life
What do you have to offer?
I want you to write a list of what you have to offer the world — professionally and personally. I think it will be a longer list than what you’re imagining right now. This list is among the most useful you will ever create. This list is how you beat
Book Review: Four Thousand Weeks
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals [https://amzn.to/3CZ1xxR] by Oliver Burkeman I have to admit, this is the time management book I probably would have written myself. Is there’s anything better for your time and project management than having someone else write your book for you?
After, Not Once
When I was a technical writer, one of the first things I learned was the difference between “once” and “after.” We were just creating manuals and procedures, but this one rule was profound and extended way beyond our day-to-day writing. The rule was: never use “once.” “Once” is an imprecise
Put relationships first.
This has been the conclusion I’ve reached at middle age as well — about marketing, publishing, business, parenting, everything. We’re hardwired for this. That’s why it’s so prominent in my personal publishing principles [https://www.cjchilvers.com/personal-publishing-principles/]. From Cal Newport via Lex Fridman [https://youtu.be/
How does it make you feel?
Carlo from The DO Lecture series [https://thedolectures.com]: > “It’s not how it looks, it’s how it makes you feel.” Even though he’s talking about work spaces here, I think this is a sentence we could use to describe anything we create and market — or just
Nobody ever says on their deathbed...
I see lessons about life couched in deathbed terms all the time. Just search “deathbed” and you’ll see endless lessons about what’s really important in life. It got really ramped up with the beloved 2012 book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the
Questions
“I would rather have questions I can’t answer than answers I can’t question.” — Max Tegmark [(https://overcast.fm/+Ic2hP3AZs/42:01]
Self Awareness is Underrated
Of all the "Letters of Note" I've read, none of have come closer to my world view of than this one from H.L. Menken in 1931 [http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/01/on-meaning-of-life.html]: > "I go on working for the same reason that
Thank You
The proper response to a compliment is "thank you." It took me over 30 years is to learn this. Also, the proper response to "thank you" is "you're welcome." I'm still trying to learn this.
