If you have big aspirations for 2024—a big deadlift, a marathon, a change in the size of your body—I sure hope you haven’t translated them into the limited, pass-fail box-checking of a SMART goal. But I do hope that you’ve made yourself some SMART goals to guide you through the process. Let me explain.

Why SMART goals are different from Dream Goals

SMART goals have long been heralded as a goal-setting life hack, but the truth is that they were invented for mangers to set quotas and such for their companies (the original “A” stood for “assignable,” as in, to an employee).

A SMART goal, as it’s talked about it the fitness world today, is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Put together, this means you set a deadline by which time you expect to achieve a specific measurement of an outcome. In other words, you’ve turned it into a pass-fail test.

And because you wouldn’t want to fail that pass-fail test, creating a proper SMART goal means that you need to set the bar low. The goal has to be Attainable, remember? When you look at it that way, SMART goals are not goals in the way I would think of the word, in the sense of big dreams that inspire us to keep going. But we can use them as benchmarks to hit on the way to what I’ll call our Dream Goals.

How to dream big while still setting process goals

I’ve written before that SMART goals are overrated, but to be honest, they make a good framework for process goals. Process goals are things that are fully in our control. They are Attainable, by definition. For example, going for a run three times a week is a process goal. Eating a vegetable at every meal is a process goal. Following a program that tells you to do five sets of eight reps of deadlifts every Tuesday is a process goal.

And the point of a process goal is to put you on the path to your big Dream Goal. I like to think of it this way: Your Dream Goal is a big mountain off in the distance. You know it’s there, but you don’t know exactly how far away it is, or how tough the journey will be. Your process goals are things that will keep you on the path toward that mountain. Packing your bags. Putting one foot in front of the other. Or as Peloton instructor Tunde Oyeneyin puts it (right before telling me I better beat my score from her last burpee circuit): “A goal is a wish. A standard holds us accountable.” We need both.

I can’t emphasize how important it is that we allow ourselves to dream big. “Take 1 minute off my 5K race time this year” is attainable, but why limit yourself to that? “Run a 5K in under 20 minutes” is a big-as-hell dream (especially if you’re around 30 minutes right now) but it’s very much worth working for. The path up that mountain might be a long one, but it’s not going to walk itself.

How your SMART goals can support your Dream Goals

So, let’s start charting that path. As with any trip up a faraway mountain, you won’t know quite what the road is like until you get there. So focus on what’s right in front of you and what you can control.

Here’s an example of how you can set some SMART process goals to guide you toward a big dream that may or may not be achievable. Let’s say you’re a runner, and you want to be a faster runner. You might chart out a journey like this:

Dream goal: Run a 5K in 20 minutes or less (someday)

Process goals:

1. Build up my aerobic base by running a few more miles each week, until I am running 20 miles a week.

2. Run a time trial at the track, both as a benchmark and so I can calculate my training paces.

3. Follow the Hal Higdon Intermediate 5K Training Program as written, including the recommended Tuessday and Thursday strength training.

4. Run the Big Local 5K in my city this spring.

5. Congratulate myself on finishing, assess my strengths and weaknesses, and decide on a new set of process goals for summer training.

See how each of these is a SMART goal?

• They are all Specific enough that you know each day what to do. (I’ve given a mileage number and picked out a specific training program, but obviously you would choose your own.)

• They are Measurable: You hit the miles, or you check off the number of workouts programmed.

• They are Attainable: You have full control of whether or not you go out for a run. (Obviously, if you don’t have full control over this due to life circumstances, you would write a different set of goals that take those circumstances into account.)

• They are Relevant: They all set you on the path toward being a faster runner at the 5K distance.

• They are Time-bound: From this framework, you could sit down and schedule every single run on your calendar for the next three or four months. (You would work backward from the race date to find the start of the training program, and so on.)

These goals define your process, and then you get to reassess. After the Big Local 5K, do you want to do more specific 5K training to get faster? Do you want to train for a marathon for the base-building opportunities and because you kind of like the idea of a side quest? Or might you find that your other goals in life conflict with this one—perhaps you’d rather reduce mileage this summer so you can do more paddleboarding, and return to run training in the fall?

This way, you still get to dream big, but you know you’re always on the path to those big goals—at least as long as you want to be. Shoot for the moon, and if you don’t make it, at least you’ve built a damn good rocket ship along the way.

While earbuds can certainly be more uncomfortable than a luxe pair of over-ear headphones—mainly having to do with the difficulty of finding the correctly size ear tip for your ear canal—finding the right fit for your ears can feel as right as Cinderella sliding into her glass slipper.

Unlike headphones, earbuds offer less sound leakage, which usually means better noise-canceling overall. That’s why when it comes to active-noise canceling (ANC), earbuds can give you a better experience over headphones. Here are the best ANC earbuds you can buy right now, depending on what you’re planning to use them for.

