Cinema Speculation, also proved an important source of insight into what makes a good movie good and, equally important, what makes a fun movie fun.

I can see brilliance in the epic three-minute tracking shot that opens Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights, but I would have no idea how to film something that good on my own. There’s a fundamental frustration embedded in this reality. Your taste can guide you toward the best work you’re capable of producing at the moment, but it can also fuel a

She had been “fractured across a million projects,” which she found exhausting, so when she moved to a new position, she decided to adopt a different strategy: she would focus her energy on exactly two major goals. This clarity allowed her to step away from a more frenetic, overloaded busyness.

We’ve become so used to the idea that the only reward for getting better is moving toward higher income and increased responsibilities that we forget that the fruits of pursuing quality can also be harvested in the form of a more sustainable lifestyle. —

“Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do,” Jobs explained.

This same effect applies to many different fields: obsessing over quality often demands that you slow down, as the focus required to get better is simply not compatible with busyness.

Don’t schedule appointments on Mondays. You don’t need to make a public announcement about this decision.

An advanced tactic here is to take on a highly visible but low-impact project during this season that you can use to temporarily deflect new work that comes your way: “I’m happy to lead that internal review project, but I’m really focused this month on mastering this new marketing software, so let’s wait until the New Year to get started.”

Every time you add a meeting to your calendar for a given day, find an equal amount of time that day to protect. If I schedule thirty minutes for a call on Tuesday, I’ll also find another thirty minutes that day to block off on my calendar as protected for myself.