8/9/25 →
📚 Finished reading Essentialism by Greg McKeown
I read Essentialism 5 years ago, and I just finished reading it again. It has super helpful advice for how to prioritize things at work and in your personal life. 5/5 ⭐️
Here’s one of my favorite quotes from the book:
But in fact we can easily do two things at the same time: wash the dishes and listen to the radio, eat and talk, clear the clutter on our desk while thinking about where to go for lunch, text message while watching television, and so on.
What we can’t do is concentrate on two things at the same time.
5/25/25 →
Can Directories Rise Again? from The History of the Web:
Search has bent in quality towards its earliest days, difficult to navigate and often unhelpful. And the remedy may be the same as it was a quarter century ago. It may be once again time for the surfers. Only different this time.
The only resistance to the current advance of AI is humanity. We are relearning that humans can see through the bullshit. There are examples everywhere.
A lot of personal bloggers already have slash pages, which are like personal directories. Makes sense to have old-school directories where a community contributes.
5/25/25 →
Asking questions isn’t being difficult. It’s being curious. It’s trying to understand the rationale behind actions and beliefs. But for some people in power—whether that’s a boss, a self-styled authority figure, even a Partner—questions are dangerous. Questions suggest that maybe they don’t have all the answers, that maybe their decisions aren’t flawless, and that maybe, just maybe, there’s a better way of doing things.
— You’re Only “Difficult” to People Who Don’t Want to Be Questioned by Joan Westenberg
9/14/21
This is the best advice I have read about creative work:
Be boring. (It’s the only way to get work done.)
It’s from Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon, which is an excellent book for anyone interested in creative work. It’s full of practical advice.
Most people have to practice their art for a while before they can make a living off of it, so in the mean time, they need a regular job. Austin says, get a job you can tolerate, pay your bills, and build a routine. When you have regular hours that you work, you know what time you have left, and you can carve out time to write stories, compose music, take photos, draw…whatever it is that you do.
Better yet, Austin points out that if your job doesn’t take a lot of creative energy, you’ll be happy to pour that energy into your hobbies. You take care of yourself, and you keep your mind in the right place to produce art.
This is more useful than the advice I’ve seen that focuses on craft. Other books I’ve read on writing tell me to set a daily word count goal and find a distraction-free space—which is fine, but they don’t connect creative work to the rest of your life.
Steal Like An Artist is the first book I’ve read that blends creative work with the average, day-to-day things. It’s the first time I’ve said, “Yeah, that’s something I can try today.”