Productivity
Big hard long things (i.e., building relationships, developing a skill, learning something new, losing weight, investing) all share the same nature and can be dealt with in the same manner.
The best way to approach big hard long things is to stop counting results (because you will always lose patience before it starts working due to the exponential nature of the thing).
Building a habit comes down to identifying a must-do action before the habit, making it time-based, starting with 10 minutes, never making up, and keeping a visual reminder of the invisible progress - i.e., a piece of paper with squares and checks.
Tracking time helps to be more productive by using intention design - i.e., time tracking future actions such as writing “9:12 writing a post” when it’s 9.
Asking yourself, “do I want to be a person who does these things?” when you catch yourself doing something like biting nails or procrastinating is an immensely valuable tool to stop doing these things.
To make an efficient system, you have to reduce its complexity to a bare minimum; i.e., keep plain text files for time tracking instead of building a nice tool you’re not going to use because it’s hard to work.
Creativity
The secret to doing great writing is to always have free blocks of time when you’re not writing; the best ideas come when you switch modes from focused mode to diffuse mode and get access to broader networks of neurons in your head.
The secret to creativity is to get bored; do nothing for an extended time - if you drink tea, *just* drink tea, or go for a walk, or grab a coffee at some new place - but do not engage in any activity that involves content consumption, i.e., reading, talking, scrolling news, replying to messages - and ideas will come.
Metacognitive monitoring helps to judge one’s actions better and catch “weak” ideas that just get formed on a proto level before words.
The key to creativity is not to push yourself to be creative but eliminate things that make you uncreative, namely, phone notifications, always busy with something, junk content consumption, no solitude time, no contemplation, etc.
Misc
After Roger broke the 4-min mile record in the 60s, dozens of people did it as well, not because they all got stronger but because they knew it was possible.
The best metric to judge the quality of a book is a) how many times you reread it and b) information density - how many notes you took per page.
A secret to networking is to have a few strong ties rather than hundreds of LinkedIn connections.
Buying a book for a person increases the chances they will read it; a $10 investment in a worthy book has a chance of changing someone’s life.
Going to a cemetery is the best way to get inspired to live.
A large city where lots of things are going on inspires to do your best; it’s an environment that makes you move to survive.
To discover secrets, you need to believe in them; where most people hold an opposite belief (i.e., productivity and fitness are bad markets because people don’t want to do these things), you need to have firm convictions that it’s the products that are poor - i.e., Amazing Marvin and Future.
Software ideas newsletter (ref) worked so well because the expected value of a SAAS business that people have an opportunity to build by receiving these ideas weekly is way higher than the $60 that they need to pay for access.
Most ambitious people are spreading themselves too thin doing too many things at once - they end up doing nothing well because depth is a multiplier for results.