Start it now, fix it later
Pop quiz: what do Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Arnold Schwarzenegger have in common? If you said ‘being Austrian,’ you only get half a mark, smartarse. There’s a famous quote from Mozart about his...
View ArticleThe White Room: or, why Angry Birds is stopping you from getting the most out...
Back when I worked on videogames magazines, I once got drunk with a friend of mine and invented a system of games reviewing that would be an alternative to the X out of 10 scores given by the rest of...
View ArticleNon-zero days: the path to productivity
We live in an incredible world. Once, self-improvement was the domain of charismatic people and anyone who could get a book deal: now, it’s been democratised by the internet to the point where anyone...
View ArticleTry 4% harder
If there’s one thing I legitimately think I’m good at, it’s writing. It’s been my job for my entire adult life: I’ve written instructional books, children’s books, advertising copy, and features,...
View ArticleWhy EL James is a better writer than you
Full disclosure: I haven’t read 50 Shades Of Grey. I’ve tried – not very hard – but even the free Kindle preview I read was dreadful, and entry-level sunk cost theory suggests that when something is...
View ArticleThe Leonidas Paradox: or, why motivational speeches don’t actually work
First, a quick compare-and-contrast exercise. Here’s a selection of quotes from King Leonidas, leader of the Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae, from the film 300: King Leonidas: This is where we...
View ArticleWhat if you made every choice 100 times?
It’s easy to make bad choices in isolation. Maybe you’ve had a hard day and you want/need a beer, or a biscuit, or an hour watching TV. Fair enough. But before you pull the trigger, stop and think:...
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Next Action Thinking: because you can do (almost) anything for 10 seconds
Quick, here’s a thought experiment. Imagine that you have to do one of these things, whichever is furthest from your current comfort zone: a) Become a world class competitive Street Fighter player b)...
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Important vs Urgent: Time management zombie-apocalypse style
Full disclosure: I did not come up with the time management concept in this post. It was invented by Ike Eisenhower and popularized by Stephen Covey, but here’s the problem with the way they explain...
View ArticleHere’s why you’re not getting anything done
A story in four parts. 1. You’re trying to find time You will never find time, just like you will never stumble across a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow: you have to hack chunks of it out, like a...
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