On Productivity
My philosophy for achieving this goal can be reduced to three simple rules: Do fewer things. Do them better. Know why you’re doing them.
My philosophy for achieving this goal can be reduced to three simple rules: Do fewer things. Do them better. Know why you’re doing them.
...Making your own homemade energy bars can be as simple or complicated as you want, and this recipe is as simple as it gets...
...Doing something isn’t the same as getting results. The problem is we convince ourselves that our only options are to do something or do nothing. We forget the third option, gathering more information...
...10Xers exercise productive paranoia, combined with empirical creativity and fanatic discipline, to create huge margins of safety. If you stay in the game long enough, good luck tends to return, but if you get knocked out, you’ll never have the chance to be lucky again. Luck favors the persistent, but you can persist only if you survive...
...There is one thing that you’re better at than other people: being you. This is the only game you can really win...
...It’s foolish to wait until you’ve made something that’s perfect, because you never will. The alternative is to continue to move toward your imaginary ideal, shipping as you iterate...
...So what is happiness? Kahneman believes that the answer lies in the tension between “what I experience” versus “what I remember.” And this conundrum shows up in many of our existential re-framings: should we live in the moment or delay gratification, focus on the process vs. the outcome, or the journey vs. the destination?...
...To keep a team cohesive, you need both rock stars and superstars. Rock stars are solid as a rock. Think the Rock of Gibraltar, not Bruce Springsteen. The rock stars love their work. They have found their groove. They don’t want the next job if it will take them away from their craft. If you honor and reward the rock stars, they’ll become the people you most rely on. If you promote them into roles they don’t want or aren’t suited for, however, you’ll lose them—or, even worse, wind up firing them. Superstars, on the other hand, need to be challenged and given new opportunities to grow constantly...
...We make up stories in our minds and then against all evidence, defend them tooth and nail. Understanding why we do this is the key to discovering truth and making wiser decisions...
...it's (1) incredibly easy to do and (2) ideal for making in advance for a big group...
...Basically you can’t skip steps, you have to put one foot in front of the other, things take time, there are no shortcuts but you want to do those steps with passion and ferocity...
...It's time to get off the beaten path. Inspiring equal parts wonder and wanderlust, Atlas Obscura celebrates over 700 of the strangest and most curious places in the world...
...A good nine out of ten bad things I’ve worried about never happened. A good nine out of ten bad things that did happen never occurred to me to worry about...
...This process is not linear. We can’t predict the future because there’s no way to take into account the tiny factors that will have a disproportionate impact in the long-run...
...A list of ideas, in no particular order and from different fields, that help explain how the world works...
...Most organizations are stuck in a rut. On one hand, they understand all the good things that will come with growth. On the other, they’re petrified that growth means change, and change means risk, and risk means death. Nobody wants to screw up and ruin a good thing, so most companies (and individuals) just keep trying to be perfect at the things they’ve always done...
...We often focus on trying to be brilliant, yet many great people get far more mileage out of avoiding making stupid mistakes. Amateurs win the game when their opponent loses points, experts win the game by gaining points...
...Caramel sauce can be made 1 week ahead. Store in an airtight container and chill...
...New cars these days have better safety features and more tech gizmos than models from a decade ago. And let's face it, trading in a beat-up clunker with grimy seats is an enticing idea...
...The name of the game is not to always be right, but to be right often enough...