The Technium: 1,000 True Fans

Choose work you have a natural aptitude for and a deep interest in. Develop a habit of working on your own projects; it doesn't matter what they are so long as you find them excitingly ambitious. Work as hard as you can without burning out, and this will eventually bring you to one of the frontiers of knowledge. These look smooth from a distance, b... See more

In Daily Rituals , Currey sorted them into sleep, creative work, administrative work, free time, and exercise time.

Effectual thinkers are like explorers setting out on voyages into uncharted waters.

None. I’m my own boss. I don’t have to answer to anyone. I get to learn from my own mistakes instead of being fired for making them. We have no debts and we have no deadlines. There’s no pressure to take shortcuts, or please any outside shareholders. We get to spend our time in customer interviews not in board meetings.

The TOWS Matrix, developed by Heinz Weihrich in 1999, is a strategic planning tool that combines internal and external factors to generate strategic options. This approach was then popularized by Albert Humphrey, a consultant at the Stanford Research Institute. It stands for Threats, Opportunities, Weaknesses, and Strengths, forming a matrix that g... See more

It's an intimidating prospect to enter a field where a few big winners outperform everyone else. Some people do this deliberately, but you don't need to. If you have sufficient natural ability and you follow your curiosity sufficiently far, you'll end up in one. Your curiosity won't let you be interested in boring questions, and interesting questio... See more

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and with that one, is what we are doing.” – Annie Dillard

What would happen if you created something noteworthy and worried about scale only after you’ve figured out how to make a difference?

There's another more subtle lesson in the list of fields with superlinear returns: not to equate work with a job. For most of the 20th century the two were identical for nearly everyone, and as a result we've inherited a custom that equates productivity with having a job. Even now to most people the phrase "your work" means their job. But to a writ... See more

a more-than-you-ever-wanted-to-know guide