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Ask useful questions
Some of the most useful questions I've found......
Don’t work, ship
Working is isolated. You can work forever, research, fiddle, doubt, but until you ship nothing has changed in the world. ...
How to execute faster
What are the concepts / attitudes / traits related to speed of execution?...
9 ideas for 2019
Here are some ideas I think worth pursuing and stressing in 2019 and why....
Make a fair deal with yourself
Focus or check email, study or reply to a message, exercise or watch videos. It's easy to be conflicted these days....
Self above narrative
One Friday evening, I found myself confronted by a choice: work or not? I couldn't decide and felt uneasy.
I decided to meditate before making a choice. ...
Become an exclusionaire
For most of human history obesity was not a problem, now it is. For most of human history distraction was not a problem, now it is. For most of human history, clutter was not a problem, now it is....
The productivity-prone attributes of work
Work is a vague term. One persons work is another's play and vice versa.
Yet, many times work is referred to as thought it were a single thing.
It seems to me that the term hides the underlying complexity a little too well....
Don't worry, be content
There's euphoria and there's contentment.
Euphoria is rare and comes from rare events. It doesn't last. Even winning a gold medal at the Olympics wears off after a few days....
Boredom: the cure to everything
WeMost people would do literally anything to avoid an extended period of boredom, like for instance Neil Gaiman writing his books....
The absurdity of overwhelm and why you can't teleport
Yothe next Instagram at once. In my case yesterday, you can't scan 106 drawings at once....
Small bets and big bets
Innovation and innovative work can be described as betting on an idea or experimenting.
There are two types of innovation: linear and non-linear....
What needs to be done?
How do you start work? Do you look at a to-do list and ask yourself "What do I want to do?"
I wouldn't....
How to transform yourself into your ideal
1.01 ^ 365 = 37.783434333
This pi...
What is more precious than time
Time is the only resource we can’t buy mor...
The new meaning of hard work
Hard work used to mean plowing a field or chopp...
Information to transformation
What is information for
We can slow down time. At least, our perception of i...
The unbooking of information
The book as a medium has served us well, but...
Better than who?
Are you richer than your neighbor? Are you smarter than you...
90% chance of failure? Try 10 times
The evolutionary approach applies to wor...
Outcome over effort
When one values time by the hour, it’s easy to focus o...
Get rid of micro-stress
Today, I took a can of condensed air and dismantled ...
How to change or create any habit
I wanted to start running again and eat mo...
Don’t read for new, read for now
If you downloaded all of the Internet, ...
The superpower we all have
All our actions are directed by the mental circui...
Want to have an impact on this world?
*I want to have an impact on this w...
Play a game of unlocking life
When we’re children, everything is new to us...
Maximum context communication
How many messages or emails do you read? How m...
To-do list too crowded? Try a to-see list
How to effectively prioritize when...
Instinct of immediate opposition
Pointing out one mistake in what a person s...
Invest into the state of creating reality
Every day, we all have an opportun...
Stay with it like Einstein
It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that ...
Embrace conditional optimism
Optimism leads to a longer, happier life.
But ...
Stairway to heaven and a slide to hell
When you wake up, you have a choice: ...
Why is that painting worth millions of dollars? Here is why
Ballet performan...
What if it was simple? Lessons learned dieting
I’m on a special diet...
Why you should challenge yourself
I used to run more. Today my usual 12km ...
One reason why games are addictive and how to use it in life
There was a tim...
Use tail-end inspiration deliberately
The conscious mind forgets most of yes...
Less time, less space, more decisions
Today I removed a huge bookshelf from ...
Why every child is more creative than you
Have you ever:
- written an artic...
Be ruthless with the useless
We move forward in life, but not everything mov...
Get the main thing right
The world is complex beyond our comprehension. What...
Keep a discomfort journal
You might have heard about gratitude journals. The...
How to charge your work like a bull
There is a type of work that accumulates...
What can you do for your tomorrow’s self?
We’re not good at long-term th...
Don’t isolate your thinking
We all have exactly one brain. We extend it ...
Go beyond the initial smirk
I like self-help boo...
What would make you like education?
One evening, I got a newsletter from UnC...
ARC — a framework for work
You don’t want to do something.
The reasons ...
How many ways can you see the world?
Are you a coder? A marketer? A designer...
Something difficult? Redefine your view
“Sometimes shifting your perspecti...
Simple model vs complex model — which one to use?
You might have heard Elo...
The atomic nature of information
An atom is mainly composed of protons, neut...
What are your irrational truths?
Everything happens for a reason. Is this tr...
Dopamine decompression
Likes and hearts feel good, don’t they?
But what i...
Do you need a complex solution?
An iPhone is a complex solution, Alexa is a ...
The breadcrumb trail to efficiency
To overcome writer’s block, Ernest He...
Make significant changes to combat complacency
We’re great at becoming use...