Best ANC earbuds overall

The best earbuds to wear in noisy environments are the Bose QuietComfort Ultra earbuds, being able to tune out low and high frequencies alike. One of the main reasons these are so good is because they offer several options for their ear-tips, ensuring a snug fit. Of course, the technology is the main factor, with a feature that turns ANC on automatically while using ambient noise to block out loud noises around you.

• Bose QuietComfort Ultra ($299)

Best ANC earbuds for audiophiles

ANC can make the quality of your audio take a hit. But if you’re looking for the best ANC earbuds while still getting the best audio possible, then consider Sony’s WF-1000XM5. These have a better sound out of the box than the Bose QuietComfort Ultra and have multi-device pairing. So if you have multiple devices and would rather have better audio over a slightly less effective ANC, then consider the Sony WF-1000XM5.

• Sony WF-1000XM5 ($298)

Best budget ANC earbuds

As you can see so far on this list, a good pair of earbuds can be pricey. The good news is you can still get very good ANC earbuds for an affordable price. The Soundcore by Anker Space A40 give you as many features and even better ANC than some high-end pairs without the excessive price tag. The main place where these earbuds fall short is capturing your voice when making calls. But for a tight budget, the Soundcore by Anker Space A40 do a great job.

• Soundcore by Anker Space A40 (currently $79)

Best ANC earbuds for working out

The best gym companion ANC earbud medal goes to the Beats Fit Pro. They are water resistant and offer a secure fit while providing great ANC. If you’re in the Apple ecosystem, you will appreciate the Apple’s H1 chip in these Beats earbuds, giving you a quicker pairing experience when connecting to your iCloud devices, saving some battery life, and providing a better sound quality in general.

• Beats Fit Pro (currently $179)

Best ANC earbuds for calls

Not having to leave a room or take your earbuds off to take a call is an underrated feeling. If you’re looking for the best earbuds to make calls, then the Status Between 3ANC are the best of the bunch. They have have multipoint technology so you can connect them to your phone and laptop, and can reduce the noise around you while picking up your voice in a noisy environment. They also have many ear-tip options for you to find the best fit for your ears.

• Status Between 3ANC (currently $179).

Your house is your haven and your shelter. It’s also a pretty common place to die in an unpredictable—and usually preventable—accident.

Our home is typically a refuge, a place where we expect to feel safe; that’s one reason why a common reaction to trauma is the simple desire to go home, where we can presumably feel safe. It’s also why we put a lot of effort, time, and money into things like security systems. We want to ensure that outside threats stop at our front door.

But the unfortunate fact is that, a lot of times, the threats are coming from inside the house. There are generally more than 120,000 preventable injuries and deaths in homes each year, and most of them are caused by things you probably don’t think of as particularly dangerous.

Poisoning

You might think you’re safe from being poisoned if you’re sitting in your own home minding your own business, but poisoning is actually one of the most common ways to die in the house. More than 80,000 people were poisoned to death in their homes in 2021, for example, representing about 65% of all the at-home fatalities that year. There were more than two million calls to poison control centers that year, too, and more than three-fourths of those poisonings were accidents.

How does this happen? Well, a lot of things in your house can poison you if you use them incorrectly or consume them for some reason. Cleaning products are pretty toxic if accidentally ingested, and overdoses on common medications like acetaminophen (aka Tylenol) or stronger pain medications are usually classified as poisoning, which explains a lot. Even houseplants, which just sort of sit there minding their own business, were responsible for more than 20,000 poisoning calls, many involving children.

You can protect yourself and your kids from accidental poisonings by following some simple best practices:

• Keep medicines in a specific place, preferably out of the reach of a child. Don’t store medications where they can be mistaken for anything else (like candy), and always read the labels to know the maximum dosage.

• Similarly, keep cleaning products away from food and preferably in a locked cabinet or a location inaccessible to children.

• Never use household cleaners for any other purpose (e.g., cleaning dishes or washing food), and never use containers for both food and cleaning products.

• Always wash your hands after handling cleaning products, plants, or medications.

Falls

Coming up next on the Ways to Die in Your House list are falls, making up 23% of all accidental deaths in the house (nearly 30,000 cases in 2021 alone). In fact, accidental deaths from falls are getting markedly worse—the number of deaths from falls in the house has risen about 25% over the last few years. Most falls involve your deadliest enemy within a home: the stairs. And, yes, most fall deaths involve folks older than 75, which makes sense—but being young doesn’t make you immune, and plenty of younger people fall down slippery stairs all the time, risking injury and death.

There are some basic things you can do to lower your risk of falling and hurting yourself:

• Pay attention. Simply by watching your feet and being conscious of where you’re stepping, you can reduce your risk of falling—especially when walking up or down stairs. Traversing stairs is not the time to multitask or check your phone.

