Can Working From Home Affect Your Health?

Have you ever considered working from home? It sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Ditching that horrendous 6 am alarm, saying goodbye to the dreaded commute, and having the comfort of your own sofa home office in the process. I mean, who doesn’t want to be able to earn money whilst wearing sweatpants? Sounds dreamy.

Having considered working from home for a considerable amount of time, I decided to do a little research, which led me to this post you’re reading right now. Apparently, working from home isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and previous studies have shown that it can actually have a detrimental effect on your health. I haven’t been this disappointed since The OC got cancelled.

To work from home or to not work from home? Let’s weight it up.

Working From Home: The Positives

• You can switch off that 6 am alarm, the one that leaves a sick feeling in your stomach every day of the week.
• You can take a long, peaceful breakfast. You know what, you can even use this extra time to become a health god or goddess and whip up banana pancakes instead of cereal.
• You get to save money! If you’re a freelancer or run your own business, then you can save a ton of money on renting office space. It’s expensive, a UK property agent recently reported that one office space in London recently sold for £185 per square foot — Yes. Per square foot. Ouch.
• You’re in a comfy home environment. No more sitting at a desk for hours on end, no more pins and needles or stiff legs. You are free!
• You can ignore co-workers requests. Kidding, well maybe. If you work in an office amongst other workers, then working from home can mean less of other peoples’ work passed down to you. Win.
• You can choose your own hours. Want to skive off the afternoon to meet your pal for lunch? No problem, you can just make up the hours in the evening, whilst watching Netflix. Prison Break re-runs are great for “background noise.”
• Possibly the best thing ever is saying goodbye to that dreaded morning commute. So long, fellow commuters! No more cramped train carriages, no more waiting for buses, no more sitting in traffic. Your new commute is from bedroom to lounge — perfect.

Working From Home: The Negatives

• So you know how I said it’s great that you don’t get co-workers dumping their work on you? Well, what about that work that you want to delegate to someone else? Damn.
• You lose out on second opinions. You might be able to get your partner or roommate’s view on things, but ultimately it can be positive to have likeminded individuals around you all working towards the same goal.
• You might start to confuse your work and personal life. It’s a fine line, and working from home can start to cross it. When do you call it a day? Do you put more hours in because you’re at home? Do you take a lunch break? So many questions.
• It can be quite isolating. Spending a lot of time on your own can be unhealthy for your mind. As humans, it’s important that we spend time interacting with other humans (as tempting as it is to not).
• There’s a chance that your productivity might slump. Apparently, working in sweats does not a productive day make. Shocking, right?
• So you’re saving money on petrol or transport tickets, which is great. But, you might want to think about how your bills may be affected with you being at home all day, every day.
• If you work for an organization, then you might start to be left out of decision making. If you’re not present, then you could be easily forgotten. So, make sure you keep in touch regularly to avoid this.

There’s a lot to think about — an overwhelming amount, in fact. Of course, all of these points are subjective and much of what counts is dependent on your unique situation. I would recommend finding a balance. That might be working from the office for two days a week to keep in regular contact with colleagues, and working from home for the rest of the week. Alternatively, if you work alone or run your own small company, then why not grab your laptop and take it down to Starbucks? You might not necessarily be striking up conversations, but at least you’ll be around other people, plus the change of scenery might be just what you need!

Featured photo credit: Stockpic via stokpic.com

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5 Helpful Non-Financial Ways To Motivate Employees

When you talk to the employees about what they want from a job, money is often at the top of the list. If you ask them what would make them work harder, they will often respond by saying more money. Bonuses, raises and other financial incentives have been used to motivate employees for a long time and can be effective, but they are not eh only tools that a business has.

Using money as an incentive has its limitations. There are times when people will think the money being offered is not enough to make them want to do something. There are times when it is not practical to offer money as incentive and there are times when employees are not looking for money. While a business should not exclude the idea of using financial incentives to motivate employees, they also need to make sure that they are doing other things to help keep their employees motivate. Learning a few other motivational tools can help a business succeed and can improve the way the employees feel about a business.

Words can be a Powerful Motivator

The power of words should not be forgotten. As young children, the praise received from parents and other adults is all that is needed to give the maximum effort. A smart business will learn some tools that can help them use words to keep their employees motivated.

