Lifehackers series "This Is How I Work" is a real favorite of mine. In the series, you get a glimpse of how skilled professionals, mostly writers and individuals with a strong online presence, manage their workdays and what type of resources they're using to establishing a nice workflow. And another important thing – most of them don't neglect sleep and exercise, which for me was a happy discovery.

Here is my list of the 25 most inspiring "This Is How I Work" interviews:

1. Susan Kare – graphic designer
2. Tim Ferriss – author and entrepreneur
3. Zach Frechette – founder of Quarterly Co.
4. Maria Sebregondi – co-founder of Moleskine
5. Ryan Holiday – author, marketer, and entrepreneur
6. Guy Kawasaki – author, publisher and entrepreneur
7. Anna Holmes – writer, editor, and founder of the blog Jezebel
8. Jamie Todd Rubin – coder, science fiction and technology writer
9. Ryan Carson – CEO and co-founder of Treehouse
10. Kathryn Minshew – CEO of The Muse
11. Brian Lam – editor and founder of The Wirecutter
12. James Altucher – investor, hedge fund manager and entrepreneur
13. Leila Janah – social entrepreneur and CEO of the Sama Group
14. Chris Anderson – author and entrepreneur
15. Walter Isaacson – writer and journalist
16. Pamela Fox – product engineer at Coursera
17. Dave Greenbaum – owner and technician at DoctorDave Computer Repair, and writer at Lifehacker
18. Russell Brown – principal designer at Adobe
19. Clive Thompson – freelance journalist, blogger and science and technology writer
20. Daniel Pink – author
21. David McRaney – author
22. Mike Rowe – host of "Somebody's Gotta Do It"
23. Ryan North – creator and author of "Dinosaur Comics"
24. Charles Duhigg – journalist and author
25. Mark Frauenfelder – editor-in-chief of MAKE and co-editor of Boing Boing

Featured image: hedge fund manager James Altucher

35-year-old Ultra Romance works as a guide and fisherman, and sells bicycle parts on Ebay, but he only works a total of six months a year, enough to make a living. The rest of the year, he travels with his bike and do whatever he feels like.

"The more you learn about human history, it reveals that in a hunter-gatherer society, say in New England 400 years ago, it took nine hours a week to procure everything you needed to live for that week, and the rest was all leisure time. This is what's natural to us. We've only been living the way we are now since the Industrial Revolution, and it's not for me."

…

"I like to romanticize the ideals of being out on your own and that ultimate freedom of not having any ties. I understand that you need to have some ties — we can't go directly back to that. At this point we've gone too far. And I'm not one to get held up in a mountain like a hermit. I like my internet and I love Instagram and all that stuff — I love Whole Foods. There are plenty of modern conveniences that I love."

For more, read Ian Dille's longer piece about his meeting and re-encounter with Ultra Romance.

I met the man who is also known as Poppi, Bolty, J.B., and a variety of other names (but who, for the purpose of telling this story and out of respect for what he says are "tax reasons," we'll refer to as Benedict) in Austin in 2006. He was a bike messenger and a Cat 5 road racer with the persona of a vain Euro pro: his bike accented with gold parts, his muscular body rippling under white spandex. Despite holding a license that classified him as belonging to the lowest, most inexperienced level of amateur bike racing, he regularly dropped everyone, including me (a former pro), on the weekend hammer ride. He was dating a female bike racer from San Antonio, a woman with soft green eyes and long dark hair, and the words Fuck and Y'all tattooed on the back of either thigh. They fell in love and moved to Benedict's boyhood home on the mouth of the Connecticut River, and I never heard much about him after that, never really thought about him except during those occasional times some of us would swap stories about the characters who'd passed through our local cycling scene.

Photo credit: Via Ultra Romance's Instagram account.

Via Metro (SE).

At the end of the day, in most workplaces, our efficiency and productivity levels tend to drop. Nothing unusual about this, we're only humans and we get tired. So, I think it's a bit strange that a 32-hour workweek (or 6-hour workday) still seems a bit controversial and odd.

Ryan Carson and his company Treehouse prove that you can grow your company, and at the same time cut down working hours. They have done this since 2006 with great results.

