reminders to trust the process

you got this

From ‘The Dip’ by Seth Godin

If I look at things that have turned out well in my life (my marriage, some of my essays, my current career) the “design process” has been the same in each case. It has been what Christopher Alexander called an unfolding .1 Put simply:

I paid attention to things I liked to do, and found ways to do more of that. I made it easy for interesting people

Henrik Karlsson • Everything That Turned Out Well in My Life Followed the Same Design Process

i LOVE this concept of ‘unfolding’

There’s no harm in feeling unfinished. The harm is in assuming that’s a problem.

#197: What is "personal style"?

The irony of organizing your life around mistake-avoidance is that, rather than making you feel calmer, it keeps you in an anxious state, ratcheting up the stakes of your life until you’re moving through it like you would a decision tree, each notable occurrence redirecting you toward a different destination. We’re meant to be. Wait no, we’re... See more

#181 Dear Baby: Am I fit to be a parent?

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

How calligraphy shaped Steve Jobs and Apple’s typographic legacy - TypeRoom

Separate the processes of creating from improving. You can’t write and edit, or sculpt and polish, or make and analyze at the same time. If you do, the editor stops the creator. While you write the first draft, don’t let the judgy editor get near. At the start, the creator mind must be unleashed from judgment.

Noah Smith • Interview: Kevin Kelly, Editor, Author, and Futurist

a lot of times ideas and projects are formed out of a more ambient kind of thinking and talking and doing. Research is not always this thing of sitting down and concentratedly looking through archives or something.

An Interview with Spencer Chang | Are.na Editorial

All success is a lagging indicator. When a day’s writing goes well, it’s a lagging indicator of hours and hours spent researching and thinking… Hitting a personal record on the bench press is a lagging indicator of a lot of discipline and hard work. Receiving a promotion is a lagging indicator of a lot of quality work. Delivering a keynote with

“There is no such thing as a quantum leap. There is only dogged persistence – and in the end, you make it look like a quantum leap.”

James Dyson