• Reviews – When employees get a raise, the raise should be accompanied by a review of the employees work. Many businesses have these reviews in place, but they are done as an afterthought. This is a big mistake. The review should be done carefully. It should include what the employee does well to help the business and what they need to improve on. Both the employee and the reviewer should create a plan for the employee moving forward that includes specific goals. All of this should be written down to make this more than just words that are spoken. They can become a commitment from both the employee and the business and can motivate both to reach the stated goals.
• Motivational Speakers – Bringing in conference speakers that specialize in motivational exercises can help boost everyone’s morale. It can make them think in different ways and is a very powerful tool for motivation. The speakers can address any size group and can be effectively used throughout the year for a business.

Other Tools

Words are only some of the motivational tools that are not financial that can be utilized by a business. The biggest problem with words is that they may not be used often enough or they may not be heard by all of the employees. Adding a few more tools to motivate employees can help everyone involved.

• Scheduling – One of the best ways to keep employees motivated is to allow them to control their work schedule. Many businesses are offering their employees flexible hours that allow the employees to do things they want or need to do outside of work. Allowing employees to work from home is another way to keep employees happy and working harder. Providing for more time off of work is another incentive to consider. It may require extra effort to make sure that the business is always covered and that the needs of the business are being met, but when it can be accomplished, employees benefit and will be more motivated.
• Regular Recognition – Everyone enjoys being recognized for the things they have accomplished. Many businesses will thank an employee for doing a great job, but they do it in private. That type of recognition should be done in public. The more that this is done, the more likely other employees will begin to strive for that recognition.
• Create a Good Work Environment – One of the greatest tools for motivation is removing any toxic poisons that are in the workplace. If there is one employee that is never happy and is never putting forth an effort, that employee can have a negative effect on all of the other employees. Removing the toxic employee is not always the easiest thing to do, but it can make everyone else happy, more productive and motivated to work for a business that cares about them.

People have to work to support themselves and their family. That is a fact of life. While most people want to make as much money as they can, they would rather work in an environment that made them feel better and in an environment in which they feel they are important. The successful businesses are the ones that realize the importance of employee morale and work to find any way they can to improve the workplace. That includes doing things that are not based on money.

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7 Habits of Top Performers and World-Class Learners

What is it that makes icons like Michael Jordan or Tony Robbins stand out from the world?

What is the difference between world-class performers and average people? It’s their habits.

Each top performer in their industry has lofty goals they want to achieve, but they focus on the process on how to get there.

From their productive morning habits of training each morning, their evening habits of picking up a valuable book to gain a competitive edge, it’s the little habits that have accumulated to make these individuals who they are.

“How you do anything is how you do everything.” -Derek Sivers

Here are 7 habits that top performers and world-class learners have to achieve more success and effectiveness.

1. Set Specific Goals

Have you ever had your eyes set on buying a specific car, let’s say a Red Volkswagen, and for the next week that’s all you saw being driven on the streets? Or maybe you recently decided to learn a new language (Spanish), and you could immediately recognize it the moment you heard it on the radio, movies, or on the streets?

It’s the same thing with goals.

As Tony Robbins often states, “clarity is power.” If we know exactly where we’re going and what the outcome will be, our brains will figure out how to get there. And the more specific we can get, the higher chance you’ll have in getting what you want.

For example, an example of an unspecific goal would be: I want to learn a new language.

A specific goal would be: I want to learn how to speak Spanish, and hold up a 30-minute conversation with a native speaker in 90 days.

See the difference? The specific goal pinpoints exactly what you want, how you’ll measure success, and the timeline you’ll have to reach it.

2. Plan of action

A goal means nothing if we don’t have a plan of action to get there. It’s like having a final destination of where we want to go on the map, but not knowing where we are on the map nor how to navigate to our destination.

The good news is, we can start to build an action plan around the specific goal we have set.

If your goal is to have a 30-minute conversation with a native speaker in 90 days, then you first need to assess where you are.

In this example, let’s say you have zero knowledge. Your goal could be to memorize 30 of the most common words a day, and by 90 days you’ll have memorized 2,700 words, which will allow you to understand 60% of the spoken language.

3. Schedule it

Time is the most valuable commodity we take for granted, yet we all have time constraints.

Not enough time to go to the gym. Not enough time to learn a language. The list goes on…

“What Doesn’t Get Scheduled, Doesn’t Get Done.”

Top performers can always get more done than the average person, because they have everything scheduled in their calendars.

