good work

To quote the always-brilliant Philip Kiely: “First you do X, then you make content about doing X, then you make content about that content… One day you realize you haven’t done X for six months. And there is only so much room for content at the highest levels of abstraction.”

There’s also a great anecdote from Nobel-winning physicist Richard Feynman, where he talks about how physics used to delight him when he used to play with it, but then it started to disgust him when he got burdened by this idea that he was obligated to advance the future of science. That he was supposed to be doing “important” work.

It’s quite poe... See more

The thing that no one ever tells you about your calling is that it’s boring. Oh, everything is interesting if you’re interested… shut up. Yes, it will be exhilarating and fun and fluid and and natural and meaningful. It will also be tedious. It will hurt. You will encounter obstacle after obstacle until you feel like you’re in a video game with alg... See more

If you're struggling with negative thoughts, achieving flow is probably the best medicine. Contrary to popular wisdom, forced positive thinking often makes things worse.

# on shortification of "learning"

There are a lot of videos on YouTube/TikTok etc. that give the appearance of education, but if you look closely they are really just entertainment. This is very convenient for everyone involved : the people watching enjoy thinking they are learning (but actually they are just having fun). The people creating this co... See more

Stop treating knowledge work as manual work. Instead of measuring success by irrelevant or arbitrary metrics, ask yourself, Did I contribute today?

Did you advance the conversation? Did you solve a problem? Did you come up with a good idea? Did you help a colleague or a client?

Best practices are rarely the best — they're mostly just cargo cult common practices.

And as more people adopt them, the more mediocre they become.

The best is usually what most people aren't willing to do.