Mark D. White

It's hard to believe that we're already a month and a half into 2012. Here's what I'm been up to in terms of writing since my last update:

• I finished my (fairly lengthy) abstract for this summer's World Congress in Social Economics in Glasgow, based on one of my Stanford book projects.
• Continuing work on the Downton Abbey project and my contribution to it (more on that soon).
• Speaking of Downton Abbey, it inspired my most recent Psychology Today post: "The Tragic Romantic Irony of the Self-Loather" (February 12, 2012).
• I had another Psychology Today post since my last update: "A Better Way to Think about 'Settling' in Relationships" (January 29, 2012).
• I had two recent pieces in The Good Men Project: "Love with Abandon" (February 12, 2012) and "In Search of the Elusive 'It'" (February 6, 2012, also reprinted at SNS Post the next day). I am also honored to have been added to the masthead of The Good Men Project as an editor-in-large; expect much more from me at the site in the future.

Alng with prepping for various academic projects, I also indulged in a bit of free writing a couple nights ago, just writing for its own sake rather than for the purpose of publication or promotion. it felt wonderful, and I will have to make time to do it some more–and hopefully regularly.

I've also been trying to implement some of David Covey's time management techniques from his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which was highly recommended by a good friend who's both very productive and rather satisfied with his life (hmm). Briefly, it recommends listing your various roles and then setting goals for the next week for each role. That was, to put it mildly, an eye-opener; perhaps I'll write more about that in a future post. A worthy exercise in itself, even if I never implement it. (The scarier part is writing my "mission statement," which touches on all my issues about purpose and meaning–and lack thereof.)