Despite running a multi-billion dollar empire, Warren Buffett still manages to schedule time to read over 500+ pages everyday. This is anonymously the habits of successful people and top performers across all industries.

“I just sit in my office and read all day.” — Warren Buffett

Take this time to schedule your action task somewhere in your calendar. The more frequent you can schedule it, the better.
If you want to memorize 30 words a day, then you can schedule at time from 7pm-7:30pm after work each day to get it done.

Scheduling opens up time slots we never knew we had, and it allows us to get more done than we think we can.

4. Have a coach

According to Coaches.com, coaches:

• Create a safe environment in which you see yourself more clearly;
• Identify gaps between where you are now and where you need or want to be
• Ask for more intentional thought, action and behavior changes than you thought you could accomplish
• Guide the building of the structure, accountability, and support necessary to ensure sustained commitment

This applies to every industry out there from: sports, dating, business, language learning, etc.

World-class learners not only have one coach, but they often have several. Top performers understand that even the little things can accumulate, and they’re looking for the slightest bit of advantage they can find. By bringing the best qualified experts and coaches to help them improve their jump shot for basketball, their marketing for business, or their accents for language learning, they can reach goals in life faster.

5. Embrace failure

Anyone who is playing at the top of their level had to crawl and sweat to get to where they are.

It’s often our failures that make up who we are, and it’s our failures teaching us the best lessons in life.

Lessons lead to not only faster progress, but a spark of innovation. Silicon Valley is an example.

Having built a culture that celebrates failure and even encourages it, budding entrepreneurs are not afraid to dream big and go all in on their projects, which is what made Silicon Valley one of the most innovative cities in the world.

What is something you’ve failed at recently that you should embrace?

6. Know how to listen

When Michelle Obama is having a conversation with someone, it’s said that she’s talking only 20% of the time, while listening 80% of the time.

You would imagine that the First Lady of the United States would want to have more to say than that, but listening 80% of the time is how she has gotten to where she is.

Successful people know that there’s a lesson to be learned with every interaction and conversation. They’re sponges for new knowledge that they can apply in their lives, and understand that they’re not learning a thing while they’re speaking.

Focus on speaking 20% of the time, and you’ll be surprised by not only the knowledge you learn from the other person, but the connection they’ll feel with you after the conversation.

7. Know your best learning style

In Peter Drucker’s book Managing One Self, he states that the most important skill you can learn is self-awareness.

This means:

• Understanding how you best learn: audio, visual, and kinesthetic
• How you best work: alone, with others, as a subordinate, or as part of a team.
• Your best learning environment: at home, classroom, lecture halls, small groups.

Being self-aware with your strengths and weaknesses can not only save you years of wasting time, but it can allow you to focus on improving your strengths even further to achieve your end goal.

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Study Finds Reading Literary Fiction Enhances Mind-Reading Skills

Have you ever felt like reading fiction makes you smarter and better able to connect or relate with fellow human beings?

Turns out, you’re right. And now there is measurable, quantifiable proof for that too.

Emanuele Castano (a psychology professor) and David Comer Kidd (previous doctoral candidate) at the New School for Social Research in New York, published a pleasantly surprising study. The study showed that reading a piece of literary fiction enhances people’s ability to detect and understand other people’s emotions, which is an important skill for navigating complex social relationships.

Apparently, literary works by writers such as Alice Munro, Charles Dickens and Anton Chekhov sharpen our ability to understand other people’s emotions more than thrillers or romance novels.

The study

In a series of five experiments, 1,000 participants were randomly given different texts to read. The texts ranged from excerpts of popular fiction like Danielle Steel’s bestseller The Sins of the Mother and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl to award-winning literary fiction like the works of Anton Chekhov.

Researchers then analyzed the impact of reading literary fiction on the participants’ Theory of Mind (ToM). The Theory of Mind is essentially another term for the complicated social skill of reading people’s minds to try and understand what someone’s mental state is. In one test, dubbed “Reading the Mind in the Eyes,” participants studied 36 photographs of pairs of eyes and were required to pick (from four choices) adjectives that best described the emotions each pair of eyes showed.

The questions ranged from “Is the woman whose gaze has slivered to a squint suspicious or indecisive?” and “Is the man with the smoky eyes aghast or doubtful?” to “Is she interested or irritated, flirtatious or hostile?”. Scores were recorded and found to be consistently higher for those participants who had read literary fiction than for those who had read non-fiction texts or popular fiction.

