Robin Harford

Paint the atmosphere and its complementary.

Gwen Jones, private note, December 1931

Because I work for myself, I spend zero minutes a year blaming other people for my circumstances. It forces me to take complete ownership of my life and continue to experiment, reflect, and try again.

If you own a house or property and you complain about my efforts and approach to earn a living as an author, you are nothing more than indentured to the masters yourself.

Robin Harford

From a low hill in this broad savannah a magnificent prospect opened up to us. To the very brink of the horizon we saw gigantic herds of animals: gazelle, antelope, gnu, zebra, warthog, and so on. Grazing, heads nodding, the herds moved forward like slow rivers. There were scarcely any sounds save the melancholy cry of a bird of prey. This was the

We labour at our daily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessary to sustain our life because to us it is even more necessary not to have leisure to stop and think. Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself.

Nietzsche

Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence.

Minor White

First Principles

First principles thinking is a problem-solving approach that breaks complex situations down into their most basic, fundamental truths and reconstructs a solution from scratch. It challenges assumptions and ignores analogies (conventional wisdom) to find new solutions. Popularised by Elon Musk, this method acts as a "physics-based"

First-order thinking is a fast, instinctive decision-making approach focused on immediate, short-term results and reactions, often ignoring long-term consequences. It relies on emotions, biases, and easy solutions (e.g., "I'm hungry, I'll eat"). While useful for low-stakes decisions, it often leads to oversimplification of complex problems.