Take control of your work, life, and money.
Welcome to Smarter and Harder, a community for positivity and new, exciting conversations about how to make life a little bit better, one day at a time.
All that we do here is built on one simple idea: The Smarter and Harder mindset. You can read all about it in the free Smarter and Harder Mindset eBook.
Where Should We Start?
Latest Posts
Get More Out of Your Money
The Hedonic Treadmill and the Insidious Toll of Lifestyle Creep
What do you think of when you picture a treadmill? Most likely, it’s some combination of working hard, going nowhere, feeling miserable, and wanting to be somewhere else. Similarly, the …
Set It and Forget It: 11 Easy Ways to Automate Your Finances
How much time do you spend managing your money each month – paying bills, checking balances, and moving funds around? Is it a few hours, maybe half a day? If …
The Inheritance Tax: Making Death and Taxes a Little Less Certain
As Benjamin Franklin stated over 200 years ago, “…in this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.” The adage rings especially true where these two …
Taking a “Boil the Frog” Approach to Personal Finance
Pop culture tends to portray money matters the same way it does superheroes, celebrity gossip, and street racing – larger-than-life, explosive, and heart-pounding at every turn. Real-life personal finance may …
Seeking Health and Happiness
It’s not a Tiger: Conquering Negativity Bias
Last weekend, while visiting a town a few hours away, I got into a pickle with a parking spot. It was a pretty pesky parking pickle, to be honest with …
Recognizing Optimism Bias: Are You an Irrational Optimist?
Would you believe that the average person expects to live a better-than-average life? The math doesn’t add up, but this skewed perception is quite common. This gap between perception and …
Emotional Labor: 4 Tips for Sharing the Mental Load
Have you ever felt, much like Jennifer Aniston’s character in The Breakup, that you didn’t just want your partner to do the dishes; you wanted them to want to do …
Self-Respect: The Secret Sauce for Confidence, Compassion, and Contentment
Self-respect is a quiet force that often weaves its way through your entire day. It influences how you think about yourself, how you treat others, and your decisions. Learning to …
Personal Growth and Development
4 Ways to Build Resilience and Better Navigate Stressful Situations
Resilience often distinguishes my proudest accomplishments from those moments when I most disappointed myself or came up short. Same thing when I try to figure out what I most need …
Single-Tasking: Debunking the Myth of Productive Multitasking
I hear a lot of skepticism about the idea of single-tasking. In a world that at every turn seems to become busier and more chaotic than before, we still talk …
4 Steps to Break Down Problems into Simple, Manageable Parts
Have you ever gotten yourself all worked up to solve a major challenge in your life? Was your solution to the problem to jump right in and go for it? …
17 Practical Time Management Tips for a Stress-Free Life
Have you ever woken up in the morning, and instead of feeling overwhelmed by everything you have to do that day, you feel calm, refreshed, and ready to face the …
Ready to Make Real Change in Your Life?
Sign up for the free Smarder Stuff newsletter. Weekly tips to help you make sense of work, life, and money.
Watch Our Stories