The study concluded that when you read literary fiction as opposed to non-fiction texts and popular fiction, you’ll perform better on tests measuring empathy, emotional intelligence and social perception.

How it works

Castano and Kidd suggest that the reason literary fiction improves ToM more than popular or serious non-fiction is because of the way these texts involve the reader.

As Kidd explains:

“Some writing is what you call ‘writerly’, you fill in the gaps and participate, and some is ‘readerly’, and you’re entertained. We tend to see ‘readerly’ more in genre fiction like adventure, romance and thrillers, where the author dictates your experience as a reader. Literary [writerly] fiction lets you go into a new environment and you have to find your own way.”

In literary fiction, the incompleteness and complexity of characters forces readers to think as they try to understand and make out the characters. Readers have to be more sensitive to subtle emotional and behavioral nuances of the characters. In other words, literary fiction leaves more to the imagination and requires intellectual engagement and creative thought from its readers.

In popular fiction, on the other hand, “really the author is in control, and the reader has a more passive role,” said Kidd. “Features of the modern literary novel set it apart from most bestselling thrillers or romances. Through the use of […] stylistic devices, literary fiction de-familiarizes its readers. Just as in real life, the worlds of literary fiction are replete with complicated individuals whose inner lives are rarely easily discerned but warrant exploration.”

Take away

The literary fiction books used in these experiments had varying subject matter and content, but all produced similarly high ToM results.

“We see this research as a step towards better understanding the interplay between a specific cultural artifact, literary fiction, and affective and cognitive processes,” wrote the study’s authors.

So, next time you are getting ready for a job interview or blind date, besides taking a shower and shave, try reading a book. But not just any book. Chekhov, Jane Austen or Téa Obreht will help you maneuver around new social territory much better than Fifty Shades of Grey.

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Improve Your Productivity with 5 Laws of Physics

When looking at the different laws of physics, it’s interesting to see how many parallels can be drawn from the world of numbers, calculations and formulas, to our own every day lives, particularly when it comes to our productivity levels. The analogies between the laws of physics and the Five Key Ingredients To Productivity below will give you a new perspective on productivity, as well as some insights into how you can improve it.

1. Setting Goals And Achieving Them

Newton’s First Law Of Motion (The Law Of Inertia) – This law suggests that objects have a natural tendency to keep doing what they’re doing. So an object will remain at rest unless it is forced into action by another force. Likewise, an object in motion will continue to move at the same speed (and direction) unless it is stopped or acted upon by another object/force.

If you don’t kick-start your system into motion, your productivity levels aren’t likely to magically increase on their own. Finding the motivation to get started is only part of the solution; learning to set goals and developing the right time management techniques will help you achieve an effective and sustainable “speed” on your journey towards achieving those goals. It will require some effort but once you get started, productive routines will become second nature!

2. Self Management – Working Towards Your Goals

Newton’s Second Law Of Motion (The Law Of Force And Acceleration) – This law states that the greater the mass of the object that’s being accelerated, the more force will be needed to accelerate/move it.

How much energy you put into your goals, as well as which goals you choose to put your energy into, has a huge impact on your productivity. Prioritizing and strategically planning what to focus on and when, will give you clarity on how best to manage yourself. In any equation, all the variables involved are dependent on each other, so how much force/effort you put in, affects not only how much of the mass/task you move, but also with what acceleration and speed you are able to achieve it!

3. Habits: Out With The Old And In With The New

Newton’s Third Law Of Motion (The Law Of Action-Reaction) – This law states that for every action there is an equal or opposite reaction. In other words, if object A applies force to object B, object B will push back from the opposite direction, with the same amount of force.

For many of us, every day is a battle between productive forces (motivation, focus, etc.), and unproductive ones (stress, exhaustion, etc.). In order for the productive ones to have a consistent enough lead in our lives to make a difference, we need to create the right patterns and habits. When trying to balance the positive and negative forces on your productivity, identifying and eliminating the negative habits isn’t always enough; the creation of new, positive ones, is equally as important.

4. Diet Choices And Why They Matter

Clausius’ First Law Of Thermodynamics (The Law Of Conservation Of Energy) – According to this law, energy can’t be created or destroyed, instead, it can only change forms. The two processes involved in this law are heat and work – in a thermodynamic cycle, the amount of heat that is put into a system equals the amount of work done by the system.

