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Graduation eyes
I first heard about this term in the context of graduating from school. Because your everyday routines are about to change—the coffee stand you visited before your classes, the booth in your favorite library, the river you pass by on the walk to school—they also become more special. Not only this: you’re about to enter…
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An album and four good articles
While I don’t often do lists like this, I came across some particularly delightful work last week. Enough to mark a special occasion. Here’s an unordered, unbulleted, list: Clipse’s reunion album, Let God Sort Em Out, is very good. So is the rollout. What success looks like, to Malice: “Catering to the people that were…
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More ways to write every day
Some more openings (as in chess) for how I write every day: 1. When I find an interesting idea, I write it down in a sentence or two. Usually this takes place in the Notes app on my phone. If I’m near my laptop, I’ll write it in Airtable. This is the most reliable opening…
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Lessons I learn, over and over again
Reading something that you like is a reason to get inspired. It’s not a good reason to feel bad about your work. Work with what you’ve got. If you’re going to skip a day of writing, you’ll need to work twice as hard at writing the next day. Don’t be surprised if it feels frustrating.…
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Get your customer’s name right, or don’t ask at all
In 2012, Starbucks baristas started writing down their customers’ names on their cups. This convention spread around to other businesses. Since then, I’ve been asked my name a lot. Here is what I often seen on labels in response: Harper Harbor Harvard Trevor Herburger While most customers probably won’t mind, as long as the product’s…
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A birthday is a reminder
My wife and I adopted our cat three years ago. She was very vocal and energetic. She loved jumping around. She ate a lot of food. Her relative youthfulness made it very easy to forget her age. She recently turned 14, the cat equivalent to a 72-year-old person. She sleeps a little more now, jumps…
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Eight ways to write more
Read more books. Lower your expectations. Work at a desk with pen and paper. Write everything, even if you think it’s bad. Talk it out. Write out somebody else’s words. Make peace with the work. When in doubt, publish.
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An advantage and disadvantage to publishing at a blog
If you publish your work at a blog, very few people are going to read it. There is an advantage to this: your source of feedback is more introspective. Posting your work at a blog trains you to focus on your own responses to your work. You learn to focus on the process, not the…