Category: A Matter of Time
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A regular amount of effort
One of the most helpful, and hopefully the earliest, pieces of advice every writer comes across is to aim for a shitty first draft. That’s because sometimes, when you wait too long to do something—or when you only have one opening per week to do it—you feel like it becomes more precious. Your expectations of…
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Moving with the efficiency of trust
When you think about the future of work with artificial intelligence, consider the things that don’t change. For example, how people think about accountability. A person can only be responsible for so much work. At some point, they need a second person to take on more work. As the second person gets things done, the…
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Getting ahead vs. falling behind
If cooking is just a matter of adding heat to food at different intervals of time, then getting ahead is just getting work done earlier rather than later. In spite of the simplicity, it turns out that there are a million ways to prepare, add heat, and serve ingredients. That’s why the culinary arts exist.…
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Just five minutes
It’s been a while since I completed an audiobook. In my mind, an entertaining podcast requires less commitment, and doesn’t quite need as much energy either. I rarely need to write down a note when I listen to a podcast, but I often need to with an audiobook. I also learn a lot from audiobooks…
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Strategic desperation
There’s an old story about an army who invades another country. Right before a key battle, the general instructs the army to burn all of their own boats. Without the boats, there would be no way for the army to turn around. The only way back home was winning the battle. In most versions of…
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Keep the interest alive
One of the favorite passages I’d read recently comes from Anything You Want by Derek Sivers: “If you do this, you’ll encounter a lot of pushback and misunderstanding, but who cares? You can’t just live someone else’s expectation of a traditional business. You have to just do whatever you love the most, or you’ll lose…
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Consistency and breaks
There’s a best practice that equates consistency with success. For some people—the Type A personalities—the problem with taking this advice is when you inevitably break a schedule—a day, or a week, or a month—then you feel guilty, disappointed, and maybe even like you shouldn’t even have started in the first place. It becomes more difficult…
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Is time on your side?
Is your business position getting stronger by the day? Is your advantage growing? Do you feel more comfortable and relaxed? Are you spending more time doing the things you want to do? Are you getting tangibly closer and closer to your goal? Or are you paranoid about when the current sales contracts end? Are you…
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Unscheduled and flexible
When I recently started a new newsletter, Three Thought Starters, I originally intended to send an email out every Sunday. I was very excited, because I’d been planning to put a newsletter out for months. Things were coming along nicely, and my subscribers received the first few issues very positively. After a few weeks, I…
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Potential
When you are new, people will see you as unrealized potential. They haven’t seen your work, so they will make decisions based on signals. With the right introductions, or the right work samples, or the right publicity, they may be willing to give you a shot—maybe even to make a bigger bet on you as…