Connection

Speed of associative thought is, I believe, important in creative work. – John Littlewood

Eventually, everything connects.

I feel such intense gratitude when I read a book by someone who, for a brief moment, makes me feel less alone in the world and makes these complicated things in my brain feel a little easier to understand.

Grid system design should begin with a constraint. Something that is knowable and unchangeable. This constraint is used to build the modules of your grid. In book design, that constraint is defined by the page through subdivision. Book designers take the page, divide it up into a modular grid of spaces. These spaces (called modules) are then combin... See more

The adjacent possible is about taking two seemingly unconnected ideas and metaphorically placing them next to each other to see how they might work together.

Building a T-shaped knowledge graph means aggressively diversifying your information sources, spreading out wider to seemingly unrelated areas and capturing the advantage of being at the beginning of the diminishing returns curve where you’re constantly exposed to new ideas. It also means being selectively ignorant about certain things. You have to... See more

Increase social support

Social support is the last coping strategy on the list, and it’s perhaps my favorite one.

If you give a primate a stressor in the lab, you’ll find elevated markers of stress in its behavior and in its blood. But give the primate a stressor when it’s surrounded by friends—its stress markers will be lower, even for the same lev... See more