Here's the advice I wish I had heard when I started working on my book last year:
You're going to get depressed because your sense of self-competence is overly reliant on FAST RESULTS.
Writing newsletters, tweets, video scripts, those all earn you a sense of competence in… Show more
Here's the advice I wish I had heard when I started working on my book last year: You're going to get depressed because your sense of self-competence is overly reliant on FAST RESULTS. Writing newsletters, tweets, video scripts, those all earn you a sense of competence in… Show more
July 2023
If you collected lists of techniques for doing great work in a lot of different fields, what would the intersection look like? I decided to find out by making it.
Partly my goal was to create a guide that could be used by someone working in any field. But I was also curious about the shape of the intersection. And one thing this exercise sh... See more
If you collected lists of techniques for doing great work in a lot of different fields, what would the intersection look like? I decided to find out by making it.
Partly my goal was to create a guide that could be used by someone working in any field. But I was also curious about the shape of the intersection. And one thing this exercise sh... See more
How to Do Great Work
Having 'potential' in your mind, feels better than failure in reality. This ego-cushion prevents millions from creating their life's work. Once you feel it- physically- that cushion becomes painful, like a tumor you have to remove. And you only get it out one way. By identifying not with goals, but with output. You should feel dead inside if you ha... See more
The pressure to perform and live up to the expectations of others is not a new social phenomenon — nor a bad one. **^^But the way it manifests at the internet’s global scale increases its intensity tenfold — especially for young people. The goal is no longer to simply live up to the high expectations of your parents and peers — online you could be ... See more
Molly Mielke • callings
One of the hardest and loneliest battles you’ll have to fight as you work to build the life you want is maintaining unwavering self belief that you will make it despite having *nothing* to show for it over a 2-3 year period before you see “overnight” success. You’ll feel like an imposter telling others what you’re building and who you believe you’l... See more
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 moreAndy Matuschak • Cultivating Depth and Stillness in Research
People who do great work are not necessarily happier than everyone else, but they're happier than they'd be if they didn't. In fact, if you're smart and ambitious, it's dangerous
not
to be productive. People who are smart and ambitious but don't achieve much tend to become bitter.
not
to be productive. People who are smart and ambitious but don't achieve much tend to become bitter.