Think more clearly. Live more deliberately.
Plain-English guides to mindfulness and attention, critical thinking, and the philosophy of everyday life — from Stoicism to cognitive biases. Every guide links to its sources.
Articles
24 articles
What Is Mindfulness? Definitions, Roots and the Secular Turn
A plain-English look at how mindfulness is defined, where it comes from in Buddhist contemplative traditions, and how MBSR brought it into secular settings in 1979.
Read · 6 min read →Mindfulness & AttentionMindfulness Meditation for Beginners: Simple Practices to Try
Three simple practices to start with (breath awareness, the body scan and mindful walking), plus the obstacles beginners usually meet and what to realistically expect.
Read · 5 min read →Mindfulness & AttentionAttention in a Distracted World: Focus, Phones and Task Switching
What attention is, why switching between tasks has a cost, what research says about phone notifications, and practical habits for protecting your focus.
Read · 5 min read →Mindfulness & AttentionJournaling and Self-Reflection: Methods, Prompts and Research
Practical journaling methods and prompts for self-reflection, plus an honest look at James Pennebaker's expressive writing research: what it found and where its limits lie.
Read · 5 min read →Mindfulness & AttentionMindful Communication: How to Listen, Pause and Respond
How to bring mindful attention into conversations: listening without planning your reply, pausing before you respond, noticing your reactions and handling difficult talks.
Read · 5 min read →Mindfulness & AttentionWhat Mindfulness Research Shows, and What It Doesn't
A careful look at the evidence on mindfulness and meditation from NCCIH and peer-reviewed reviews, including its limitations and the unpleasant experiences some people report.
Read · 5 min read →Mindfulness & AttentionLoving-Kindness Meditation: What Metta Is and How to Practice It
An introduction to loving-kindness (metta) meditation: its Buddhist roots, the traditional sequence of people, a simple 15-minute practice, and what research does and doesn't show.
Read · 6 min read →Mindfulness & AttentionGratitude Practices: What the Research Does and Doesn't Show
Gratitude journals, letters and other practices explained, with an honest look at the research: small but real average benefits, big caveats, and tips for trying it well.
Read · 6 min read →Critical ThinkingWhat Is Critical Thinking? Definitions, Skills, and Everyday Uses
How philosophers and educators define critical thinking, the skills and habits of mind it involves, and what it looks like in ordinary decisions.
Read · 5 min read →Critical ThinkingCognitive Biases Explained: How Mental Shortcuts Lead Us Astray
Confirmation bias, anchoring, availability, sunk costs and overconfidence: what the research shows, where it is debated, and how to work around these traps.
Read · 5 min read →Critical ThinkingSeven Common Logical Fallacies and How to Spot Them
Ad hominem, straw man, false dilemma, slippery slope, appeal to authority, hasty generalization and post hoc, each explained with an everyday example.
Read · 5 min read →Critical ThinkingHow to Evaluate Information Online: Lateral Reading and SIFT
Professional fact-checkers judge a website by leaving it. Learn lateral reading, the SIFT method, and quick checks for sources, images and statistics.
Read · 5 min read →Critical ThinkingBetter Decision-Making: Base Rates, Pre-Mortems and Decision Journals
Practical tools for making better choices: start with base rates, run a pre-mortem, keep a decision journal, judge process over luck, and match effort to stakes.
Read · 5 min read →Critical ThinkingThinking Like a Scientist: Evidence, Falsifiability and Doubt
Borrow the habits of science for everyday life: testable hypotheses, falsifiability, honest uncertainty, correlation versus causation, and lessons from replication.
Read · 5 min read →Critical ThinkingReading Numbers in the News: Risk, Causation and Sample Size
How to read health and science statistics in the news: relative vs. absolute risk, matching denominators, correlation vs. causation, and why small samples mislead.
Read · 6 min read →Critical ThinkingHow to Disagree Well: Steelmanning, Charity and Changing Your Mind
Practical habits for better disagreements: clarify the question, read others charitably, steelman their view, and update your own beliefs with intellectual humility.
Read · 6 min read →Philosophy for Everyday LifeStoicism for Everyday Life: What You Can and Can't Control
How Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius approached control, judgment and emotion, with simple Stoic exercises and the myths worth dropping.
Read · 6 min read →Philosophy for Everyday LifeThe Socratic Method: Asking Questions That Clarify Thinking
How Socrates questions people in Plato's dialogues, the kinds of questions he relies on, and how to use them in conversation and self-reflection.
Read · 5 min read →Philosophy for Everyday LifeAristotle and the Good Life: Flourishing, Habit and the Mean
A plain-English guide to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: eudaimonia, virtue built through habit, and the doctrine of the mean.
Read · 5 min read →Philosophy for Everyday LifeFinding Meaning: Frankl, Camus and Sartre on a Purposeful Life
A neutral introduction to Viktor Frankl's logotherapy, Camus on the absurd, and Sartre on freedom, with everyday questions for reflection.
Read · 5 min read →Philosophy for Everyday LifeBuddhist Ideas in Everyday Life: Impermanence and the Middle Way
A respectful, accurate introduction to impermanence, the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, drawn from scholarly sources and translations.
Read · 5 min read →Philosophy for Everyday LifeEthics in Everyday Choices: Three Ways to Think It Through
Consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics explained in plain English and applied to everyday, hypothetical dilemmas.
Read · 5 min read →Philosophy for Everyday LifeEpicurus and the Pleasant Life: Friendship, Simplicity, Calm
What Epicurus really meant by pleasure: sorting desires, enjoying simple things, valuing friendship and loosening the grip of fear, with exercises to try.
Read · 6 min read →Philosophy for Everyday LifeConfucius and Everyday Ethics: Ren, Li and Self-Cultivation
A plain-language guide to Confucius's ethics: ren (humaneness), li (ritual propriety), reciprocity, relationships and lifelong self-cultivation, with practices to try.
Read · 5 min read →Glossary
47 terms from mindfulness, critical thinking and philosophy explained in a sentence or three.