As Ryan Holiday’s research assistant, I’ve adopted and adapted his famous notecard system. Since starting this site and my newsletter, it’s the most common email I get. Do you use the notecard … [Continue reading] about The Notecard System: Capture, Organize, and Use Everything You Read, Watch, and Listen To
Skill vs. Talent
Skill is the ability to do something. Talent is the rate at which you can acquire the ability to do something.¹ If you have a talent for the guitar, that means you will learn to play the guitar … [Continue reading] about Skill vs. Talent
Attention Residue
The brain is surprisingly bad at switching tasks. In their book The Distracted Mind, Adam Gazzaley and Larry Rosen write about how the brain can’t simultaneously maintain multiple … [Continue reading] about Attention Residue
Bus Ticket Theory
Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, has a theory of genius. He calls it the "Bus Ticket Theory of Genius." ¹ In the recipe for greatness, Graham observes, one ingredient always gets … [Continue reading] about Bus Ticket Theory
The Productivity Puzzle
Most modern knowledge work organizations treat individuals as general-purpose computers that execute a turbulent mixture of value-producing and administrative tasks—often unequally distributed, and … [Continue reading] about The Productivity Puzzle