How to fix your life

You won't believe this one simple trick

Armed with a homemade pumpkin spice coffee creamer recipe and a leather jacket my mom bought in the 90s, I have begun my 10,000-foot descent into Fall. Summer had a good run.

This last month, I returned from a trip abroad and enjoyed more than three continuous weeks of hosting friends and family in my 500 SF apartment. When I was not attempting to expand the interior square-footage of my apartment House of Leaves-style, I have been “on special assignment” at my day job (secret) and desperately trying to live out the “tomato girl”/Call Me By Your Name summer fantasy which I compiled over many years of Tumblr moodboards but never fully realized. But now it’s back to the grind! And a totally different seasonal fantasy.

Between sips of apple cider, all three of your laptop email jobs are now demanding your attention and/or you are already behind on the reading for your coursework. Scientifically, this is the best time of year to “get it together,” so I compiled some help.

Since moving to San Francisco, I have been surrounded by the language of self-optimization. Billboards promise me limitless productivity with AI assistants while the Patagonia-themed men who stride past my apartment in the afternoons loudly proclaim a desire to “supercharge” their sleep. There’s a lot to take in. 

The relentless pursuit of self-optimization is not remotely new, especially here in the Bay. Our country’s obsession with productivity has long, deep, inescapable roots (see Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism), so the idea (really, obligation) to fix your life in pursuit of greater productivity is a natural, also inescapable extension. Your doctor tells you to exercise and eat less. Your self-help books tell you to “be a better person” in a thousand different ways. Your boyfriend tells you to go to therapy (!). Your phone tells you to try these simple low-calorie meals, or try this meditation app, or try tracking your sleep. Anything to be able to enjoy life a bit more and, by sheer coincidence, work harder and give money to companies.

The economy wins big with a single, simple message: if you’re a mess, it’s all your fault. It’s not the producers of your food, who use ingredients known to harm your health. It’s not your job telling you that you work more than 8 hours per day – heaven forbid your Microsoft Teams status goes orange for inactivity. It’s not the cost of housing and healthcare, taking so much out of your paycheck you can no longer afford the things you want and need. All of this is actually because you didn’t download the Headspace app in 2019. Now you’re too stressed out to function.

The McKinseyification of society means there is always an intervention just around the corner that offers better returns – just listen to some “research,” just try this one simple trick. In the words of Nikil Saval in Pacific Standard, “Being alive is easier, it turns out, if you treat it like a job.”

One market research firm cites that the global market for “personal development” exceeded $43 billion in 2022 (and is growing at CAGR of over 5%). And that number focuses primarily on books, personal coaching/training, and workshops. The true number, inclusive of those sinister apps that tell you when to go to bed, is likely much higher.

The forces of the economy want you helpless and confused. In a few years you’ll be paying $500 per month for an AI app that tells you to drink water and call your mom. But hey, maybe you’ll love it.

In the meantime, what do we have? Well, you can go to Reddit any day for free and browse “unethical life pro tips.” 

We can’t depend on our fedora’d friends for everything though. Here are some rachdele life hacks:

Having a morning routine that I like so I get out of bed at precisely 7:20am

Espresso, the good orange juice from Costco, a treat, a 10am snack, a book I’m excited about for the train

“Dopamine hack” your brain by not checking social media until the afternoon

A friend told me about this and at first I didn’t believe them. The thinking is, your self-control tends to weaken throughout the day, so it’s best to hone your focus while you’re best able to. The actual mechanism remains a little unclear to me, but I will say, I have had some of the most productive mornings of my year.

Only committing to hangouts that I actually want to go to. Do I actually *want* to get drinks at 9:30pm tonight? Going out as a young person is everything, so I feel obligated to take part. But as I’ve grown to my advanced age of mid-late-20s, I’ve started setting better boundaries. A dive bar or, when I want to dress up, a quiet wine bar is better for bonding with friends than a bad DJ “event.” I have less and less interest in going to investor-owned restaurants for $19 cocktails made to be consumed primarily on Instagram.

Drinking green tea before socializing

It’s always fun to switch up my caffeine source. I recently bought green tea in the form of full leaves from a Vietnamese supermarket, and it’s the best tea I’ve ever had. Delicious, simple, no crashes, just more sustained energy and positive mood.

Giving up seed oils

Just kidding. Can you imagine if I’d said that? I haven’t touched the bottomless pit of fad diets and health supplements in this piece, but maybe one day I’ll take a supplement that gives me the IQ necessary to write it.

Planning elaborate social events

At the end of the day, hanging out with friends and family is all that matters. Maybe it’s a themed dinner party or a reading group to identify plagiarism in behavioral economics papers, but the effort and slight embarrassment of planning is nothing compared to the payoff of being around the right people.

Getting good at parallel parking

I haven’t paid for parking or felt more powerful in a long time. (Except for parking tickets, I love you SFMTA!)

Learning a new language and trying to be more engaged with it online

Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch! Suddenly, so many more news sources to read and be consumed by.

Walking long distances instead of taking the train

Everyone says this one is good, but I never realized how rewarding it was until I walked a half dozen blocks to meet friends at an izakaya and arrived totally amped. I had stories to tell and energy to make it to the post-game.

Befriend the people you live by

Learn all your neighbors’ names and phone numbers; talk to the bartender at your favorite bars. People still do this. During one of my last weekends in Chicago, I found myself at two beloved bars drinking alongside friends and familiar bartenders. I am not sure if I paid for anything I drank that night.

Sit alone in the sun with a journal, a pen, and a nice little drink

This might be my ultimate life hack. You’ll be bored for 10 minutes, and then you’ll have one of the most refreshing afternoons you’ve had in a while. Not only that, passerby will be saying, Uh, is that David Foster Wallace?

Spending hours making pasta at home every few weeks, when I could buy something at the store much cheaper and probably tastier

You have to do some things you like just for the sake of doing them, and not to worry so much about efficiency or outcome. The hardest “one simple trick” of them all.