Category: Life
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“It depends”
In order for someone to give you an answer, they need to understand your question. That doesn’t just mean they’ll listen to your question; they need to know what you’re asking them. That’s why sometimes even with the most helpful of intentions, the answer is still, “It depends.” There are way too many facts they…
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Seasons
People who seem to get a lot done don’t make progress on everything at the same time; rather, they make focused progress in spurts on one thing at a time. These experiences can seem like seasons, though it can happen more than four times per year (i.e., quarterly planning). One perspective is microseasons. Another is…
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Stone soup
This is a classic fable about a group of travellers showing up to a village with an empty pot. The villagers are unwilling to feed the travellers, so the travellers put a stone in the pot and boil water. The travellers offer to share their stone soup with some of the villagers, though the soup…
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Stir the pot
There’s a special type of luck that emerges just from taking enough action; enough shots at bat. You gather a hundred pieces of information. You take notes on a dozen of them, and they find your way into your brain. One of those notes enables you to understand people’s problems. You talk to dozens of…
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Do it
“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” Vincent van Gogh
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Forgetting and updating
Andy Nulman writes at Medium, “The “Forgetting Curve” I am championing though is way more self managing and practical. It would require — no, force — us to let go of old ways, preconceived notions, out-of-date processes and deeply-ingrained predispositions.” Forgetting isn’t always a bad thing; it’s sometimes just as important to forget, or to…
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A different consistency
You and I, as human beings, are not consistent. Still, our brains tend to think other people are consistent (fundamental attribution error), and our brains have a need for consistency (cognitive dissonance). A very literal application of this: scheduling. To say I appreciate habits and fixed routines would be a huge understatement. (I’m a virgo!).…
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Off timing
Every hit comes with a lot of misses. The problem is you and I only see people discussing the hits—and we don’t see them discussing the misses so often. Everybody is missing every day. Sometimes, we’re just too early; we build BlackBerry apps instead of iPhone apps, we discovered YouTube before the entertainment industry recognizes…
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Where’s the opening?
“Low hanging fruit” has become an excuse to do boring things, so we need a new one. I liked this one I came across in therapy: “Where’s the opening?” Most action plans are set too far into the future; we must start closer to where we are right now. If you want to write a…