Blog
The quiet workof becoming.
Thoughts on goal setting, habit building, and the quiet work of becoming who you want to be.
November 7, 2026
·10 min read
Why Join a Run Club? The Group Matters More Than the Running
Why join a run club? Exercise research says the group keeps you showing up. Here is what makes a run club work, and how to copy it for any goal.
Exercising in a deliberately built group beat a standard exercise class, and the class was no better than exercising at home with some contact from the programme
October 31, 2026
·10 min read
Body Doubling: Why You Work Better With Someone in the Room
Body doubling means working with someone else present, in person or on a screen. Here is why it helps with routine tasks and can slow down new ones.
A passive, inattentive bystander sped people up on a well-learned task and slowed them on an unfamiliar one, the same split an attentive spectator produced
October 24, 2026
·9 min read
Maxxing: Why Optimizing One Thing Makes You Feel Worse
What is maxxing? Sleepmaxxing and its siblings, seen through maximizer research: better results, worse feelings, and how a stopping rule keeps the gains.
Students who scored high on maximizing landed jobs with 20% higher starting salaries, and were less satisfied with them than students who scored low
October 17, 2026
·9 min read
The Winter Arc: What It Is and Which Rules to Change
The Winter Arc runs 1 October to 31 December, 92 days. What the research on start dates says it gets right, and the two rules worth changing.
Framing a date as the start of a new period increased people's intentions to begin pursuing a goal, which is the mechanism the Winter Arc borrows by moving the new year to October
October 10, 2026
·9 min read
Choking Under Pressure: Why It Happens and How to Stop It
Choking under pressure has a precise mechanism: attention turns inward and dismantles a skill that had become automatic. One kind of practice prevents it.
Choking occurred in golf putting but not in an alphabet arithmetic task, because only a skill that has become automatic can be disrupted by watching yourself do it
October 3, 2026
·9 min read
Goal Conflict: When Your Goals Are Fighting Each Other
Conflicting goals get the most thought and the least action. How to spot goal conflict, tell it apart from overload, and decide which goal waits.
In three weeks of randomly sampled thoughts and activities, people acted less on their conflicted goals and spent more time thinking about them
September 26, 2026
·9 min read
The Effort Paradox: Why Hard Things Feel Worth More
The effort paradox: effort is a cost we avoid, yet we value what we worked for. What the research says, and why it only counts if you finish.
Builders paid more for a plain storage box they had assembled themselves than non-builders would pay for the identical pre-assembled box
September 19, 2026
·9 min read
How to Have More Self-Control: Build Habits, Not Willpower
How to have more self-control: the people who score highest resist less. Habits and situations do the work willpower gets credit for.
People with better self-control report using less effortful inhibition in daily life, and beneficial habits account for the difference
September 5, 2026
·9 min read
Bedtime Procrastination: Why You Stay Up Late, How to Stop
Bedtime procrastination is staying up late when nothing is stopping you. What the research links it to, and fixes that move the decision earlier.
In a representative sample of Dutch adults, the link between poor self-regulation and insufficient sleep ran through bedtime procrastination
August 29, 2026
·9 min read
Asking for Help: People Say Yes More Than You Think
Afraid to ask for help? People say yes far more often than you expect. Why the fear is off, and how to ask so the answer is easy.
Across a research program in which participants approached more than 14,000 strangers, requesters underestimated how often people would say yes by 48% on average