Your body is a system that expends energy every time you carry out a task, be it mental or physical – it gets this energy from food. When it comes to food, it’s not so much about the quantity but rather what sort of food you choose. Different foods not only provide different amounts of energy, but also differ in how sustainable the energy they provide is. By making healthy diet choices, you’ll instantly be able to tell which foods give you the best results.

5. Using Your Mindset To Move You Forward

Coulomb’s law examines the forces that exist between two electrically charged objects. It states that as the distance between objects increases, the electric fields and forces between them decrease. The force between the two objects can be either negative or positive, depending on whether the objects are repelled or attracted to one another.

Think of yourself as one object and of any one of your goals as another. In this analogy, your mindset is the force between the two objects – it has a direct impact on whether you and your goals are able to connect. A negative mindset force, will lead you further away from your goal, while a positive mindset will let you work your way towards your goal and to actually achieve it!

Learning To Control The Forces That Bring You Closer To Success

Even though initially, rules and laws may seem limiting, this is actually far from the truth. Think of it this way, while the formulas/ingredients to productivity stay the same, the variables and results strongly depend on you! Work through The Five Key Ingredients To Productivity to help you overcome your productivity barriers and to master the forces that will lead you towards success!

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25 Websites Other Than Social Media To Upgrade Your Life

Have you been spending too much of your time on social media recently? Is that making much of your internet usage wasteful? Social media can be so addictive, so much that we spend hours on it without really noticing.

While social media does contribute in healthy discussions and is also our primary source of news and ideas at times, it’s equally likely to encourage us to refrain from learning something useful in our lives. It’s very important to keep our social media usage in check if we want to enrich ourselves with great learning experiences and upgrade our lives.

Here are 25 great websites which you should check if you want to escape from the vicious trap of social media and live a life full of knowledge, joy, and inspiration.

1. Coursera

Coursera offers MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) on wide range of subjects from hundreds of institutions and renowned professors. You can teach yourself anything from history to programming and learn with a large online community. You can receive a world class education right from your home for free and develop a solid background in a subject area of your interest.

2. edX

edX is another MOOC platform where you can take online courses from the finest universities in the world. It was initiated as a joint venture by MIT and Harvard University. It also offers hundreds of courses in different subject areas, similar to Coursera.

3. Khan Academy

At Khan Academy, you can access a wide-ranging library of interactive content on almost every subject out there. You don’t only learn those subjects through wonderful videos, but you also have chance to practice on the subject regularly and keep track of your learning. It’s a great platform to both learn new things and expand on earlier knowledge.

4. Udemy

Udemy is also a MOOC provider, but unlike academic MOOC providers like Coursera and edX, it focuses on providing real-world skills online. It offers courses on topics from building an ecommerce site and playing guitar to photography. It’s actually a marketplace for online learning, where experts on different subjects offer you lessons, either for free or at a certain price.

5. Quora

You can learn almost anything on Quora from experts and recognized people, as well as not-so-famous people. This is a question-answer platform where users ask and answer questions. But, unlike other similar sites, the user profiles are authentic and questions and answers are managed according to their uniqueness and relevance.

6. Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow is probably the single most important site for a programmer. If you’re a programmer, or want to learn programming, this site should easily be your best friend. At this question-answer site for programmers, you can ask questions about your computing difficulties and learn from other people’s answers.

7. Codeacademy

At Codeacademy, you can learn programming languages like HTML, CSS, PHP, and Python in a very easy and interactive way. It makes programming a fun activity and is very handy for beginners starting at programming. However, the depth it covers is very shallow and this site is helpful only for introductory knowledge of the subject.

8. Tutorialspoint

Tutorialspoint is another programming and computer science related site on this list, which helps you master different computer-related topics. It provides in-depth knowledge, unlike Codecademy. You can grow on the basic foundation provided by Codeacademy and achieve mastery on anything from Big Data to App Development at Tutorialspoint.

9. eHow

eHow teaches you wide array of skills on different topics step-by-step. The content is created by its team of writers, called experts, who create how-to guides on topics from personal hygiene to food recipes. You can learn anything from making a Raspberry Pi Alarm clock to making a scarecrow for your garden.

