A Comprehensive Guide on Time Blocking

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Time blocking is a productivity method where we split each day into time blocks of variable length, from 20 – 30 minutes to 1 hour. In each block of time, we single-task and focus only on that specific task associated with the current time block, with no context-switching. Instead of managing to-do list items, we control the time when we can implement those specific items.  Benjamin Franklin, one of the early adopters of time blocking, used this technique to distribute hours for deep work, …

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How Parents Can Use the Deferred Imitation Skill

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Deferred imitation is an astonishing skill that develops rapidly. A 13-month-old child can remember an event a week after a single exposure. By the time she is almost a year and a half, she can imitate an event four months after a single exposure. John Medina – Brain Rules for Baby Deferred imitation can shed light on how we construct our mental models and long-term memory, by studying how information is perceived, encoded, stored, recalled or retrieved. Through deferred imitation (repeat and practice the actions of others, either immediately or …

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Metaphorical Thinking – The Guest Metaphor

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Metaphorical Thinking – Introduction Metaphorical Thinking – the Cloud Metaphors Metaphorical Thinking – the Guest Metaphor Metaphorical Thinking – the Web Metaphors There are two instances that the metaphor of guest can explain or enhance: treat our children as guests in our life, and how our body is a guesthouse for our emotions. The first meaning is an idea coined by Haim Ginott, a mentor to John Gottman (Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child), Adele Faber (How to Talk so Kids will Listen…) or Laura …

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The National Bank of Parents: a Simple Financial Education Strategy for Children

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I talked in Letters to my daughter: Build your “f*ck off” fund article about the importance of financial education from an early age.   In this article, I will present our strategy to teach our four and a half-year-old daughter how to manage her money responsibly. Most of this strategy is based on The First National Bank of Dad: The Best Way to Teach Kids About Money book written by David Owen. He introduced this strategy to his children, aged six and ten at the time. Once a child can …

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Shoshin, the Zen Concept that Applies to Companies, Science and Personal Development

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“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s, there are few.”  Zen master Shunryo Suzuki  In Zen Buddhism, “shoshin” translates as the “beginner’s mind”, where “sho” means beginning or origin, and “shin” means spirit, soul, or attitude.  A beginner’s mind is different from being a beginner. Shoshin is about having the attitude and mindset of a novice who learns a new practice for the first time, especially after reaching expert levels in our fields.    In the beginner’s mind, there is a lack of preconceptions, a willingness to learn, to ask and try, …

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Keto and Low-Carb Treats

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In another article, I presented all the keto and low-carb baking tips I collected over the years. I tend to eat keto, with carbs coming from veggies or fruits. My family does not eat low-carb per se, more like “fewer-carbs” as I do not cook potatoes, pasta, beans, rice, etc. In this article, I included all the tried-and-tested recipes that my family would want on repeat, no questions asked. Breads and crackers Flaxmeal bread from Lalena.ro, with an English version below: Ingredients – 150g …

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Keto and Low-Carb Baking Tips and Tricks

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A few years ago, I started to notice that more and more culinary blogs published low-carb recipes. Curious, I started baking low-carb desserts.  After some initial failures, finally, my carbivore husband didn’t notice any difference between a traditional cake and a low-carb cake.  The low-carb diet is a diet that limits carbohydrates consumptions. Instead of eating pasta, traditional bread, rice, sugary foods, the focus shifts on natural proteins, fats, and vegetables with fewer carbohydrates and a higher percentage of fat. The low-carb diet means under 50g net carbs per day, and a moderately low-carb diet means under 100g net …

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The Four Styles of Parenting

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The four styles of parenting

Based on the research of Diana Baumrind, Eleanor Maccoby (extremely influential in child psychology and developmental psychology, her Wikipedia page is well worth a read) and John Martin, there are four types of parenting styles:  Neglectful Parenting  Low emotional support, low expectations Detached from a child’s feelings and behaviours  As the name of this category implies, there is not much interaction between a neglectful parent and their children. Such parents are uninvolved in their children’s lives: they do not ask children about school, they do not know their children’s friends or spend much time with …

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