The Museum of What You Used to Know

Filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, the unofficial World’s Most Positive Human, revealed in a recent conversation with Tim Ferriss that he is a ferociously dedicated diary-keeper. Every night, round about midnight, he faithfully jots down notes — just what has shaken out from the day. He has made it his mission to encourage everyone to do this.…

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Big Filibuster Day

AP photo Cory Booker once dreamed of playing pro football, and it showed this week, in the sheer athleticism of his speech on the floor of the US Senate. Technically, the New Jersey Democrat’s 25-hour-long stemwinder wasn’t a “filibuster” – that term usually implies gassing on in the Senate in order to delay or defeat…

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Getting your reps in

Not long ago the economist Tyler Cowan posed a cheeky question on his blog. “What is it you do to train that is comparable to a pianist practicing scales?”  Most of us probably don’t have a good answer. In our jobs, we don’t practice skills the way musicians or athletes do. We don’t “train.” But…

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Be Someone Else

image: Jaroslav Devia for Unsplash * Oliver Burkeman, the former Guardian columnist, once devoted an entire day to mimicking the rituals of famous artists and scientists. He got up at 5:30, a la Hemingway; sat around naked in the morning, a la Ben Franklin; downed a cocktail at noon, a la V.S. Pritchett; gulped strong…

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Sloth Christmas

michael jerrard photo / unsplash LA FORTUNA, Alajuela Province, Costa Rica A Sloth State of Mind  Costa Rica has a motto: Pura Vida. Literally: “pure life.” It’s an invitation to stop worrying and just gear down and chill. Don’t stress over what you can’t control. Dispacito, as the animal-crossing signs dotted beside the country’s highways…

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Steal This Idea

photo: Ameen Fahmy for Unsplash * People sometimes tell me, Hey, I’m digging the whole One Big Day thing. Been thinking of giving it a go. Trouble is, I don’t know what to do. Here’s one option: Choose a theme for your Big Day according to the month you want to try it. The schedule…

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The Walden Pond Chicken Project

The other day I stumbled upon an early pitch for this project. My agent, Sam, was going to try to sell OBD as a book. I’d forgotten that it had a different title then. I wasn’t calling it One Big Day. It was The Walden Pond Chicken Project. That title came from Henry David Thoreau’s…

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How to measure out your life

brooke campbell / unsplash I’m often asked: Why Big Days and not, you know … something else. Big Hours. Or Big Months. Why this particular unit of time? Is there something especially significant, something magical, about the period of 24 hours? Are we Homo Diem creatures at our core? I have a few answers to…

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Big Democracy Day

Working the BC Election, en famille October 19, 2024, 5 am The eggs crack before dawn does. Omelettes all around. Because protein. Protein is the foundation of democracy. It’s election day in British Columbia. Every election – local, provincial or national – requires citizen participation, and lots of it. There’s a variety of jobs to…

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Comox Valley Turf ‘n Surf

We were trudging up toward the summit of Mt. Becher, sweating like mules on the Erie Canal, the whole lush Comox Valley and the islands of the Salish Sea spread below us, when we ran into another hiker. She meant business: had the poles, had the layers of fancy apparel and the hey-Martha boots. We…

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