Highlights first synced by #Readwise [[October 5th, 2020]]

Focus on being productive instead of busy. (Location 651)

“Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it “eventually,” just do it and correct course along the way. (Location 657)

Ask for Forgiveness, Not Permission. (Location 660) #favourite

Get good at being a troublemaker and saying sorry when you really screw up. (Location 664)

Emphasize Strengths, Don’t Fix Weaknesses. (Location 665)

Things in Excess Become Their Opposite. It is possible to have too much of a good thing. In excess, most endeavors and possessions take on the characteristics of their opposite. (Location 673)

Conquering Fear = Defining Fear (Location 803)

There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens. (Location 824) #favourite

Are you better off than you were one year ago, one month ago, or one week ago? If not, things will not improve by themselves. If you are kidding yourself, it is time to stop and plan for a jump. (Location 835)

Doing the Unrealistic Is Easier Than Doing the Realistic (Location 937) Note: It’s lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for “realistic” goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy-consuming.

Unreasonable and unrealistic goals are easier to achieve for yet another reason. (Location 944) Note: Having an unusually large goal is an adrenaline infusion that provides the endurance to overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations that go along with any goal.

Doing big things begins with asking for them properly. (Location 954)

What Do You Want? A Better Question, First of All (Location 955)

Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all. When people suggest you follow your “passion” or your “bliss,” I propose that they are, in fact, referring to the same singular concept: excitement. This brings us full circle. The question you should be asking isn’t, “What do I want?” or “What are my goals?” but “What would excite me?” (Location 966)

boredom is the enemy, not some abstract “failure.” (Location 996)

Correcting Course: Get Unrealistic (Location 997)

dreamlining. Dreamlining is so named because it applies timelines to what most would consider dreams. It is much like goal-setting but differs in several fundamental respects: 1. The goals shift from ambiguous wants to defined steps. 2. The goals have to be unrealistic to be effective. 3. It focuses on activities that will fill the vacuum created when work is removed. (Location 1000)

Living like a millionaire requires doing interesting things and not just owning enviable things. (Location 1004)

“I believe that success can be measured in the number of uncomfortable conversations you’re willing to have. (Location 1024)

“Just as words are inadequate to explain true happiness, so too are words inadequate to express my thanks.” (Location 1037)

‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ You won’t believe what you can accomplish by attempting the impossible with the courage to repeatedly fail better.” (Location 1047)

Life is too short to be small. (Location 1059)

Convert each “being” into a “doing” to make it actionable. Identify an action that would characterize this state of being or a task that would mean you had achieved it. (Location 1087)

Tomorrow becomes never. No matter how small the task, take the first step now! (Location 1147)

To have an uncommon lifestyle, you need to develop the uncommon habit of making decisions, both for yourself and for others (Location 1152)

One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity. (Location 1169)

it is not only possible to accomplish more by doing less, it is mandatory. (Location 1190)

EFFECTIVENESS IS DOING the things that get you closer to your goals. Efficiency is performing a given task (whether important or not) in the most economical manner possible. Being efficient without regard to effectiveness is the default mode of the universe. (Location 1212)

1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important. 2. Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important. (Location 1220)

What you do is infinitely more important than how you do it. (Location 1222)

New highlights added [[October 5th, 2020]] at 5:52 PM

There are two synergistic approaches for increasing productivity that are inversions of each other: 1. Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20). 2. Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson’s Law). (Location 1347)

What 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness? What 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcome and happiness? (Location 1400)

Learn to ask, “If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?” (Location 1442)

Learn to Propose (2 Days) Stop asking for opinions and start proposing solutions. Begin with the small things. If someone is going to ask, or asks, “Where should we eat?” “What movie should we watch?” “What should we do tonight?” or anything similar, do NOT reflect it back with, “Well, what do you want to …?” Offer a solution. (Location 1481)

But what if someone has an emergency? It doesn’t happen. My contacts now know that I don’t respond to emergencies, so the emergencies somehow don’t exist or don’t come to me. Problems, as a rule, solve themselves or disappear if you remove yourself as an information bottleneck and empower others. (Location 1520)

