“My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. The more certitude one assumes, the less there is left to think about, and a person sure of everything would never have any need to think about anything and might be considered clinically dead under current medical standards, where the absence of brain activity is taken to mean that life has ended.” — Robert Anton Wilson

There are thousands of books, podcasts, and social media posts about how to be more productive, strengthen your relationships, find your purpose, and be your all-around best self. And there are legions of programs and seminars out there designed to help you improve your life. All together, self-help represents a multi-billion dollar industry. But despite its ubiquity and […]

In 12 months, @aarondfrancis changed his life by bypassing fear and embracing risk. Now, he’s working his dream job @tuple. Get his full story on The ReadME Project:

How do you learn more in a busy life? Follow these seven habits to increase the amount of learning, without overwhelming your schedule.

Obsidian DataView Docs Introduction Dataview is an advanced query engine / index for generating dynamic views of the data in your knowledge base. You can collect pages by tags, folders, contents, or fields, which are arbitrary values associated with pages. A typical page using dataview might look something like this: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 # Daily Retrospective #daily Date:: 2020-08-15 Rating:: 7.

Most of our interactions fall into one of these categories. Our strategy for the game involves doing something to the other team. Many service businesses are aligned around the idea of doing things…

Humans gossipped before we figured out fire, housing or farming. It’s built into our culture and possibly our DNA. Gossip informs culture and can influence connection and hierarchies. And in …

Imagine for a moment the perfect organizational system. One that supported and enhanced the work you do, telling you exactly where to put a piece of information, and exactly where to find it when you needed it. This system would have to be: universal, encompassing any conceivable kind of information from any source flexible, able to work with any project or activity you take on, now and in the future

This post is part 1 of a multi-part series. Part 2 is here. In this blog post, I'm going to talk about why I moved 3,000 Evernotes from Evernote to Obsidian, and walk through the process of doing so with the help of a third-party open source tool, plus some code I wrote to drive that tool. Bre

There are two kinds of skills, resources and tools: Ones that get used up as you use them. And ones that get better when you do. Nobody wants there to be a crowd at the ski area on a bluebird powde…

We explore recent research that connects a key suite of skills with highly compensated IT roles.

Some years ago, I was explaining to my manager that I was feeling a bit bored, and they told me to learn how to read a Profit & Loss (P&L) statement. At the time, that sounded suspiciously like, “Stop wasting my time,” but operating in an executive role has shifted my perspective a bit: this is actually a surprisingly useful thing to learn. The P&L statement is a map of a company’s operation and is an effective tool for pointing you towards the most pressing areas to dig in.

First, let’s agree that there’s a problem. It may be that I think we’re facing something serious, something costly, something urgent–and you don’t. We can have an hone…

Learn all about the fedora hat; its history, quality hallmarks, what to buy & what to avoid, and how to wear this great felt hat so you look your best!

In the modern age, people are bombarded with more information, and are more personally responsible for managing that information, than ever before. How do you stay on top of your schedule, work responsibilities, financial obligations, and the spigot of media that runs full force 24/7 while not only avoiding becoming overwhelmed, but actually using all […]

How often should you succeed at a task, to maximize learning? I review research suggesting the answer is close to 85%.

If your plan, your idea or your art doesn’t involve any significant hurdles in moving forward, it’s probably not worth that much. If it were easy, everyone would do it. The tactic is to…

My father is a construction man. What could he teach me about being a software engineer? Well, quite a lot.

Posted on 2022-06-29

Plenty of people insist on freedom and independence. More rare and far more effective is to claim responsibility instead. “I’ve got this,” can go a long way.

One is very skilled at following the recipe. Quality control, consistency and diligence. The other understands how the recipe works, sees patterns and opportunities and changes the recipe to fit th…

If you can do it once, you might be able to do it ten times. And if you do it ten times, it will become a skill and a practice. You’ll do it more naturally and more often. Sending a note, cha…

We all have a personal tech stack. And the more we intentionally curate the tools we use everyday, the more productive and happy we will be.

If you and I play a game of cards, the winner will largely be decided by luck. Get good cards and you come out ahead. If you and I play 100 games of backgammon, the better player will win, because …

Resilient systems are better than fragile ones. Leave the campsite better than you found it. Clean air is better than dirty air. It’s more reliable to invest in things that produce positive i…

Two former officers on creating a "startup sequence" that will help you crush the day ahead.

We’re not very good at predicting the future. We’re very good at being aware of the urgency of the moment, and familiar with our need to deal with emergencies. Before we react, though, …