blog - Mindful Productivity and Thinking Tools

Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati

Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati My rating: 4 of 5 stars What I love about Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati: • I fell in love with the powerful heroine • I don’t usually like romantic moments in books/movies, but the few that are here are poetic, rich with sensory...

Rainbow Rainbow by Lydia Conklin

Rainbow Rainbow by Lydia Conklin My rating: 5 of 5 stars Truly brilliant, honest, queer stories told without judgment of the idiosyncrasies and paradoxes of the human experience. Rainbow, Rainbow by Lydia Conklin takes us inside queer and trans characters' minds with...

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo My rating: 5 of 5 stars I just started reading this book for the second time and have already found new understandings of the story! Nghi Vo is fantastic! She's masterful at creating unconventional, complex, magical worlds without overexplaining...

Body Work by Melissa Febos

Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is my first time reading anything by Melissa Febos, and now I’ve vowed to become a Febos completist! Body Work by Melissa Febos offers creative nonfiction essays about the...

Think Like a Scientist: How to Develop an Experimental Mindset

Welcome to an archive of my 2016/2017 course (originally published on Teachable here), introducing what was once...

Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert

Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert My rating: 5 of 5 stars "We didn’t wonder where the magic came from, or why it worked. We never asked ourselves, Is this ours to take? We were three damp ducklings, green as leaves, believing with all our crooked hearts that we...

Devil House by John Darnielle

Devil House by John Darnielle My rating: 3 of 5 stars “What happens when somebody tells a story that has real people in it? What happens to the story; what happens to the teller; what happens to the people?” Devil House by John Darnielle is part crime novel, part...

Dune by Frank Herbert

Dune by Frank Herbert My rating: 4 of 5 stars Dune is the only thing that makes extreme dehydration and risking my life to develop a utilitarian relationship with a huge worm seem magical. Frank Hebert’s world in Dune is genius, and I’d love to have met his wife (she...

Body Work by Melissa Febos

Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid

Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid My rating: 4 of 5 stars At first, I rated this book a three, but...

Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young

Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young My rating: 3 of 5 stars Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne...

Think Like a Scientist: How to Develop an Experimental Mindset

Back up from your projects and interests. Take a look at life from the perspective of your higher goals. Isn’t your real goal related to taking in all life has to offer, to give and receive love, to connect with other energies, or with your deeper purpose?

We Don’t Have Just One Life’s Purpose

Life is short. We start off not knowing anything, and we continue on that way until we’re gone from this earth. As kids, we think we’ll suddenly know everything when we’re adults, but we never quite get there. Our entire life is an experiment – a learning laboratory. Embrace the uncertainty and enjoy the journey! Don’t be afraid to get messy.

Trust Yourself: Build Confidence by Taking Action

Thinking of life as an experiment where our only objective is to become more aware, or learn and grow will make our curiosity stronger than our fear. This is a really big perspective shift for some of us. We can let go of much of the pressure we put on ourselves if we look at things with the open eyes and heart of a child – eager to learn and excited to experience.

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