Category: A Matter of Time
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Three things about deadlines
In order to plan a project well, you need a deadline. Even small tasks—meetings, emails, and occasions—all come with deadlines. Inspiration comes with a subtle version of a deadline: an expiry date. If you don’t bring the idea to life in a given time—its own deadline—the idea will look for someone else. The idea needs…
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Easy, boring, and obvious
When an idea or task is boring, obvious, and easy to you, you might want to dismiss it. It feels low effort, or even effortless. But just because it comes naturally to you, doesn’t mean it does for everyone else. You may have stumbled into your core strengths—a zone of genius that other people want…
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Negative capability
A few months ago, I’d set a deadline for myself to finish a new book by Halloween. I’m working as hard and consistently as I can on the book, but that deadline is not going to happen. I could have shipped the incomplete manuscript as it is, Virgil Abloh style, but I decided against that.…
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Open ears, open mind
For some reason, I’ve found myself listening to less music and fewer podcasts. I’ll often just leave the house or office and just walk. When I eat lunch or dinner, I’m just eating. While this can feel boring some days, it also feels like something is happening in my brain. I listen to the sounds…
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Spare time
Today, I came across a book entitled The Spare-Time Book: A Practical Guide to Adventure. The foreword was by Roger Bannister, who used his spare time training. He eventually became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes. It was a helpful reminder to my judge aspect—my inner critic—that at some point,…
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The architect and the assignment
An architect takes in their latest assignment: to rescue a wealthy client’s plans gone wrong. The client has high hopes for it, and believes it has the potential to be a landmark and a part of their legacy. The main problem is there is very little time. She has two weeks to do it. In…
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There is no failure
When Virgil Abloh was planning his lecture at RISD, he decided that he was going to make a product on campus and that would be the subject of his talk. He would need to take this assignment in between all of his other prior commitments, such as leading his self-initiated fashion label Off White. He…
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Shrigley’s quantities
David Shrigley makes lists of phrases (e.g., “man being mauled by a lion”), and then he draws 30–40 of them per day. Sometimes he’ll change the phrase (e.g., “man being mauled by a horse”). Each drawing is different, and he only does each drawing once. He discards the majority of them, by his estimate it’s…
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Doing your work your way
John Calhoun joined Apple in the 1990s. He approached his work by making quick prototypes, whereas his coworkers would often carefully plan and design their software, whiteboarding it out before writing even one line of code. He writes: From my approach of diving in rather than planning I began to regard myself at Apple as…
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Typing vs. writing
If you’re a writer, you’re writing 24–7–365. Everything you read, see, and experience is material for your writing. Pay attention and live deeply. Take lots of notes—on index cards, on your phone, on a napkin, wherever. Draw stuff. Make voice memos. Keep it all organized. Some days, you’ll have 15–30 minutes to type it out…