Category Archives: Productivity

You’re Always Allowed to do Big Work

No matter what position you’re in, whether it’s janitor or CEO, a huge part of your day is spent doing “small work”.  This includes the clerical stuff, the scheduling, the filing, the organizing, and all the other things that just … Continue reading

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On Plagiarism

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing. – Salvador Dali Or, as Mark Twain explains in more fervent prose: Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that ‘plagiarism’ farce! As if there … Continue reading

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Opportunity Cost

How much does it cost to help your friend move on a Saturday?  What if you had planned to take your son to a ballgame?  What if you had planned to work overtime? There’s a cost to everything you do, … Continue reading

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Cost v. Benefit

It turns out, crime does pay.  Just not very much: The basic problem is the average haul from a bank job: for the three-year period, it was only £20,330.50 (~$31,613). And it gets worse, as the average robbery involved 1.6 … Continue reading

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Scammer’s Logic

Why do “Nigerian” scammers say they’re from Nigeria?  After all, if you were running a widely known scam, wouldn’t you vary the details so you had a better chance of fooling a wider audience? Probably not.  In an interesting paper … Continue reading

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Death of the Hobby

Hobbies used to exist as a way to entertain ourselves.  If you had some extra time, you collected stamps, or watched birds, or built ships in a bottle.  You sought out activities to stimulate your mind.  Hobbies were an essential … Continue reading

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Magic Bullets

From an ESPN piece on Ryan Lochte, who is looking to spoil Michael Phelps’ final Olympics next month: “I’m not the most talented swimmer,” Lochte adds. “So I try to outwork everyone else.” It’s Sunday. A day of rest. The … Continue reading

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Old People

Building relationships with your peers is important.  But when you’re younger, or just starting out in a field, it’s more important for your immediate future to build relationships with people that are five, ten, and twenty years ahead of you. … Continue reading

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Gambling on Discipline

Almost all people who become successful do so because they’re able to develop discipline.  It’s not something they’re born with.  It takes practice.  Consciously doing what needs to be done now, foregoing what you’d like to be doing instead, in … Continue reading

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Creativity Is Not A Talent; It’s A Way Of Operating

John Cleese manages to explain about 90 different topics I’ve written about in a 13 minute span.  Below is a really, really excellent speech on fostering creativity, becoming more effective, managing time, and much more.  The short version is excellent, … Continue reading

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How To Make Work Miserable

From The Progress Principle: Over the past 15 years, we have studied what makes people happy and engaged at work. In discovering the answer, we also learned a lot about misery at work. … What we discovered is that the … Continue reading

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Disciplined Mindwandering, or The Benefits of Daydreaming

Jonathan Schooler, the psychologist who helped pioneer the study of insight, has recently begun studying the benefits of daydreams.  His lab has demonstrated that people who consistently engage in more daydreaming score significantly higher on measures of creativity.  To evaluate … Continue reading

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It’s Hard And I’m Just Not Passionate About It…

“It’s hard, and I’m just not passionate about it, and I’m thinking of giving up – will you tell me it’s OK to give up, so I’ll feel better about it in the morning?” It’s rarely about difficulty or enthusiasm. … Continue reading

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Create More Than You Consume

It’s very easy to consume.  We’ve created a culture that glamorizes it.  Television and internet access alone are unending conveyer belts, delivering as much distraction and escapism as you can possibly guzzle.  But we also have magazines, books, movie theaters, … Continue reading

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How To Write, Part 2

John Steinbeck, in a lengthy interview with the Paris Review (all of which is worth reading) shares some thoughts on writing: 1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just … Continue reading

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