Clay Collins is a self-development writer who blogs about alternative productivity and "anti-hacks" for living. Clay takes great pleasure in writing productivity articles that advocate counterintuitive approaches that challenge conventional wisdom. He's written about why you shouldn't be an earlier riser; why large computer monitors deter productivity; and why productivity hacks, tweaks, tips, tricks, etc. are largely insufficient at solving bigger life problems, and often don't increase productivity.
Clay dropped down the entrepreneurial rabbit hole early in life when he ditched high school at the age of 15 to co-found a California software company. Since then he's gone to college and graduate school, vagabonded, worked as a researcher, freelance writer, software programmer, and professional blogger. The most important things about Clay, however, aren't on his resume.
Clay's lived in both Ghana and Guatemala, and will be relocating to Croatia (the Dalmatian coast) in June. Some of his favorite things are Quetzals, Community with a capital "C," food prepared in a campfire (or a Dutch oven), the outdoors, backpacking, and human rights. Like a mutual fund, he seems to grow up more than down over a five-year period, but the key is to hold on, not sell. Clay wants to cook more, rolls his eyes at self-help books but reads them anyway, and wants to learn the banjo. He doesn't own a T.V.
Clay Collins's blog is The Growing Life.
It’s hard to even begin re-envisioning your life if you don’t believe you’ll be able to support yourself. Because if you can’t get around the money issue, what’s the point? Here’s help.
Becoming a real person is something that’s done to us. And it most definitely is something we do to ourselves. It’s something we’re socialized into becoming.
There are no perspective hacks. None. You just have to suck it up, live a little, and wallow in the mud of life. You have to get your hands dirty with this beautiful business of living. You have to question, meditate, and fail often.
Sometimes the best balance is no apparent balance at all. In the overall scheme of things, the seasons of life will balance each other out if you’re staying true to yourself.
Perhaps there’s really a productivity ninja out there. I mean, everyone seems to be talking about him (or her). I’ve spent countless hours in the productivity blogosphere and people are name dropping this ninja left and right […]
When I think about lifestyle design, I usually think about automated income, mini-retirements, making money online, traveling the world, and the 4-Hour Work Week. The truth, however, is that there are an unlimited number of tools in the lifestyle design arsenal. Lifestyle design is as old as life itself […]
If you’re getting honest with yourself and trying to make positive changes, then you’re hacking life. It’s that simple. We are not machines with instructions manuals and when it comes to this organic & circuitous black box of a thing we call life, there are only hacks […]
Let’s start with this: If your productivity increases, but your pay stays the same, then you’re effectively taking a pay cut. Instead, you should get more vacation time.
I’ve done most of the things on this list. You must start with a quotation. Preferably by an Asian spiritual leader (quoting Lao Tzu, Confucius, or the Buddha works, but don’t quote Jesus).
When workaholics give up their minds each workday in devotion to balance sheets, selling widgets, or arguing cases, it’s not knowledge they’re missing out on. It’s perspective.