What’s a smart way to deal with this?
Stuff comes at you every day, fast. ...
Hold your standard, compassionately
If you want to be good at anything, yo...
BYOE — Bring Your Own Enthusiasm
I was tinkering with a pet coding project...
Why streak goals work
Two powerful motivators of behavior are loss aversion ...
Let the subconscious solve your problems
A shower, a walk, a lunch — what ...
Attach yourself to only what matters
Most of the time, internet points don??...
Complexity can be fun
If something is boring, make it more complex.
Add a t...
The first thing to do in the morning
We’ve adapted to the spins of the Ear...
Cultivate non-linear thinking to be more awesome
Einstein didn’t approac...
Practice self-compassionate inquiry
Sometimes I find my self blaming myself ...
Reality is chaotic, not normal
We view reality with the sense that some thin...
Discern like a sommelier
How can a master sommelier identify a bottle of win...
What are you gonna do with it?
When I bought my laptop, I told my parents it...
From ‘makes sense’ to ‘works’
From LEGO to web apps, I like to build...
Primitive capitalism and attention vampires
Take a look at this wonderful vi...
The trap of unfinished busyness
Do you ever feel overwhelmed? Like there is ...
Don’t blame yourself, change the design of your day
It’s easy to blame y...
How heart beats negativity
Money, relationships, emails… It’s easy to get caught up in one’s circumstances and problems. Sometimes, I catch myself thinking, obsessing over some problem instead of enjoying something simple like a good lunch....
Why you should write too
I enjoy writing, but every so often I look at the...
Don’t get into energy debt
Juice is not good for you, generally speaking. ...
Control the dominoes of emotion
Sometimes emotions come to us out of the blu...
Remove artificial limits on your freedom
Freedom is high on any person’s l...
Wear a different self
This is what I do This is what I don’t do
*This is ...
Clarity through causality
A powerful person can pull the strings and have th...
Information overload? Anxiety?
The remedy isn’t hiding in social media fee...
What’s the first sign that you’re right?
Working on something with an un...
Maintain grasp with the obvious
Ever got stuck doing something too long beca...
You that you couldn’t imagine
Once upon a time, my room was a mess.
Once ...
Why would you do work that doesn’t matter?
There are tasks that really mat...
You can buy time
You can’t buy time, the common saying goes. Well, it’s ...
Seek real feedback
What if you ate food, but couldn’t taste it? What if yo...
What’s the difference between understanding and knowing?
There’s a well ...
Invest like you brush your teeth
We all invest every day. We invest our effo...
Restart rituals
Ever had a bad day?
1 step to change the world
I’ve always been a dreamer and had ideas of cha...
Break your own rules
We all have rules. No more than two coffees. Only exerc...
Make a plan you can look forward to
Stuck in a routine?
Find something exci...
Speak your wave into existence
The visions and dreams you have will not come...
Slow movement, slow time
In superhero movies, stopping time really means sto...
Disrupt consistency with radical change
One of the principles of persuasion ...
Use extreme conditions to make you tough
Today I brought hell on myself, sev...
Don’t underestimate the power of subtle influences
The ideal productive te...
Less stress, less fear
Everything you did until today, you’ve survived.
Y...
3 life games and work
If you don’t want to do some work, it may be because...
Success is a harmony
You might have heard Jeff Bezos talk about work-life ha...
Bare minimum vs doing it right
Jony Ive, the famous designer of products lik...
Download your mind before you fall asleep
Every day, you learn something new...
Don’t exhaust yourself
We’re not as lazy as we might like to think we ar...
Businesses don’t exist to make money
Businesses don’t exist to make mone...
What didn’t you think you could do?
We all have our dreams — climbing mo...
Do you even reflect?
Do you reflect every day? Or once in a while?
Do you e...
What can you do?
We spend a lot of our time comparing ourselves to others, c...
Why and how I set weekly goals
Goal setting isn’t only for slick busines...
Bad mood? Here are 3 tips to help you
Yesterday, some meetings went in an ...
Start and finish
Start. Go wide, be creative, let your imagination run wild!...
What you avoid becomes hard, what you do becomes simple
Have you heard of my...
What you think, you become
Buddha said that and it’s true.
We can convinc...
Stuck? Pessimistic? Imagine more ways forward
Donald Miller of StoryBrand sa...
Places hold expectations
Ever tried being productive while staying in your b...
Future direction setting: map vs compass
There seem to be two general kinds ...
Emotions over facts
Every single sentence has an emotional component to it. ...
Emphasize the best in your day, have more best days
What are the activities ...
Failure is the default state
If you don’t begin, you’ve failed.
You’v...
When you group, you lose individuality
No two people are the same. No two ch...
Create your spacetime
We’re naturally good at thinking in space. After all...
What haven’t I done?
This is one of the most useful questions I’ve found...