• Light the way. Keeping areas well-lit can help you see obstacles before you trip over them, and using nightlights and marking light switches with glow-in-the-dark decals (or using illuminated wall plates) can help you stay balanced and oriented as you walk.

• Add safety. All stairs should have a railing—and you should always use the railing when walking up and down stairs. And if there are slippery areas in your house (especially on stairs), add non-slip tape or carpeting to reduce the risk.

• Bathrooms can be risky places for falls because of water pooling on tiled floors. Adding bars to shower walls can help prevent slipping injuries while bathing, and adding a rug with a non-slip backing can help reduce this risk.

• When doing work around the house, always use a ladder to reach things, and make sure the ladder has the proper load rating for what it will be supporting.

• When using a ladder, always ensure it’s level and fully open so the supports have locked into place. Never stand on the very top of a ladder, and never lean or stretch to reach something when on a ladder.

Fire

Fire and smoke actually account for only about 2% of all accidental deaths in the house. Which is remarkable, because there are so many ways a deadly fire can start: a failure to clean the lint out of your dryer; letting your smoke detector batteries fail; using frayed or damaged extension cords; or even candles, which are responsible for 3% of all those fire deaths.

Fire is typically a pretty top-of-mind threat, which may help explain its low fatality in the home. Most people know to keep their smoke detectors powered up, and know to get the heck out as fast as possible if a fire breaks out. But there’s more you can do to prevent fire in your home.

• Always use candle holders, and place candles in areas where they are unlikely to be knocked over—and are far away from combustible materials. And always extinguish candles when you leave a room. Better yet, consider switching to battery-powered candles.

• Never leave an open flame—like a burner on your stove—unattended.

• Always have a working fire extinguisher in the kitchen, or near any fireplaces in the home.

• Immediately replace any extension cords that are visibly frayed, and contact an electrician if your lights flicker or if any switches or outlets feel hot to the touch or spark when something is plugged in.

Choking and mechanical suffocation

About 4,500 people die in their homes from either choking or “mechanical suffocation,” which, according to the National Safety Council, means “deaths from hanging and strangulation, and suffocation in enclosed or confined spaces; cave-ins; or by bed clothes, plastic bags, or similar materials.”

While it’s unlikely your pajamas will strangle you in your sleep, you can prevent suffocation with some common-sense steps:

• Tie up dangling strings like window blind cords.

• Never go to sleep with plastic bags—like dry-cleaning bags—on the bed.

• Be conscious of your food when eating, and be sure to chew thoroughly and not rush. Never run or walk while eating—always eat while sitting.

• Learn how to perform choking first aid, including the Heimlich Maneuver. Also learn how to perform the Self-Heimlich on yourself in case you start to choke while alone.

Drowning

About 1,300 people drowned in their homes in 2021—many of them children, and many involving innocuous bodies of water like bathtubs, buckets, toilets, or hot tubs. It only takes an inch or two of water to drown a person, after all, especially if combined with another type of accident that leaves you momentarily unconscious.

To prevent accidental drowning in the home, you should

• Never leave small children unattended in water.

• Invest in a pool fence if you have small children in the house.

• Never consume alcohol or other substances while immersed in water (i.e., a hot tub or hot bath).

• Never leave containers of water open and full. Dump out tubs, buckets, and other receptacles when not in use, and keep toilet lids down.

Temperatures

One of the main jobs assigned to your house is protecting you from the elements, including extreme temperatures. Some houses do a better job of this than others, of course, depending on their insulation, weather seals, and climate control capabilities, but most houses are able to shield you from the worst extremes.

But about 1,000 people die in their homes from extreme temperatures—an elderly couple in South Carolina, for example, were found dead in a home with an internal temperature of 120 degrees after an apparent malfunction in their heating system. And extreme cold combined with poverty or malfunctioning heaters can be just as deadly.

To defend yourself against freezing or baking in your own home, there are a few steps you can take:

• Inspect. Have your heating and cooling systems inspected before each change of season. Many local utilities will schedule a check-up for your furnace, boiler, or air-conditioning systems.

• Pay attention. Check weather reports and sign up for alerts from your local government. If extreme heat or cold is predicted, be aware and make sure your systems are working. If your heat or AC isn’t functioning, consider staying with friends or family until the temperatures normalize or you can have repairs made.

• Know symptoms. Be familiar with the symptoms of heat-related illnesses and hypothermia. At the first sign of any of these symptoms, call for assistance or find a place where you can warm up or cool down.

Gunshots

You might think, this is America, of course people die in their homes from gunshots all the time. And yet, not so much. Just 400 accidental gunshot deaths in the home occurred in 2021, for example. While this is 400 too many, it’s still a tiny number compared to the other dangers lurking in your domicile. Most people who have a gun in the house practice solid gun safety practices, keeping the weapon unloaded and secured when not in use. Many of these deaths involve children who gain access to the firearm and play with them—including very young children who may not fully understand what they’re playing with. Even if you don’t have children of your own, you should keep your guns locked away securely so that no one without training and experience can gain access to them.

