These might be the most important qualities for doing anything. Talent In every interview I’m asked what’s the most important quality a novelist has to… Read More »Haruki Murakami on Writing: Talent. Focus. Endurance.
On Speaking [My literary agent] Darhansoff & Verrill… handles speaking requests. I almost never accept these. When I do, I charge a lot of money,… Read More »Neal Stephenson on Speaking Arrangements; Art and Artists; Correspondence and Productive Writing
I have some sympathy with Tobias Lütke (Shopify), Brian Armstrong (Coinbase), Jason Fried (Basecamp) and others when they announce – faced with the increasing politicisation… Read More »Mission Protocol: is your organisation a team, a family… or something else?
I’ve been trying this approach – advocated by my wife but also by Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk – to managing my weeks recently, and… Read More »Themed days: Product. Management. Strategy.
Your job is to apply intelligent effort in the service of others. Effort is work done: energy applied to solving problems. There are lots of… Read More »Intelligent Effort
I think I do. Unless it’s an especially good day with the wind at my back, running a good time takes a degree of concentration… Read More »Do you run faster when not listening to a podcast?
Questions for self: Why do you read the news more than once a day? Will things really have changed since the last time you had… Read More »What’s News? And other stories
We live in an era where people will spend days of their lives – hours at a time – to watch a box set or… Read More »tl;dr
You’ve started practising*, tried fifty, and hit some. Now keep going until you stick five in a row. Then ten. If you can do ten… Read More »Five in a row
In the light of Jonny Giger, why not take that discouragingly difficult thing you’re trying to learn* and commit to attempting it fifty times in… Read More »Try 50