1. Two Minutes: Use a pen or finger to trace under each line as you read as fast as possible. Reading is a series of jumping snapshots (called saccades), and using a visual guide prevents regression. 2. Three Minutes: Begin each line focusing on the third word in from the first word, and end each line focusing on the third word in from the last word. This makes use of peripheral vision that is otherwise wasted on margins. For example, even when the highlighted words in the next line are your beginning and ending focal points, the entire sentence is “read,” just with less eye movement: “Once upon a time, an information addict decided to detox.” Move in from both sides further and further as it gets easier. 3. Two Minutes: Once comfortable indenting three or four words from both sides, attempt to take only two snapshots—also known as fixations—per line on the first and last indented words. 4. Three Minutes: Practice reading too fast for comprehension but with good technique (the above three techniques) for five pages prior to reading at a comfortable speed. (Location 1561)

Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. —RALPH CHARELL (Location 1647)

Learn to be difficult when it counts. In school as in life, having a reputation for being assertive will help you receive preferential treatment without having to beg or fight for it every time. (Location 1667)

Not All Evils Are Created Equal FOR OUR PURPOSES, an interruption is anything that prevents the start-to-finish completion of a critical task, and there are three principal offenders: Time wasters: those things that can be ignored with little or no consequence. Common time wasters include meetings, discussions, phone calls, web surfing, and e-mail that are unimportant. Time consumers: repetitive tasks or requests that need to be completed but often interrupt high-level work. Here are a few you might know intimately: reading and responding to e-mail, making and returning phone calls, customer service (order status, product assistance, etc.), financial or sales reporting, personal errands, all necessary repeated actions and tasks. Empowerment failures: instances where someone needs approval to make something small happen. Here are just a few: fixing customer problems (lost shipments, damaged shipments, malfunctions, etc.), customer contact, cash expenditures of all types. (Location 1675)

A schedule defends from chaos and whim. (Location 1849)

There is an inescapable setup time for all tasks, large or minuscule in scale. It is often the same for one as it is for a hundred. There is a psychological switching of gears that can require up to 45 minutes to resume a major task that has been interrupted. More than a quarter of each 9–5 period (28%) is consumed by such interruptions. (Location 1865) Note: This is why batching of several related tasks can help. Setup costs need to be met every time. So might as well do th setup only once and bash through the tasks. Also, focus changing is detrimental to productivity.

New highlights added [[October 11th, 2020]] at 6:43 AM

The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet. (Location 2196)

Eliminate before you delegate. (Location 2253)

As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble. (Location 2637)

cash flow and time. With these two currencies, all other things are possible. Without them, nothing is possible. (Location 2709)

New highlights added [[October 12th, 2020]] at 7:42 AM

The Main Benefit Should Be Encapsulated in One Sentence. (Location 2810) Note: Context: Making products for passive income

It Should Cost the Customer $50–200. (Location 2816) Note: Context: Making products for passive income

It Should Take No More Than 3 to 4 Weeks to Manufacture. (Location 2830) Note: Context: Making products for passive income

It Should Be Fully Explainable in a Good Online FAQ. (Location 2841) Note: Context: Making products for passive income

New highlights added [[October 12th, 2020]] at 3:58 PM

Think narrow and deep rather than broad. (Location 2939) Note: Context: Selling stuf. Can be and should be used for A Productive Nerd blogposts

Do you have a failure-to-success story that could be turned into a how-to product for others? Consider problems you’ve overcome in the past, both professional and personal. (Location 2947)

New highlights added [[October 13th, 2020]] at 8:36 AM

The system is the solution. (Location 3676)

By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day. —ROBERT FROST, (Location 4053)

New highlights added [[October 13th, 2020]] at 9:22 AM

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (Location 4215)

If you must play, decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time. (Location 4327)

New highlights added [[October 14th, 2020]] at 7:46 AM

Before the development of tourism, travel was conceived to be like study, and its fruits were considered to be the adornment of the mind and the formation of the judgment. (Location 4471)

New highlights added [[October 15th, 2020]] at 11:23 AM

To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass. (Location 5188)

People say that what we are seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive. (Location 5235)

If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it. (Location 5276) Note: Whether a deep ass question is even worth it. Don't care to answer if it is otherwise

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. (Location 5281)

TO LIVE IS to learn. I see no other option. (Location 5297)

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people we personally dislike. (Location 5325)

Adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for ideas. (Location 5346)