Category: A Matter of Time
-
On personal change
Your first steps to changing yourself for the better may be inspired by somebody else in your life. You think you’re changing for them. In actuality, there’s a good chance that the main beneficiary of the change is you. Let’s say you used to handle conflicts poorly. After a lot of classes and constant practice,…
-
Signs of maturity
A bias for calmness and inner peace. A stronger confidence that things will work out in the long run. Patience. An open-mindedness to what’s new, while still preferring your own taste. An ability to feel small for a short time, knowing that’s what it takes to be the bigger person. Appreciating youthful energy, as you…
-
Rules are made to be rewritten
Tim Ferriss recently took a four month sabbatical from his podcast. He needed to figure out what his plans were for it. He felt his enthusiasm for the show waning. As he told Kevin Rose, “If I get so apathetic or bored that I stop doing the podcast, that’s the end of the income period.”…
-
A letter from the past
8 years ago, I wrote a letter to my 35-year-old self. I expected to find it embarrassing (some of it is!), so I was surprised to find that there was some good stuff in there. I really emphasized, “Your opinion of you is really the only [thing] that matters.” In a way, I told myself…
-
Old friends
Old friends know the past versions of you very well. However, those experiences and images make it difficult for them to see new versions of you. If they are opposed to change, and don’t want to lose you as a friend, your desire to grow in a different direction will feel painful to them. They…
-
Pushing less, pushing lightly
There’s a proverb I learned as a young boy, which roughly translates to, “Bitter first, sweet later.” (“先苦後甜.”) Do the difficult things first, and you’ll have a chance to enjoy yourself later. It conveyed the value of delayed gratification. For the most part, it worked for me—although there are some wrinkles I have needed to…
-
Make “good” impossible
When Richard Feynman was learning how to draw, his teachers told him to loosen up. He couldn’t quite figure out what this meant until one teacher told him to draw a person without looking at the paper. Richard quickly realized that it would be impossible to make a good drawing without looking at the paper.…
-
“Return on Investment”
One key to surviving in business is to make sure the money you put into it is producing (or going to produce) a larger amount of money. There are a lot of ways to measure this—one simple one is known as “Return on Investment” (ROI for short). The calculation is simple: “Net Return” divided by…
-
Post-travel integration
Earlier this year, I went to Hawaii for my honeymoon (which was the reason for essentials week). When my partner and I returned, we bought a couple of notebooks from Moleskine and decided to recount our trip through that. For me, it meant writing a page full of words documenting moments from the trip. Sometimes,…
-
Don’t start from scratch
Here’s an interesting prompt: avoid starting from scratch. This constraint prohibits the creation of new raw material (e.g., writing into a blank document). You may only rewrite or edit existing text. The result is much more consideration on what already exists. You scour your drafts, your existing work, and look for neglected ideas. You might…