When I read a book I have the habit of highlighting certain passages I find interesting or useful. After I finish the book I’ll type up those passages and put them into a note on my phone. I’ll keep them to comb through every so often so that I remember what that certain book was about. That’s what these are. So if I ever end up lending you a book, these are the sections that I’ve highlighted in that book. Enjoy!
British naturalist Charles Darwin published 19 books, including “On the origin of species” while working just 4.5 hours a day.
Atul Gawande, a surgeon who’s written four bestselling books, blocks off 25% of his time for unscheduled but important tasks to avoid getting swallowed up by email and meetings.
Novelist Isabel Allende has two offices, one just for writing that has no internet or telephone, and another for tackling administrative tasks.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead writes for just five hours a day and takes a year off between projects to play video games and cook.
Alice Waters, the chef who pioneered the slow food movement, starts her day by taking a walk or making a fire.
Physicist Stephen Hawking took a long view of research and work, encouraging his students to spend time on other activities like listening to music and socializing with friends.
Bruno Cucinelli, founder of the eponymous Italian fashion brand, forbids his employees from working past 5:30pm because he believes sending email after business hours intrudes into their private lives.
Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard spends part of the year in Wyoming, where he hikes, fly fishes, and checks in with the office just twice a week.
Charles Dickens maintained a strict schedule comprising five hours of writing in silence, followed by a 3-hour walk.
Novelist Haruki Murakami writes international best-sellers and gets to bed by 9pm every night.
Astrophysicist Sandra Faber, who has made groundbreaking discoveries about dark matter and how galaxies are formed, said her work benefited from a daily routine where she’d focus on her family during evenings and weekends.
French intellectual and write Simone De Beauvoid broke up her day by taking a 4-hour break each afternoon to visit friends.
It’s time to stop celebrating crazy at work.
Comparison is the death of joy.
Goals are fake. Nearly all of them are artificial taregts set for the sake of setting targets. These made-up numbers then function as a source of unnecessary stress until they’re either achieved or abandoned.
Chasing goals often leads companies to compromise their morals, honesty, and integrity to reach those fake numbers.
The opportunity to do another good day’s work will come again tomorrow, even if you go home at a reasonable time.
Every 6 weeks or so, we decide what we’ll be working on next. And that’s the only plan we have. Anything further out is considered a “maybe, we’ll see”
The future is a major abstraction, riddled with a million variables you can’t control.
Depth, not breadth is where mastery is often found.
If you can’t fit everything you want to do within 40 hours per week, you need to get better at picking what to do, not work longer hours. Most of what we think we have to do, we don’t have to do at all. It’s a choice, and often it’s a poor one.
What’s worse is when management hold up certain people as having great “work ethic” because they’re always around, always available, always working. That’s a terrible example of a work ethic and a great example of someone who’s overworked.
The only way to know if work is getting done is by looking at the actual work. that’s the boss’s job.
When everyone knows you’re “always available,” it’s an invitation to be interrupted. You might as well have a neon sign flashing “Bother Me” hanging above your head. Are there expectations? Of course. It might be good to know who’s around in a true emergency, but 1% of the occasions like that shouldn’t drive policy 99% of the time.
Almost everything can wait. And almost everything should.
Create a culture of eventual response rather than immediate response. Say something then get back to work. Don’t expect anything. And if someone gets back to you quickly, it’s not because they’re ignoring you–it’s probably because they’re working. Well what if it was something important?? (It just about never is)
Instead of FOMO, think of JOMO – They joy of missing out.
We should stop treating every little thing that happens at work as a breaking news ticker. Work is not news. Most of the day-to-day work inside a company’s walls is mundane.
If you decide you want to take a Wednesday to hang with your kids, that’s cool. You don’t have to “make up” the hours, just be responsible with your time.
Resumes aren’t work Resumes may list the work they’ve done, but we all know that they are exaggerated and often bullshit. It’s really easy to fall for someone’s crafted story. Hire someone based on their current abilities, not their previous qualifications.
Remember, nobody hits the ground running, not even senior level hires.
In the end, Android users didn’t care whether they were using exactly the same design as iPhone users.
In business, you may hvae to make multiple major decisions monthly. If every one of them has to be made by consensus, you’re in for an endless grind. Just disagree and commit.
You’re not actually capturing a hill on the beach of Normandy, are you? You’re probably just trying to meet some arbitrary deadline set by those who don’t actually have to do the work.
@joekotlan on X