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By Colby Kultgen

Practical Gratitude, Unhealthy Optimization, and A Challenge For The Last Quarter of 2025

Read online / Read time: 4 minutes

A few practical ways to cultivate gratitude

Hot take:

"Be grateful" is terrible self-help advice.

Not because gratitude isn't powerful (it is).

But because this "advice" almost never comes with practical ways of actually doing it.

We've all heard the “write 3 things down in a journal” routine, but for me it's always felt a bit too forced.

And besides, why would we expect one method to work for everyone?

That’s why I gave myself a mission this week:

Come up with a handful of gratitude practices that don’t involve writing in a journal (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Here's what I came up with:

Let me know your favorite ways to practice gratitude!

A reminder we all need sometimes (myself included)

I write about optimization a lot.

Hell, the name of this newsletter is "1% Better".

But I also know that chasing optimization in every corner of life is a trap (learned this the hard way).

That's not to say you should be frivolous with your time.

But holding yourself to an impossible standard will guarantee disappointment, no matter what level of optimization you reach.

If this message resonates, I highly recommend reading the book Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman.

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Now here's the kind of optimization I can get behind:

Tools that make work faster and easier.

And no tool has saved me more time in 2025 than Wispr Flow.

It's an AI-powered voice keyboard that lets you speak naturally and turns it into clean, well-punctuated text anywhere: Slack, Gmail, Notes, you name it.

Why I love it:

• No filler words or awkward transcriptions
• Learns your go-to phrases, names, acronyms
• Quiet mode = no awkward stares when you’re dictating in public
• Syncs with your computer for easy note-taking

Exciting news: Flow is now available on your iPhone.

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A challenge for the last quarter of the year

So I did something a little crazy.

Starting September 1st, I set a goal to run 5KM at 5AM every day for 50 days.

I'm calling it the 5AM 5K Challenge (the name needs work, I know).

Why am I doing this?

A few reasons:

1. Because my discipline has gotten off track lately, and I wanted a forcing function to reset my morning and evening routines.
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2. Because I love gamification, and framing this as a challenge is a lot more fun to me than setting a goal to "wake up early".
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3. Because making it public adds a layer of accountability I wouldn't have otherwise.

If you want to follow along (or stalk my running routes), add me on Strava.

I also encourage you to create a challenge of your own.

It doesn't have to be the same as mine.

Just something that pushes you, excites you, or brings a little structure back into your days.

We're in the last quarter of 2025, let's finish strong.

A poem I'm reflecting on

I don't have children (yet), but when I do, I know I'll be returning to this poem often.

😂

Have a great week!

P.S. Reply telling me what resonated most this week!

(I read and respond to them all)

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