Self.hack()

January 1st, 2009 in Life Hacks

flowerI like to make things in my spare time, especially little bits software and ingenious patches on life. The question is, how to find the energy to hack at things after the gruel of work? It’s easy. Hack yourself first.

One self hack I found this year is along the lines of my “Just Do It” philosophy.1 I force myself to write short imperatives. Each mini essay attacks something that trips me up, serving as both a reminder and as a catalyst to actually do something semi-creative.

I also started collecting inspirational things. Like quotations, artwork, web design, UI design, and so on. And when I run out of ideas, I stroll through my collections of interesting links, and my piles of inspirational photography and art texts. It’s called feeding the muse. And the muse eventually returns the favor, and something creative bubbles to the surface.

So how do you hack yourself?

  1. Or the “Just Fucking Do It!”, which I use when I’m especially unproductive ↩