Focus

The trick is to collide your mental model with the outside world as often as possible. This is what exploring does.

Focus forces brutal prioritization

Making few bets forces you to make hard decisions. It’s extremely hard to measure the value of something against some abstract and absolute notion of value.

Proponents of diversification argue that it takes the edge off of making a mistake. That would be a good argument if people acted the same way independent of... See more

The tendency of people and organizations is to lose focus. So one way to identify outstanding people is by their ability to commit and focus on something for a long period of time.

The only people you should hire are focused ones. The only competitors you should worry about are the focused ones.

Here is the message he ended with: “Study something you love in depth.”

“Here’s the only thing you need to remember from this talk: ‘Study something you love to death’—I mean ‘depth’! [laughter] ‘Study something you love in depth.’ I just gave you an hour, so tonight give me 45 minutes. Spend 45 minutes tonight studying something you love. Watch the... See more

Finding Your Anchor Task

Doing more things does not drive faster or better results. Doing better things drives better results. Even more accurately, doing one thing as best you can drives better results.

Mastery requires focus and consistency.

I haven’t mastered the art of focus and concentration yet, but I’m working on it. One of the major... See more

Focus accelerates the accumulation of skills and accurate world models. In open-ended domains, such as writing, relationships, or business, there is nearly endless room for skill growth.

“Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they are doing.” -Warren Buffet

At the core, strategy is about focus, and most complex organizations don’t focus their resources. Instead, they pursue multiple goals at once, not concentrating enough resources to achieve a breakthrough in any of them.