All Writing by Jamie Miles
Welcome to the full portfolio. Browse to your hearts content and discover everything from true stories to evidence-based guides.
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Trues Stories & Reflections
The Energy/Money Matrix: A Better Way to Manage Your Life
At a glance Based on the question: Is there a sane way to decide what to keep, cut, and delegate when I’m burnt out and everything feels like too much? By mapping your life into a simple Energy/Money matrix, you can see which...
An Icy Start
It was January 7th, 2026 and I’d already dialled 999. The morning had brought an unnatural cold. The streets were iced and London was taken by surprise. I rushed out, eager to swing into the New Year. I had big plans for 2026,...
Marcus Brown
Note: the names have been changed for the sake of privacy. This story is about Marcus Brown, but first, I need to tell you about coffee shops. The next time you visit a coffee shop lay on the ground. Don’t offer any explanation. Just lay there for a solid 30-seconds,...
Temptation Bundling: Beating procrastination at its own game
Is there a way to get through the more miserable tasks on my to-do list?
Self-control is overrated and how to play the long game
The importance of using self-control to reign in our impulses is often overstated. Pop psychology has spread this myth by misinterpreting The Marshmallow Test. We’ll debunk The Marshmallow Test by using new research to show how impulse control is relatively unimportant when predicting positive educational outcomes after socioeconomic factors are taken into account.
A Jubilee Encounter
Through the crowd, a voice cut through, 'You have a lucky face'. Weaving through the jubilee bustle, I'd ducked down Bow Street to skirt the edge of the celebratory storm that stretched from Buckingham Palace to Leicester Square...
Untucking Revenge Bedtime Procrastination
How can I stop procrastinating before bed? It’s turning me into a zombie during the day, but breaking the habit is hard.
Almost Giving Up Alcohol
Trigger warning: this story mentions drink spiking. At 24, I decided to give up alcohol for the year. Well, 99% of the year. A month before my birthday, I had my drink spiked. It was a blackout moment for me. I was at a party...
Speilburgers
What we gain in luxury, we lose in community. Sometimes that's brilliant. Community can be the undoing of many joys. Take community peanuts. They're theoretically a fun snack, but sharing is certainly not caring after being...
Chickens in the Attic
'I've been told to tell you that you need to check your pidge'. She buzzed with mulled wine and held my gaze, seeing if her message had made it through the Christmas jingles playing in the Old Kitchen Bar. It hadn't, so she urged me with her eyebrows, lifting them in...
4:6 Breathing for Focus and Calm
The quality of our feelings affects the quality of our thinking. How we feel, however, based on an increasing wealth of clinical studies, is a skill. We can, far more than we might expect, direct our mood to overcome challenges like procrastination, anxiety, short attention spans and a lack of motivation.
A Strategic Way to Make Sense of New Topics
When problem-solving, how do I make sense of new topics efficiently?
Jamie’s Butterfly
The butterfly’s first mistake was visiting my balcony. His wings were the colour of optimism, and he’d popped by after spotting the greenery growing in my plant pots. He would flutter and land, flutter and land, acknowledging...
The War Between the Grey and the Green
My parent’s garden is unlike the others in the neighbourhood. If one of the satellites falling through space were to cast its camera over the part of England where I grew up, it would see a sprawl of suburban houses. With each...
Understand What You’re Reading Faster
When reading heavy academic texts at university, I find myself getting lost trying to follow the author’s argument. Any tips on how to be found?
Breadth and Depth: A Practical Workflow for Efficient Note-taking (Pt 5)
When reading, I move as slow as a snail. I’m paranoid that I’ll miss something important, so I take a lot of (often unnecessary) notes. Do you have a way I can be more efficient?
Evening Pages: Procrastinate Less and Sleep More
Whenever I try to sleep, my mind decides to start solving problems and listing all the things I have to do tomorrow. When I wake up, all that energy is gone and I struggle to get started. Any advice?
The Weakest Link
Would you ever hack someone’s Facebook account? What if they’re grooming underage students and you need evidence to convict them? This is the story of how I helped catch a criminal. — I remember when the internet used to sing....
Thinking Fast with Jump Notes: Note-taking for Those that Hate Note-taking (Pt 4)
We think fast, and we think slow. Jump Notes, my twist on mind mapping, is for when we need to think fast, as pausing is either impractical or not preferable. When studying or working, that’s most of the time.
The Cow Survival Guide
After the last weekend, I’ve been compelled to write a cow attack survival guide. I couldn’t find one, so I have to presume it’s because there haven’t been any survivors up until now. Below is a story on getting charged at by a...
Example HQ&A Notes: How to Avoid Climate Disaster (2021) – Bill Gates
These example Highlight, Question and Answer (HQ&A) Notes are a companion to the third article in my Oxford Notes note-taking series, A Technique for Taking More Creative Notes: Up, Down, and Across.
Think Deeper: Upgrade your HQ&A Notes with Up, Down, and Across (Pt 3)
Ask a better question, and you’ll get a better answer.
The value of the Highlight, Question, and Answer (HQ&A) technique comes down to the quality of the questions you ask, so being able to prime a state of mind that surfaces better questions will deepen your understanding of the text and make you a more original thinker.
Imagination and Hope: Jamoe’s 1st Birthday
It’s been a year since the pandemic left me unemployed. Picking myself up from the knock, I decided it was time to stop delaying the inevitable and start my own thing. On Jamoe’s 1st birthday, here’s the story of how I decided to...
Get More Value and Joy from Books with Handwritten HQ&A Notes (Pt 2)
Taking notes on physical non-fiction books is best done by hand. While there’s evidence to support we remember handwritten notes best, that’s not why I recommend it.