10. Wikihow

WikiHow is another how-to site teaching us how to do things in an organized manner, but it has been modeled as a Wiki. At eHow, the staff themselves are paid to create the guides, but at Wikihow, everyone can edit, modify, and delete content. So, it’s not just about learning — you can also teach others the valuable skills you possess.

11. HowStuffWorks

HowStuffWorks is another wonderful website to broaden your horizons, providing you with very unique and interesting information on a wide range of topics. It contains articles focusing on issues which haven’t been explored much previously. If you want to move an inch closer to the truth, this is surely the website you should visit often.

12. TED

According to TED, its mission is to spread ideas that are worth spreading. It features talks on variety of topics by experts in their fields who share their ideas, visions, and experiences through video talks. These talks are great way to introduce yourself very quickly and effortlessly to new concepts and develop new insights and perspectives.

13. Lumosity

Lumosity is a great website to improve your mental faculties like memory, attention, and analytical skills. You can train your brain with fun games, and it also offers you personalized training programs to restructure the training as per your needs and keep track of the progress. Its objective is to make you clever, and it’s quite addictive as well.

14. Duolingo

Duolingo is an award-winning platform that helps you learn and master new languages with minimal effort. It provides you advanced skills in several popular languages, such as Spanish, English, German, and French. It makes language learning a very easy and fun process and it’s completely free as well.

15. Instructables

Instructables is another wonderful site you should definitely choose over social media, which teaches you to create things. It offers you fun videos and instructions to build just about everything that you can imagine, from a cardboard batman cowl to water balloon mortar. You can also share what you can make with other people.

16. Digital Photography School

Digital Photography School is probably the most important photography blog out there, which offers plenty of tutorials to improve your photography skills. It doesn’t matter if you’ve years of experience under your belt or you’re just starting out, this site will surely help you grow as a photographer. It also provides you the opportunity to connect with a community of fellow photographers.

17. All Recipes

At All Recipes, you can find recipes for almost all kind of dishes. You can even enter ingredients and find possible dishes you can cook with your available list of ingredients. There are very easy and quick-to-cook recipes as well, so you can satisfy your palate in a short time and without much hastle. This one is definitely the site to help you embark on a cooking adventure.

18. Spreeder

Reading quickly is an ability desired by many of us but also one which very few of us possess. Spreeder is there to help us achieve exactly that. It is an online speed-reading software that aims to help us improve our reading speed, and comprehension capabilities as well, and is completely free.

19. Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg offers you more than 50,000 eBooks, all for free. You can download these books in ePUB, Kindle, or PDF formats, or you can even read them online. This site is completely legal as well, since the books available are ones with copyrights that have expired or that have been made free for non-commercial use by the publishers.

20. Investopedia

Investopedia is your ultimate finance guru that teaches you everything you need to know about financial trends and also helps you to keep your own personal finance in their best shape. With this site, you can teach yourself about investments, share markets, liquidity, accounts, and much more. There are abundant tutorials and videos to help you with that as well.

21. Curious

Curious provides you with more than 17,000 lessons in almost any topic. As the site states, its mission is to help you learn something new every day and you can start it for free, but you have to pay certain amount to get unauthorized access.  You can learn from the world’s best teachers in topics spanning across humanities, STEM, music, relationships, and more.

22. Memrise

Memrise helps you learn new things in small chunks. It offers small-sized learning packages in a wide range of topics, from language learning, arts and literature, history, and geography to math and science. The lessons are additive in nature, meaning you learn small packages at a time and build upon earlier packages to learn advanced skills.

23. Zen Habits

Zen Habits is one of the best motivational blogs on the web, which aims to help you find simplicity amidst the chaos of your daily life. It helps you get rid of the mess and focus on the things that are important and that matter the most to you. The site’s design also embodies its principle, as it’s minimalistic and publishes only the best and most meaningful articles.

24. Brain Pickings

Brain Pickings is not just another productivity blog in the crowd out there, it’s one of the most soulful and inspiring blogs on the web. It features thoughtful and analytical articles on topics related to literature, spirituality, creativity, and personal growth. Its focus is on things that truly help us grow and things that really matter, and the blog’s not very hard to keep up with either, as it posts few but powerful articles.

25. Psychology Today

Psychology Today teaches you about various facets of human psychology, helping you to understand the ways in which people behave. Its rich pool of articles help you fathom different aspects of human life, such as relationships, neuroscience, addiction, motivation, amongst others. You can benefit by applying these principles to the betterment of your life.

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