Betterment

There are three trends in copywriting that have been so overused they should now be avoided. The first two: Headlines with “why” for articles that don’t actually explain why. Head…

In 1995, two years before he came back to run Apple, Steve Jobs made an interesting point. He was asked why Apple (which fired him a decade earlier) was

Because of the coincidental confluence of two books coming into my life at the same time — Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson and Economics by Aristotle — I’ve been thinking a lot about household management this year.  Part of that reflection has been philosophical. I’ve contemplated the Greek […]

I am taking a year to strengthen my own foundations in life, while working with a group of people who want to do the same.

Rome was built in a day. It wasn’t finished in a day. In fact, it’s still not finished. But the day someone said, “this is Rome,” and announced the project, it was there. So…

Knowledge and technique used to be closely guarded secrets. Admission to the guild was reserved for a few, and crafts like typesetting, plumbing and medicine were off limits to most folks. One of t…

Atticus Finch, the patriarch in one of the great post-war novels, “To Kill A Mockingbird,” is a very compelling character. When we first open the book,

Explain it with quadrants? Translate it into Spanish? It’s easy to memorize a few words that purport to explain something, but all they do is relabel it. If you truly understand something, yo…

I’m writing this from a rental property, on a hillside overlooking the northern reach of the Taconic Mountains. A key feature of this property is ... Read more

Blame the clients. And blame the conditions. But then, you’re on the hook to get better tools, find better clients and work in better conditions. It’s not convenient, but it’s pos…

The people most likely to sign up for coaching or additional learning are the folks who are already good at their craft. “I’m terrible at this,” can lead to, “and I don&#821…

We see a lot of hacks where the path to success is pretty obvious, if maybe strewn with all sorts of complications, land-mines, and time-sinks. Then we get other hacks that are just totally out-of-…

Community requires individuals to have the option of speaking up. If we’re in this together, we ought to be able to chime in. But while every member of the community can speak out, the ones t…

If we’re to publish, teach, invent, imagine or promote, we need the confidence to believe that we have something to offer. That we are, in some way, right. But the enterprise of rational thou…

When we embark on ambitious projects we hope our friends will support us. It doesn't always turn out that way.

Napoleon didn’t conquer most of Europe all by himself. He had other people helping him, of course. Literally armies of them. The reality is, it’s not the

It’s pretty easy for some kids to switch gears. They can go from sad to ebullient in seconds, and switch contexts without much fuss. Others have more trouble. As we get older, our natural abi…

So much of modern life relies on specialization. But are you good at all the core activities? The foundations?

What are the standard Johnny.Decimal patterns?

A description of the non-standard 'creative' pattern, for use by people or organisations who create artistic artefacts.

He had a hard time lying because his nose got longer every time he did. Gas-powered leaf blowers would disappear if the smoke they belched out was black instead of invisible. And few people would s…

Ready means that time is up, spec is met and the user can engage. Done might mean that you believe it’s perfect and cannot be improved. We’ll settle for ready. In fact, meeting spec mea…

Consistency. Influencers and pundits from all sectors, but particularly from health and wellness, like to talk about consistency as the key to greatness. "A habit must be established before it can be improved," James Clear writes in Atomic Habits. "If you can't learn the basic skill of showing up, then

Symbols are a funny thing. We all know what they are…. But do we really? What is it about, say, the Pride Flag, a piece of cloth with a lot of brightly

That’s sort of an oxymoron. The original figureheads were carved into the bow of a ship. They exist to express the spirit of the boat and to demonstrate its power and resilience. Here’s…

The best jugglers don’t seem to be trying very hard. That’s because they understand what the work involves, and they don’t confuse effort with results. Some approaches to keep in …

Follow-up on post 22.00.0034.

A trick question is designed to fool us into proposing the wrong answer (example below). A trap question, on the other hand, stops the train completely. A trap question demands an answer, and the a…

Innovation is an infinite game, and the second an organization stops playing that game is the second it begins to cede the lead. As Jeff Bezos said,

I hope that most of us would agree that driving 50 mph in a school zone where little kids cross the street is a significant safety problem. The speed limit is there for good reason, and if you self…