Scott Belsky coined the term insecurity work to describe work that does not move the ball forward, but is quick enough that you can do it multiple times a day without realizing.

Unlike insecurity work, deep work often feels elusive because it takes time.

It requires weaning yourself from distractions and being unencumbered by the highs and lows of th... See more

Communication is about what is received, not what is intended. If there is a gap between what you are saying and what they are hearing, you have to find a new way to say it

Thinking about our career, we might think in abstractions like “a job.” But really a career is made up of a bunch of different things like a salary, an identity, relationships, status, a sense of meaning, and so on. It is often easier to find a fit if you unbundle these things, and think about the parts that matter to you individually. Do you actua... See more

Here are some other techniques people use to access and maintain the zone:

• Introducing a long delay between when you do the work and when it is shown to the world. Annie Ernaux writes about this in A Simple Passion, a memoir about how she becomes obsessed in a banal way with a man who is having an affair with her—the thought that others will read th

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If you work on anything worthwhile, sooner or later people will care about it and will want you to send progress updates. These could be quarterly investor updates, weekly updates to your boss, emails to adjacent teams, etc. Here are tips on how to do this well.

1. Understand your role, and with each update add to the body of evidence that you’re a goo

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the more and better access everyone has to tools, resources, etc, the clearer it becomes that the final boss bottlenecks are courage, imagination and giving a shit

Blame your tools

Blame the clients. And blame the conditions.

But then, you’re on the hook to get better tools, find better clients and work in better conditions.

It’s not convenient, but it’s possible.

If it’s not worth the effort, we can simply accept what we’ve chosen and get back to work.

If you understand the true motivations and fears of every stakeholder/team member, you can begin to understand where things may start to come apart.

Hint: the incentive is never “the work” and the biggest fear is always about the person, not the org.