.
One meta-analysis involving 18 studies and over 800,000 subjects found that those who sat the most had a greater than 100 percent higher risk of diabetes, a nearly 150 percent higher risk of heart disease, a 90 percent higher risk of death from heart disease and close to a 50 percent higher risk of death from all causes when compared to those that sat the least. (58) A recent study found that as sedentary time increased, so did early death from any cause. (59) What might be surprising is that in this study, exercise time did not mitigate any of the detrimental effects of sedentary behavior.
My treadmill desk has been life-changing. I walk at a very slow pace (less than one mile per hour) while doing computer work, or I can choose to stand. Some companies may even purchase a standing desk for you as part of a company health initiative.
I use the program Time Out to determine break intervals. Every 10 minutes, the screen pauses for a quick 15-second break, during which I look away from the computer, stretch, or close my eyes. Every 45 minutes, I program Time Out to take a longer three- to four-minute break. I will walk outside for a bit, do a few pull-ups, or make an effort to look at 3D objects instead of a 2D screen.
Outside of work, an ideal exercise routine should incorporate weight lifting, interval training, vigorous activity, and moderate activity. But whatever exercise you enjoy doing and actually will do is better than none. Also, increase physical activity outside of distinct periods of exercise—walk or bike to work, take the stairs instead of the elevator, spend time running around with the kids.
Americans in particular are working harder than ever. Men and women in the United States are working 12 to 13 hours more per week than they were in 1968. In a year, Americans, on average, work: (60)
So many feel like they can’t afford to take breaks, or feel guilty about doing so. But downtime replenishes the brain’s stores of attention and motivation, encourages productivity and creativity, and may help you accomplish more.
The most creative and productive people in sports, business, and the arts make a point to rest and rejuvenate. Many artists and athletes rarely practice more than four hours per day and regularly schedule breaks and naps. (61) An interesting study on one consulting group experimented with less work. The bosses insisted employees take regular time off, workers took one day off per week, and employees were told to unplug at night instead of checking email. (62) At the end of the study, employees were more productive and more satisfied with their jobs because they were able to work better when they were revived and rested.
We all could benefit from being less connected. I recommend “going off the grid” regularly. One day each week, don’t check email or social media or use a computer or phone except for very basic tasks like finding directions. For the past few years, I have taken at least a week of vacation where I go completely off the grid.
Is it scary to imagine a week without a smartphone or the internet? I’ll admit—at first it was challenging, but now the only thing that’s difficult about it is going back on the grid.
Poor sleep has negative effects on cognitive function, including decreased short-term memory, reduced learning capacity, a decline in mental stamina, and an inability to sustain attention. (63) Most experts on sleep agree that humans require seven to nine hours of sleep in the vast majority of cases, but unfortunately, many Americans never clock that much shut-eye. In fact, nearly 30 percent of American adults are sleeping fewer than six hours per night. (64)
Here are some beginning tips to help with sleep:
Play isn’t just a frivolous luxury; it helps keep our minds flexible. Play has been part of our evolutionary heritage. In adults, playfulness is associated with creativity, productivity, flexibility, optimism, empathy, social altruism, and stress tolerance.
What counts as play? According to Dr. Stuart Brown’s definition from his book, Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, play is:
Watching television and browsing the internet are distractions, not play. Cultivate time for something you enjoy doing that fits the criteria above, like photography, knitting, playing basketball, music, surfing, making art, dancing, and more. Make a list of playful activities, and when you’re in a rut, consult the list and do one of them.
Now I’d like to hear from you! What do you think of my seven strategies to increase productivity and banish “busyness”? What other productivity hacks have you discovered? Share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments below.
The post Accomplish More: How to Replace Busyness with Productivity appeared first on Chris Kresser.
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There are a number of reasons why it’s a great idea to have a festive non-alcoholic option on hand for Thanksgiving. Maybe there are a handful of kids in attendance or guests who have a long way to drive home after dinner, or perhaps there are simply a few friends or relatives who don’t imbibe.
Whatever the reason, having something special for everyone to sip on rather than leaving those who don’t drink to rely on just water or seltzer adds to the celebratory nature of the holiday. Here are 10 easy ideas.
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