Great Work

I think of finding high-leverage work as having two interrelated components:

• Agency: i.e. some combination of the initiative/proactiveness to try to make things happen, and relentlessness and resourcefulness to make sure you’ll succeed.


• Taste: you need a good intuition for what things will and won’t work well to try. Taste is important both “in the

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Whenever you’re debating what to do, explicitly ask yourself “what do I predict will happen if I choose option A?” and try to unroll the trajectory

an important signal to keep track of is: where is your taste the best?

I’ve noticed a lot of people underestimate their own taste, because they expect having good taste to feel like being very smart or competent or good at things. Unfortunately, I am here to tell you that, at least if you are similar to me, you will never feel smart, competent, or g... See more

keep careful track of the high-level context and priorities that your specific project is aimed at, so that you can understand and judge the trade-offs.

One of the easiest ways to get more leverage is to take a goal you’re already trying to accomplish, and figure out a better way to accomplish the same thing.

Instead, people’s biggest bottleneck eventually becomes their ability to get leverage —i.e., to find and execute work that has a big impact-per-hour multiplier.

On the other hand, I have gotten a ton better at programming in the last four years. Not through any specific piece of advice, or any weird trick. Rather, it’s come by constantly trying to learn small new things, make small tool improvements, make my models a little deeper, work a little faster, come up with slightly better ideas. By, literally, th... See more

A common trait of high-agency people is that they take accountability for achieving a goal , not just doing some work.

There’s a huge difference between the following two operating modes:

1. My goal is to ship this project by the end of the month, so I’m going to get people started working on it ASAP.


2. My goal is to ship this project by the end of the mon

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A “concept handle” is a memorable noun phrase representing a complex, often abstract topic. For example: “prisoner’s dilemma,” “Overton window,” “belief in belief,” etc. In my own writing, examples include Enabling environment, Enacted experience, etc. The “concept handle” is a concept handle for itself, coined by Scott Alexander.