Author: Herbert Lui
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The joke funnel
I’m reading Springfield Confidential by Mathew Klickstein and Mike Reiss, and it’s gotten me laughing out loud more than any book from my recent memory. It’s also inspiring me to write jokes every other sentence at this blog, which itself was going to be a setup for a joke but just ended up making me…
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If you want (your team) to write better, start with your Google Docs comments
When I worked as an editor-in-chief at QuickBooks, I managed a team of two deputy editors and around a dozen writers. I was usually the last pair of eyes on an article, and whenever I edited one, I would keep a second document open. It had the very exciting title, “First draft standards.” If I…
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Pay attention to the questions
What questions are you asking people? How do you ask the question? What questions do people ask you, and how? You can consider this from a voice and tone perspective—are you speaking monotonously? What emphasis are you putting on each sentence? Are you scripted or flying by the seat of your pants?—but also from a…
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“I wish I did this earlier”
True progress can be measured by the number of times the words, “I wish I did this earlier,” tumble out of your mouth. Sometimes, these words come with a sense of regret at the time lost not having this in your life, or perhaps even stupidity at how easy this other way is. If only…
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The power of the rubber duck
There’s a lot of power in talking through a problem, sometimes even if no one is around to hear it. You may be thinking out loud. This is known as rubber duck problem solving, because people often talk to rubber ducks. You make progress by talking to an inanimate object, or yourself; you either solve…
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6 points to consider before just shipping it
The current popular heuristic is, “Just ship it.” It leans towards a bias for action, giving people permission to ship something regardless of whether they think they are ready or not. Reid Hoffman’s popular saying goes, “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” (I’ll never forget…
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Once, or every day
In the words of Andy Warhol, “Actually, I jade very quickly. Once is usually enough. Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it’s exciting, and if you do it every day it’s exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it’s not good any more.”
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Appreciating obscurity
“93% say that being a creator has introduced stresses that have ‘negatively impacted their lives,’ with 45% saying they’ve experienced ‘big emotional lows,’” report the authors of this paper which surveyed 1,624 respondents. There’s no surprise to me here. As I’d covered in Marker before, making money as a creator is tough. The creator economy…
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Walking both paths
An important secret to my process as a creator: build a good business from your product. This means developing the ability, infrastructure, and skills to earn money independently from partners, handlers, and other gatekeepers. At his blog, Derek Sivers writes: Make one plan that depends on nobody else. No record deal. No investors. No lucky…
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Clear the wastewater
There’s a metaphor: creativity flows, like water through a pipe. Julian Shapiro calls this the Creativity faucet. He writes: Visualize your creativity as a backed-up pipe of water. The first mile of piping is packed with wastewater. This wastewater must be emptied before the clear water arrives. From the perspective of this metaphor, the wastewater…