Category: A Matter of Time
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The point of writing every day isn’t to write every day
Since 2007, every year, Tony Stubblebine publishes an article on things he feels grateful for. Except, sometimes, he’s late. A couple of days ago, he published the one for 2024—the year before this one. As I dove into his archives, I noticed he’d aggregated some years—one article might contain three or four years’ worth of…
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Thank you, Keane
My friend Keane Tan passed away eight years ago. He was 26. Thanks for encouraging me with my writing. Thanks for showing me how open the world was, and how everyone was one cold email away. Thanks for helping me and our friends win the first year case competition. Thanks for letting me in after…
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Two articles I wrote very early in my career
A couple of years ago, I wrote about my gig writing for Techvibes while I was an undergrad university student. I was a self-taught writer, and these posts are part of my very early work. Techvibes was acquired in 2016, and most of the articles were stripped of author credentials. Some of them have all…
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Writing tired
In my ideal world, I’d wake up around 8am, eat breakfast and have a matcha latte, and write for 1-2 hours. In this state, the writing just flows out. 60–95%, I don’t write under these ideal conditions. Life is asking me to take care of other things. Instead, I keep my eyes peeled for openings…
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Cultivating a life with less deadline pressure
Instead of counting down with a timer, try counting up with a stop watch. This is a lesson I learned from a personal trainer, who was timing me as I rested between sets. In addition to tracking what’s left to do, proactively track what you did. This is the iDoneThis philosophy. Right now, I cross…
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Streaks are fragile, practices are anti fragile
Streaks are useful for keeping a behavior going. When you’re on a streak, the momentum and fear of breaking the streak carries you through to repeating a behavior. If you’ve worked out three times a week for 100 weeks straight, you want to do the same next week to keep the streak going. But what…
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Make a list of pains you prevented
When you warm up and stretch your muscles before exercise, you’re preventing pain. You’re lowering the chances you’ll get injured. It’s useful to remember the purpose of preparation is to help you get ahead of pain. Your present feels ordinary, maybe even slightly boring, because your past self didn’t borrow from its future. It may…