Johanna

Habits can mean we overshoot our goals. Habits are easy to complete. Habits are for life. Habits can compound. Habits can be as small as necessary.

Howes says that “innovation is not in human nature, but is instead received. … when people do not innovate, it is often simply because it never occurs to them to do so.” Joel Mokyr says, similarly, that “progress isn’t natural” (and his book on this topic, A Culture of Growth, helped inspire this blog). I agree with both.

Old age is much better than we think it will be. For a lot of people who read the book, I think they will wind up being a lot less fearful about the last third of life, and much more optimistic. As one person told me: “My advice about growing old? I’d tell them to find the magic.” 

Like heuristics, models work as a consequence of the fact they are usually helpful in most situations, not because they are always helpful in a small number of situations.

Research papers are full of valuable information, including figures, charts, statistical relationships, and references to other papers. Breaking them down into various components and using them at scale could help us train machines for different types of science-related jobs, prompts or queries. Simple questions might be answered with training on... See more

Managers spend a lot of time, “putting out fires” and doing reactive work. An important call or email comes in, so it gets answered. An employee makes a mistake or needs advice, so the manager races to sort it out. To focus on one task for a substantial block of time, managers need to make an effort to prevent other people from distracting... See more