Are You Sure It’s Plugged In?

Note: As I wrote last Friday, I took yesterday and today as Think Days. What a worthwhile experience! I’ve got lots to share with you about the process, and I’ll have a full write-up on Friday. I once spent several minutes trying to troubleshoot a piece of electronic equipment that, as it turned out, was not plugged in. We’ve all made mistakes like this—looked for an advanced problem without checking the basics first.

Upcoming Experiment: The Think Week

When he was CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates spent a week, twice a year, isolated in a cabin in the woods. What did Gates do for a week by himself? He thought. He read, too, and wrote. He pondered the overall direction of his company and the forces at work in the technology sector. In other words, he stepped outside the whirlwind of daily life and considered the big questions that we rarely consider (even though the answers to these questions should be dictating what our daily life looks like).

Four Blogs Not to Miss

Just a quick note for you today! I read many blogs but subscribe to relatively few. When it comes to topics like personal development, productivity, lifelong learning, and improving our work lives, I’ve not found anything better than the four blogs below. They bring the heat nearly every time, and if you like this blog, you’re likely to love these. Farnam Street. Shane Parrish, the author of Farnam Street, is widely-read and steeped in the “worldly wisdom” of Charlie Munger.

Attention Management and Project Planning: Doing the Work Up Front

The rise of instant text-based communication has drastically changed how we communicate in the workplace, and if you’re over 30, you probably don’t need me to tell you. Instant messaging services like Slack, Gchat, Discord, and even rapid-fire back-and-forth email have had a particularly transformative effect on project planning and execution. We all know good planning is important, but these days, it feels like we can kinda get by without it.

We Could All Use a Little Coaching

“We could all use a little coaching,” business philosopher Jim Rohn used to say. I’m trained as a musician, and in the music world, coaching is the norm. The best musicians regularly play for each other and take tips from one other, because they know that no matter how good you are, there are things you just can’t see about your own performance. Bonafide virtuosos visit old teachers for a tune-up again and again, as in the case of Hollywood studio trumpeter Jerry Hey, who for nearly 40 years flew from LA to Bloomington, IN, for periodic lessons with his old college teacher, Bill Adam (until Adam’s death in 2013).