Herbert Lui – Page 41 – Blog on creativity, marketing, and the human condition.

Don’t let batch processing get in the way of building momentum

One of the earliest pieces of productivity advice I came across was the concept of grouping similar tasks together, and doing it all in one go. This is known as “batch processing.” For example, if you’re going to read and respond to your emails, don’t do them one at a time throughout the day. Make…

Herbert Lui

March 6, 2025

A Matter of Time, Creativity, Creator Confidential, Turning Stories

Character, habits, systems, and freedom

An author speculates that GLP-1 drugs will curb a lot of people’s impulses. This could potentially help a lot of people make better—less impulsive—decisions. In this speculation, one concern will be a division of advantage: the people who can afford the impulse control drugs would be at a greater advantage than the people who can’t…

Herbert Lui

March 5, 2025

Creator Confidential, Life, Turning Stories

Three conditions to just do stuff (and minimize overthinking)

If you have fun writing something, the reader will have fun reading it. You’ve given your work the right energy. Building on this observation, Cassidy Williams notes that sometimes she wants her work to be strategic, or clear and thorough. She writes, “I think a lot of that overthinking and ‘being in my head’ about…

Herbert Lui

March 4, 2025

Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations, Turning Stories

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast

In the industrial era, the people that did more stuff—faster—added more value to the world. Efficiency was the buzzword. That’s no longer the case. Now, slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. We are already bumping up on the limits of how fast we can do our work—and we will never execute faster than AI…

Herbert Lui

March 3, 2025

A Matter of Time, Creativity, Creator Confidential, Turning Stories

On writing with AI vs. writing with people

AI is, very clearly, disrupting writing and editing. (I’ve kept an eye on it since 2021! Back then, you’d be forgiven for mixing up GPT-3 with C-P30.) I’ve recently come across more work from writers declaring that they’re turning more to AI solutions to be researchers, thought partners, and developmental editors. Let’s assume that an…

Herbert Lui

March 2, 2025

Creativity, Creator Confidential

How wanting something less freed me up to do more

While it’s good to be passionate about your work, an overwhelming ambition—bordering on a need—to achieve or have something, sometimes this drive actually gets in the way. I learned this the hard way. I spent most of my 20s wanting to be a bestselling author—recognized by traditional publications, sold lots of books, invited to speeches,…

Herbert Lui

March 1, 2025

Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations, Turning Stories

Some people have it, some people don’t?

A few years ago, I wrote that writing is thinking. You are better off writing to think, not trying to think before you write. “But some people are just better at it,” Ant K writes in a comment (which Karolis recently agreed with). He compared his work with another author he held in high esteem.…

Herbert Lui

February 28, 2025

Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations, Turning Stories

AI can help spot the difference

I tried a new AI prompt for editing a couple of work-related documents—an email and a blog post—that my team plans on publishing. The prompt was a version of this: “Can you please edit this following draft for polish and tighten up each sentence one at a time?” The result was a line by line…

Herbert Lui

February 27, 2025

Contentions, Creativity

Discovering the work that needs to be made

I’m finally making good progress on the second draft of my next book. It feels good enough to actually discuss—and much less fragile than the first draft. To be precise, it actually feels more like the first draft of the book that it was actually meant to be. “Every block of stone has a statue…

Herbert Lui

February 26, 2025

A Matter of Time, Creativity, Creator Confidential, Expectations

Building a body of work on self-acceptance

Generosity is at the heart of all creative work. It’s about giving. You can’t give what you don’t have. And if you don’t accept yourself, you can’t give much of yourself either. “Abs are made in the kitchen, championships are won on the training ground, and a sustainable body of creative work is built on…

Herbert Lui

February 25, 2025

Creativity, Creator Confidential