Category: A Matter of Time
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Pivot sooner and slower
My friend Jason Shen writes in his new book, The Path to Pivot: “If your startup isn’t working, don’t wait until you’ve got just a few months of runway left to make a desperate gamble on a new direction. Instead, think about pivoting sooner, and slower so you can make the best decision and bring…
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Preparation enables presence
Whether you’re playing in a competitive sport, appearing as a speaker, or attending an important meeting, showing up prepared will set you up to be more present.
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Notes-based meeting prep
Earlier this week, my coworker and I had a 1-1 meeting and she was delighted to see that I had brought a small index card and pen to the meeting. We spent a few minutes chatting about it. Here’s what I said: Before every meeting, I prepare a 4×6 index card. If there is a…
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Expensive and cheap information
Stewart Brand has said, “On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have…
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The destination is a new way of seeing
One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things. Henry Miller
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Volunteering
People don’t like risk. They usually commit to the option that they trust more, or at least feels less risky. It takes time to build this trust. Job interviews, social media updates, phone calls, blog posts, demos—all of these are ways to demonstrate that you are trustworthy. When you ask a person to get paid…
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Just leave the bags at home?
You leave your house to buy groceries before your dinner plans. “But wait,” your brain says, “There’s more than enough time for you to jog over to your favorite coffee shop and write.” You haven’t been in a long time, so you pack your laptop and fill up your water bottle, and you head out…
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Cold-blooded creative work
Patrick Dubroy writes: You see, warm-blooded animals — like humans or mice — have a stable body temperature that stays within a pretty narrow range. For humans, it’s around 37 degrees Celsius. A few degrees higher or lower and we’re in big trouble. Cold-blooded animals like the painted turtle can adapt their metabolism to the…
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“How can I help?”
Or, “What would be most helpful?” If someone’s ever nice enough to ask you this, it’s generally a good idea to have a pointed, specific, answer to this question. It just takes a little bit of preparation before the meeting, or even a more intentional mindset during the meeting, to see how the other person…
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Write it down for someone else
Whenever you can, however you can, stored and published in some digital and searchable format for posterity.