Occasionally a book comes along that changes the way you think about a topic. Happy City, by Charles Montgomery, is one of those books. It will change the way you look at how your city is structured, while giving you a bunch of pointers for how you can structure […]
How much willpower we have every day is limited—we wake up with a fresh tank of the stuff, but as we exercise our willpower throughout the day, we steadily deplete this reserve. If we’re not careful, we can even run out. This is why, after a long, hard day of […]
I have a strong belief that’s a bit controversial: If you have a detailed plan for where you see yourself in five years, you aren’t doing interesting enough work. The reason for this is simple: the future is impossible to predict. We hardly know what will happen in one year, […]
I’m a big fan of maintaining an Accomplishments List throughout the year, and adding to it whenever I accomplish something awesome. On mine, I keep all kinds of milestones: Relationship milestones, like anniversaries with my girlfriend Milestones related to my book Financial milestones, like in paying off my student debt […]
Chances are you’ve heard this story before. On the first day of class, an old, wise university professor holds an empty mason jar up, and fills it to the brim with rocks. He then asks the class whether or not it’s full. They say, “Yes, of course it is!” But […]
One of the most important questions you can ask about your work is whether or not it “scales.” That is, are you are paid by the hour (doesn’t scale), or by how much you accomplish (scales). A factory employee’s work (and time) doesn’t scale: for every unit of time he […]
Over the last two years, I’ve noticed a curious trend on this blog: lots of people visit this site throughout the year, but between Christmas and New Years it’s an absolute ghost town. Productivity isn’t a priority during the holidays, and that’s a good thing! After a big year, not […]
Stepping Back My favorite kind of person to hang out with is someone who constantly reads. People who continuously devour new books—who would almost rather hang out with books than people—constantly steep themselves in new ideas, and are always upping their game to see the world differently. Whenever I hang […]