Blogger Darren Rowse wrote an excellent article about improving his health by incorporating a few small daily changes such as walking more and getting started with the 5:2 diet. I can easily identify with some of the things Darren talks about: I exercise daily, and eat healthy food overall, but tend to spend too much time at home, which means I don't walk as much as I should.

It's been 3 months now since I started and I feel a whole heap better than I have in a long time.

Like I said above I'm feeling a lot more alert and productive and just... lighter.

I don't want to lose much more weight but would like to begin to work on increasing my strength and fitness going forward.

By no means is what I'm doing for everyone and nor do I see what I've done so far as anything too remarkable. In fact I'm kind of amazed how a few simple changes have had such an impact.

Arianna Huffington had a rough awakening when she collapsed in her office due to sleep deprivation and burnout, a lesson we can all learn from.

In her book Thrive, she lists 12 steps that you can take to fill you with energy, and make you more present:

1. Unless you are one of the wise few who already gets all the rest you need, you have an opportunity to immediately improve your health, creativity, productivity and sense of well-being. Start by getting just thirty minutes more sleep than you are getting now. The easiest way is to go to bed earlier, but you could also take a short nap during the day -- or a combination of both.

2. Move your body: Walk, run, stretch, do yoga, dance. Just move. Anytime.

3. Introduce five minutes of meditation into your day. Eventually, you can build up to fifteen or twenty minutes a day (or more), but even just a few minutes will open the door to creating a new habit -- and all the many proven benefits it brings.

4. Listening to your inner wisdom, let go of something today that you no longer need -- something that is draining your energy without benefiting you or anyone you love. It could be resentments, negative self-talk or a project you know you are not really going to complete.

5. Start a gratitude list that you share with two or more friends who send theirs to you.

6. Have a specific time at night when you regularly turn off your devices -- and gently escort them out of your bedroom. Disconnecting from the digital world will help you reconnect to your wisdom, intuition and creativity. And when you wake up in the morning, don't start your day by looking at your smartphone. Take one minute -- trust me, you do have one minute -- to breathe deeply, or be grateful or set your intention for the day.

7. Focus on the rising and falling of your breath for ten seconds whenever you feel tense, rushed or distracted. This allows you to become fully present in your life.

8. Pick an image that ignites the joy in you. It can be of your child, a pet, the ocean, a painting you love -- something that inspires a sense of wonder. And any time you feel contracted, go to it to help you expand.

9. Forgive yourself for any judgments you are holding against yourself and then forgive your judgments of others. (If Nelson Mandela can do it, you can, too.) Then look at your life and the day ahead with newness and wonder.

10. Make small gestures of kindness and giving a habit, and pay attention to how this affects your mind, your emotions and your body.

11. During your day make a personal connection with people you might normally tend to pass by and take for granted: the checkout clerk, the cleaning crew at your office or your hotel, the barista in the coffee shop. See how this helps you feel more alive and reconnected to the moment.

12. Use a skill or talent you have -- cooking, accounting, decorating -- to help someone who could benefit from it. It'll jumpstart your transition from a go-getter to a go-giver, and reconnect you to the world and to the natural abundance in your own life.

Featured image: You find the "12 Steps to Thrive" artwork here. Available in high quality if you'd like to print and frame it.

I´ve been a strong supporter of a 6 hour workday for a long time. I share the same views as those expressed in the article. We will be more productive by working less hours and at the same time be healthier. In the long run it will save the company money and increase profitability, keep the employees happy, all without having to cut the paycheck.

A Swedish city has embarked on an experiment in limiting the workday to six hours in an effort to improve productivity.

A section of employees of the municipality of Gothenburg will now work an hour less a day than the seven hours customary in the Scandinavian social democracy famed for its work-life balance.

The measure is being self-consciously conceived of as an experiment, with a group of municipal employees working fewer hours and a control group working regular hours - all on the same pay. The groups’ performances will then be compared.

It is hoped that the experiment will ultimately save money by making employees more productive in their working hours.

Mats Pilhem, the city’s Left-wing deputy mayor, told The Local Sweden that he hoped “staff members would take fewer sick days and feel better mentally and physically after working shorter days".

Image via The National Archives. The image is named “interior view, showing office workers in the Lever Brothers office building”, ca 1959, New York City, New York by an unknown photographer.