Taken from Robert Wiseman’s book. Each day, write about the following topic for one minute.

Monday — Thanksgiving

There are many things in your life for which to be grateful. These might include having close friends, being in a wonderful relationship, benefiting from sacrifices that others have made for you, being part of a supportive family, and enjoying good health, a nice home, or enough food on the table. Alternatively, you might have a job that you love, have happy memories of the past, or recently have had a nice experience, such as savoring an especially lovely cup of coffee, enjoying the smile of a stranger, having your dog welcome you home, eating a great meal, or stopping to smell the flowers. Think back over the past week and list three of these things.

Tuesday — Terrific times

Think about one of the most wonderful experiences in your life. Perhaps a moment when you felt suddenly contented, were in love, listened to an amazing piece of music, saw an incredible performance, or had a great time with friends. Choose just one experience and imagine yourself back in that moment in time. Remember how you felt and what was going on around you. Now spend a few moments writing a description of that experience and how you felt. Do not worry about your spelling, punctuation, or grammar. Instead, simply commit your thoughts to paper.

Wednesday — Future fantastic

Spend a few moments writing about your life in the future. Imagine that everything has gone really well. Be realistic, but imagine that you have worked hard and achieved all of your aims and ambitions. Imagine that you have become the person that you really want to be, and that your personal and professional life feels like a dream come true. All of this may not help you achieve your goals, but it will help you feel good and put a smile on your face.

Thursday — Dear…

Think about someone in your life who is very important to you. It might be your partner, a close friend, or a family member. Imagine that you have only one opportunity to tell this person how important they are to you. Write a short letter to this person, describing how much you care for them and the impact that they have had on your life.

Friday — Reviewing the situation

Think back over the past seven days and make a note of three things that went really well for you. The events might be fairly trivial, such as finding a parking space, or more important, such as being offered a new job or opportunity. Jot down a sentence about why you think each event turned out so well.

Here’s a little secret that often gets overlooked: a lot of the cool UI elements you see are stock Apple elements that have been customised to the brink of no return.

The main reason for this is Apple has put a lot of time and effort into making components that just plain work. A UIScrollView, for example, has had many more combined hours of testing than any app you write could hope to achieve.

— StackOverflow

“I’ve got an idea for an app” is the new “Will you read my screenplay?”

— Hacker News

If I wanted to bring a large amount of deviled eggs, but I didn’t want to share them with anyone else, could you guarantee me fridge space?

— Ron Swanson

Occasionally I would hear a publisher talk about what their readers wanted, but it was always under the guise of some gimmicky new feature that might get them some press attention and rarely about the core content.

— Brad Colbow, It’s Not File Size That’s Killing iPad Magazines

We’re living in an economy where productivity is no longer the goal, employment is. That’s because, on a very fundamental level, we have pretty much everything we need.

— Douglas Rushkoff, Are Jobs Obsolete?

Sometimes, freedom really is just another word for nothing left to lose.

— Bill Maher, The Great Thing About Having Been Poor

Basically, the farther away you get from being like an app store or Amazon Web Services, the less likely it is that you’re going to get my money.

— Alex Payne, How Not To Sell Software

when you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create.

— why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby

I can delete that dot because it’s a measurement error. How do we know it’s a measurement error? Because it’s messing up my data. One of the very first things we teach people in economics, and statistics, and business, and psychology courses is how, in a statistically valid way, do we eliminate the weirdos? How do we eliminate the outliers?

— Shawn Achor, The happy secret to better work