Preventing accidental gunshot wounds in the home involves some basic safety practices that most gun owners know well:

• Practice safe gun storage with a secure, lockable gun safe, and always keep your guns there when not in use.

• Always assume a gun is loaded.

• Never play with a gun or use it for any purpose other than what it was designed to do.

Bleach

Cleaning products are dangerous, especially if mixed improperly. Too many people assume that if a store will sell you a bunch of products they must be safe to use together, and the result is nearly 100,000 calls to poison control centers involving cleaning substances in the house.

But you don’t have to ingest cleaning products to die from them. One of the most common mistakes folks make is mixing bleach with stuff that triggers a deadly reaction—like vinegar. You might think that combining bleach and vinegar would result in a Super Cleaner that will leave your house spotless. Instead, you get chlorine gas. And a trip to the ER, if you’re lucky. To prevent these sorts of accidents, never mix cleaning products unless the labels explicitly instruct you to do so.

DIY repairs

Fixing up your house to make it more comfortable or attractive is a time-honored way to spend time in your home. But it’s also a time-honored way to get yourself dead. Home remodeling and renovation projects involve tools of all kinds, which are essentially murder weapons in disguise—especially power tools, which should never be handled unless you’re familiar with their use and limitations. They also involve the very structure of your home, which can be compromised in a wide variety of deadly ways, from accidentally hitting live electrical wiring to removing load-bearing elements that can result in serious injuries.

Even if you’re relatively experienced and practice good basic safety, there are still a lot of ways to hurt yourself when DIYing in your home, as we noted here at Lifehacker:

• Microwaves hold a considerable—and quite deadly—electrical charge for a very long time after being unplugged

• Garage door springs store an incredible amount of energy, and trying to replace one without the proper tools and training is very dangerous

• Building a death trap like a deck that will eventually collapse is pretty easy if you don’t know anything about engineering—never assume that just because something you built seems solid it can actually hold weight.

In the end, the way to stay safe when doing projects around the house is to never assume something is safe—always double-check power, gas, and structure before you swing that hammer or fire up that saw.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11, 2024 – For the past 25 years, Congress has upheld a bipartisan commitment to provide full funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to serve every eligible participant that applies.

Altoona, Iowa, Jan. 11, 2024 – U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack announced today that USDA is awarding $19 million in grants to U.S. business owners to increase the availability of domestic biofuels in 22 states and give Americans cleaner, more affordable fuel options at gas station pumps as part of President Biden’s Bidenomics agenda to lower costs and invest in America.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10, 2024 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture today announced that 35 states, all five U.S. territories, and four Tribes plan to be the first to launch the new, permanent summer grocery benefits program for children – known as Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer – in summer 2024. They include:

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for January 11, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is medium, maybe slightly on the harder side; I lucked out and got it in two, though. Beware, there are spoilers below for January 11, Wordle #936! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game.

How to play Wordle

Wordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.

Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if they’re correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isn’t in the day’s secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)

Ready for the hints? Let’s go!

Does today’s Wordle have any unusual letters?

We’ll define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it “Edwin Shirdloo,” like a name, and pretend he’s a friend of yours.)

Only three common letters today. The others are sort of medium-unusual. Nothing too crazy. 

Can you give me a hint for today’s Wordle?

It’s a word that reminds me of underpants, or legal papers.

Does today’s Wordle have any double or repeated letters?

Nope, five different letters today.

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There are two vowels today.

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with B.

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with F.

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is BRIEF.

How I solved today’s Wordle

After ARISE, I had the R and I in place, and knew I had to fit the E in to either the first or fourth spots. Either I was looking at ERI__ (can’t think of any good words that start that way) or RIE. BRIEF came to mind, so I went for it, and lucked out.

Wordle 936 2/6

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A primer on Wordle basics

The idea of Wordle is to guess the day’s secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, you’ll see an empty grid of letters. It’s up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word. 

Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word: 

• Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and it’s in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)

• Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)

• Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)

With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then it’s game over.

The best starter words for Wordle

What should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, that’s still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isn’t a single “best” starting word, but the New York Times’s Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:

• CRANE

• TRACE

• SLANT

• CRATE

• CARTE

Meanwhile, an MIT analysis found that you’ll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:

• SALET

• REAST

• TRACE

• CRATE

• SLATE

Other good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that it’s better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.

How to win at Wordle

We have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if you’re a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.

The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, don’t waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.

One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldn’t have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.

Wordle alternatives

If you can’t get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:

• Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after another

• Dordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.

• Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.

• Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.

• Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.

• Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the day’s solution. You’re required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.