There's a saying that wisdom is just taking your own advice. But we constantly forget to. I find using pithy aphorisms and directives to be a useful reminder as to how I should try to live
Ban interesting and good from your vocabulary.
Using them means that you haven’t taken the effort to create a thoughtful response.
If someone (earnestly) asks you how your holiday was. Don’t say good. Describe it in detail, what you did, and more importantly, what you learnt.
If someone asks you for your opinion on a movie/TV/book, don’t say interesting. Take the time to explain the ideas.
If you resort to saying interesting and good, it means you haven’t thought it through yourself.
slow is smooth and smooth is fast
In rock climbing- The less effort you expend and the more precise you are with movement, the more effective you are.
When playing the guitar, you want to minimise the distance your fingers come off the fretboard. Minimise the travel time.
When writing to convey a point, you want to do it as succinctly as possible. Good writing is hard.
Evaluate ideas independently of who said them. Read books/blogs/tweets without caring about the history of the person saying them.
This skews your judgement. It will lead you to disregard the idea if you don’t like the person.
Take the idea at face value.
Don’t quote. If people ask you where you got your ideas, then of course you can point them to the book/person/resource.
Listen to music without knowing who the artist is. Consume art without caring who made it.
Don’t theorise- do
Don’t over plan. Go do and learn whilst doing
You learn in motion, not whilst stationary
Better to act your way into a new way of thinking, rather than think your way into a new way of acting
Learning by doing is the most concrete form of learning.
Don’t read about a topic. Read about a topic, then write something in your own words.
Trade your intelligence for bewilderment
Wonder and curiosity are the best guides.
Ask the stupid questions
Be the dumbest person in the room.
Put yourself in intellectually uncomfortable situations.
Question the premise of the question.
Speak simply.
Don’t compete. Escape competition through authenticity.
Find a niche. Focus on your strengths
Don’t be the best. Be one of the only.
Work smart, not necessarily hard.
How can you get 80% of the results, by putting in 20% of the effort?
Focus on what you do, not what you say.
Operate within your circle of competence
Follow your genuine intellectual curiosity
Create a local net positive
Don’t follow your passion.
Have a day job 9-5 that brings you stability. Be really really good at. Specialise as a producer, so you can diversify as a consumer.
Then manically pursue your other interests/art in your free time.
You separate making an income from the act of creation.
This is the healthiest and happiest way to be a creative human being
Create for an audience of one. Yourself.
Always tell the truth. Then you have nothing to remember.
You are grounded in reality. Your internal thoughts match your external speech and actions. A vastly more peaceful way to live.
If someone asks for your opinion, rather than lying to make them feel good, you can tell them the truth (in a respectful way). This is way more valuable then telling a comforting lie.
Motivation is overrated. Habits are everything.
We don’t rise to the level of our expectation, we fall to the level of our training
Once a habit is formed, it feels wrong NOT to do it.
Future me : a checklist for habit
What gets measured gets managed
If something is not working after diligent effort. Quit.
Spend the time elsewhere. You only have about 4000 weeks in a life.
The etymology of decide is ’to sever/remove/cut away’. Decision making is about removing.
Have only a few priorities. Let go of the rest
If you scatter your attention too much, you accomplish nothing.
Sunlight on a log does nothing. But when you focus the light with a magnifying glass, it catches fire
Perfect is the enemy of good
Make 100 crap things rather than focusing on one perfect thing. Quality comes through repetition and iteration.
Write 100 bad blog posts. Maybe one will be good.
Sing 100 bad songs. Maybe one will sound nice.
Sketch 100 bad drawings. Maybe one will look good.
Attempt 100 will be better than attempt 1. If not, make 100 more.
Minimise
Own few things. Physically and mentally.
When something is not useful or beautiful, let go.
Constraints lead to creativity. More tools doesn’t mean better results. It is often paralysing.
Buying tools: Start by buying the absolute cheapest tools you can find. Upgrade the ones you use a lot. If you wind up using some tool for a job, buy the very best you can afford. (KEVIN KELLEY)
Pay attention.
Focus is all you have. If you want to do anything meaningful with your life, develop the ability to focus. This leads to mastery.
Cut out distraction from your life. Minimise
Life is long but we waste most of it by paying attention to things that don’t matter. Write down your priorities.
Pay close attention to the contents of consciousness. There is something profound there.