In praise of the particular, and other lessons from 2023

A consistent challenge in my development as a researcher has been: how to cultivate deep, stable concentration in the face of complex, ill-structured creative problems?

In roles oriented around operation and execution, I benefited enormously from standard “productivity” advice. Task managers and time-planning tools were essential. But now, task mana

... See more

How Can We Learn Better? To start answering the question, I dove into the notes and work of @andy_matuschak, who is a full-time researcher on learning, and an advocate of 1. Deliberate Practice and 2. Spaced Repetition in knowledge work. I have to be honest: though I love learning, I find both of these methods difficult and unwieldy in most cases... See more

Many concepts that sound good on paper are infeasible to implement, or simply don’t produce the expected results. It’s frustrating when that happens, of course, but the pace of experimentation and learning at a startup is unparalleled. I think this is an especially important form of rigor for theorycels like me. Building product forces a different ... See more