Post written by Leo Babauta. There is one little habit I’ve learned that has changed everything else in my life. The pause. When we fail, it’s because we act on urges without thinking, without realizing it. We have the urge to eat junk, and we do it. We have the urge to check email instead of writing a chapter of our book, and so we open our inbox.

Materials: Blanda Blank serving bowl, Lagan kitchen mixer tap, wooden board, plastic pipe Description: Walking through my Ikea local store, I saw this beautiful serving bowl, and I thought: "This is a face basin for sure!". But it was not. So I had to turn it into a face basin. First of all, I cut a hole (around 25 cm of diameter) into a wooden board.

Have you heard about the trend of standing room only meetings? Instead of having a team sit around a conference table, they’re made to stand up for short meetings instead. The trend is becoming prevalent in tech companies, and is meant to eliminate long, boring meetings where no one pays attention.

What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question. 1. Using wedding money wisely 2. Percentage of savings for retirement 3. Asking for wedding money tactfully 4. What to do with savings? 5. Self-employment advice 6. Retirement Roth versus 529 7. Repayment troubles 8.

This is a guest post by Dee Bauer from SmallHouseLife.com, where she shares information about abundant living in small spaces. Do you sometimes wonder if you’ll ever be financially stable enough to retire? Or maybe it’s not so much about retirement as it is about financial independence.

As many freelancers eventually realize, going into business for yourself means you actually take on two separate (very different) full time businesses. How’s that for a surprise when you originally thought that you could blissfully code away and somehow the money would start rolling in? This is actually what happens on your path to freelance success: You dream.

This article doesn’t have much to do with travel hacking or unconventional work. And in fact, it will only apply to a minority of the people who read it. If you’ve always had a great life and nothing truly unfair has ever happened to you, feel free to skip this one.

Materials: LACK Tables, LACK wall shelfs & VIKA Curry legs Description: Main Table: Cut the 8 LACK tables and 2 LACK wall shelves (shelves to white table edge on the pictures) to fit as the picture shows. Use screws and heavy duty silicon to bond the tables together.

What makes you happy? Money? The newest iPhone? The good health of your family? A promotion at work? Some interesting work by University of California, Riverside researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky not only suggests where our happiness comes from, but shows how to get more of it. Pieces of the happiness pie Dr.

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Materials: Three Blanda MATT four BAREN hangs tubes and fiberglass Description: Ikea Speaker built by three Ikea bowls made of wood (Blanda MATT). Speaker feet are Ikea (BAREN Hangs) four pieces of them. The whole thing was assembled with vacuum tubes and fiberglass. ~ Damir Paco, Denmark

Materials: Malm chest with two drawers Description: My husband transformed two Malm night stands destined for the dumpster into a modern, masculine play kitchen that boasts stainless steel appliances and a mosaic tile back splash. One chest became the sink side with a dog bowl and discarded faucet. The top drawer was notched so that it could still function as storage.

Charlie Rose. Oprah. Barbara Walters. For Canadian props, I’m adding George Strombopoulous and Jian Gomeshi to the list. Deft, smooth and penetrating interviewers. Here’s a few reasons why they get the goods. 12 tips for getting a meaningful interview 1. Give an intro that makes your interviewee sound like a rock star.

When I was in college – and for the first several months of my post-college career – I was an avid user of public transportation. I would ride the bus to work every day like clockwork. For many semesters, I would catch a bus at about 7:48 AM or so.

In The Levity Effect: Why it Pays to Lighten Up, Adrian Gostick and Scott Christopher make an interesting argument that “levity” is an extremely effective tool for helping people to work better. An atmosphere of light-heartedness, it turns out, helps people pay attention, eases tensions, and enhances a feeling of connection.