Agalia Tan
Know how to leave things alone, for if knowing how to refuse is one of life's great lessons, an even greater one is knowing how to say no to yourself, to important people, and in business. There are non-essential activities, moths of precious time, and it's worse to take an interest in irrelevant things than to do nothing at all
The disease of our times is that we live on the surface. We're like the Platte River, a mile wide and an inch deep. Real work and real satisfaction come from the opposite of what the web provides. They come from going deep into something - the book you're writing, the album, the movie -and staying there for a long, long time
— STRATSCRAPS v101
Where have I seen this before?
“not that they should buy it, but merely that they should admire it”
Brand marketing requires a new operating system today:
From fixed to fluid
From singular to multifaceted
From didactic to dialogic
We buy back our time not only with the money we spend, but also with the opportunities we decline. The more clearly you know how you want to spend your days, the easier it becomes to say no to the requests that steal your hours.
Some lessons I have taken away so far:
8 hours of sleep
always be in the present, focus because trying to catch up later is going to be even more difficult and tiresome
you can’t take care of others unless you take care of yourself
rituals are VERY understated — people may not understand and it could possibly come off as selfish but you need that r
‘Algorithmic’ has become a byword for anything that feels too slick, too reductive, or too optimized for attracting attention: a combination of high production values with little concern for fundamental content.
— Filterworld, pg. 140
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.
Understand your role, and with each update add to the body of evidence that you’re a goo
Optimization alone can't get you novelty or interestingness.