Distraction management: a foundation skill for the digital age
How to resist...
Explore alternate paths of reality
In schools, we were judged. There were gr...
Symptoms of time misalocation
Feeling of not having done enough for the day ...
Focus on decisions, not time
If someone tells you a story of how they propos...
Keep things in sight
Out of sight, out of mind works unfortunately well in t...
Put it all before you and take a step back
In the digital world, it’s ea...
The true knowledge from within
Every day we’re in touch with external worl...
How to be (almost) certain in uncertain times
What will the world look like ...
What if Columbus never set out?
There’s not much uncharted territory left ...
The wrong kind of testing
A common complaint from students is that there are...
Impact vs Integration
Impact
Impact is an imprecise word. It suggests makin...
Who are you becoming?
We take many tests — personality tests, IQ tests, ab...
How do you change the world?
Everyone wants to change the world.
That’s n...
Time is made, not found
What do you want to do more of?
That’s a question...
Want to be more positive? Here is a habit to get you started
I have the BB...
Today I ran to chase away vultures
I used to hit the road and run for an hou...
What I learned by Traveling for the First Time Alone Pt. 1
I did not leave t...
Feedback eliminates uncertainty & risk
When an archer shoots, their feedback...
Experiment, replicate success, repeat
Any significant pursuit means solving ...
Return to what you once learned
From the science of learning we know that if...
We think in trends
We often see the value of something only when we lose it....
2 key components in an effective information environment
Why are games so ef...
Off day? No, a recharge day
Even the most productive and creative people get...
The less familiar the work, the more setup needed
An expert on a subject can...
The value of the non-scientific
Why do old religions and local customs conti...
Be in the present, or in the future?
We hear about being present, living in ...
Examine the culturally accepted
Coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, sleep deprivati...
Only a Sith deals in absolutes
Can you see the shades of gray?
Social media...
The hidden wealth of experience
Words give us only the barest inkling of mea...
Getting to a variable understanding
In every system, there are key variables...
The root of ‘easy for you to say’
The internet is full of advice for ach...
The music of words
We read hundreds or thousands of words every day. But wha...
Does it work?
The thing you’re working on, does it work?
Why? Why not?
W...
Use binary to think clearly
Many dichotomies are really a spectrum. Not eith...
Break up your creativity
You hear it often, hard work, hard work, work hard?...
The power of philosophical action
To-do list apps are lacking in a fundament...
Make your environment a woodshop
If you go into a woodworker’s woodshop an...
Avoid the tech tunnel
After hours spent at a computer or using the phone, ...
How can’t you lose?
When Elon Musk started SpaceX, he estimated the chance...
Don’t just browse there, do something
We have too much information availab...
Focus for meaning, not happiness
Recently, I watched a interview with Ray Da...
Confront yourself daily to avoid crashing
How do you call yourself on your b...
Why I seek discomfort
Have you ever tried sleeping on hard ground at night, ...
Close the intent-action gap
The moment you define a task, a timer starts run...
Prioritize engagement, raise your productivity
Why do social media care so m...
Set your own expectations
You go see a movie you were looking forward to… a...
Untangle yourself
Wanna know the winning formula for sickness?
*Sickness = ...
Extreme push to a new height makes everything easier
When you’ve run a hal...
Extrapolate over time
A small indulgence today could be okay. It could also ...
How fast can you turn pain into learning?
We fail sometimes. The more we do,...
Quantity to quality
Quality vs quantity is a short-term way of thinking. It ...
A fighter pilot lesson from a toddler
Today, I watched a toddler watch the w...
Gaze at the stars
Work coming from all sides, projects proliferating, mind o...
Adapt
Evolution doesn’t say the smartest or the fastest win, it says those...
How to mine a profound idea
Every once in a while, I hear an idea that’s i...
Who is planning for you?
We need structure in our lives. Without it, without...
What does your inner world look like?
Someone shouts at you, someone else in...
No choice productivity
Algorithm
-
identify tasks
-
decide top priority ...
-
Be like water
One day before my bus would leave, I went for a stroll in the ...
What will you do with this present?
How does one live in the present mome...
What do you do when you f*ck up?
Over the past few days, I’ve dropped the ...
When is ‘good enough’ enough and when is the time for the best?
Imagine ...
Are you asking questions that matter?
I had a conversation with a friend rec...
Are you making it harder for yourself to work?
Yesterday, I walked home and ...
Don’t think in apps, use your vast imagination
This is the state of the ...
Create energy out of thin air
Let me tell you a story.
When I ran a half ma...
It’s probably not personal, don’t assume
You walk down the street and ...
How To Be Productive
‘I want to do something.’
I want to be productive. I want to do things. I have work to do. But, sometimes I just don’t feel like doing anything. I feel I don’t have energy. What can be done about that? Maybe answering the following questi...