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Show up early, leave late
That’s one way to make time in a packed schedule. If you can’t move things around, you’ll need to make the time. End a session 15 minutes earlier. Delay the next one by 15 minutes. Now you’ve got an extra half hour to do the thing you really should be doing.
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“If I were actually smart, then I would…”
… not be working this job. … be the person who’s my boss right now. … be making a lot more money. When framed like this, thoughts are an end point; because you’re not smart enough, you’re not going to do it. In other words, you can’t. That’s one way to appraise your work, self,…
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Ivy League creative exercises
One day project (Michael Bierut, Yale): “There’s only one rule, it has to be done by 5:00.” (via #The100DayProject) 100 day project (Michael Bierut, Yale): “Do a [creative] operation that you are capable of repeating every day… The only restrictions on the operation you choose is that it must be repeated in some form every…
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Contentions: Viewer discretion is advised
Beware people and products that position themselves to create a problem; to exacerbate a discomfort and dissatisfaction in your present life. For example, that job you were entirely satisfied with doesn’t look as appealing as the creator who claims to make passive income and is recording a video from a beach in Hawaii. Usually, someone…
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Contentions: “People don’t actually know that…”
… Your team works with a vast, fascinating, set of data. … Your team performed a migration in a way that nobody ever did before, and that was an awesome feat. … Your team is responsible for designing or developing some of the most exciting projects in the industry. Being the industry’s best kept secret…
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From 49% to 51%
I joined a podcast recently, and referenced this post I once wrote: don’t make “Bad” the enemy of “Good.” The editors at Fast Company picked it up a couple of weeks after I first published it. The gist of the post: Many times, “Good” things start out “Bad.” Thinking about it, getting feedback, looking for…
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The present-promise gap
You and I constantly deal with promises. We make promises to ourselves, we make promises with other people, and other people make promises with us. It’s easy to believe promises that are very near to the present, especially if the person has constantly kept their promises. Correspondence: “Let me get back to you by the…
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Make something for very few people
One of the prompts in Creative Doing is, “Focus on Connection.” There’s something special about making something for a few, specific, people you know. It helps make things specific: will this person like this? What would make them appreciate it? What problems are they facing, or what are they interested in? What do I want…
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Writing a book with index cards
I really liked Edward Slingerland’s coverage of how he wrote his book, mainly reading (for 18 months!), typing up note-sized cut outs in Microsoft Word and printing them out and pasting them on index cards, and then arranging and re-arranging the ideas until it makes sense. This always sounded like a ton of unnecessary work…
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Confessions of another recovering frog eater
Adam Mastroianni wrote a really cool piece, “Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs.” Mastroianni is referring to the analogy likening eating a frog to doing something that feels difficult every day. In this sense, I’m a frog eater myself. I started frog eating in the early 2010s in college, because I…