Weekly Mix #174 - Making Mistakes, No Meetings & Finding Stillness

Weekly Mix #174 - Making Mistakes, No Meetings & Finding Stillness

​

Happy Monday!

I hope you had a relaxing weekend after a crazy week.

One of the quotes I've been thinking about:

“To bear trials with a calm mind robs misfortune of its strength and burden.”—Seneca

In this week’s newsletter:

Blog Post: How to Make Mistakes​

Blog Post: Why I Switched From Squarespace to Webflow​

Book Notes: Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson​

Article: No Meetings, No Deadlines, No Full-Time Employees - Sahil Lavingia​

Article: 28 Ways to Find the Stillness You Need to Thrive - Ryan Holiday​

Article: What's In My Bag, 2020 - Matt Mullenweg​

Article: Shearing Sheep, and Hewing to Tradition, on an Island in Maine - NYT​

10 Tweets

Have a wonderful week!

Graham

Blog Post: How to Make Mistakes​

Making mistakes gracefully has long been a personal weakness.

I think that's true for most people; we just aren't wired for it.

In this post I explore why that's true, and the strategies I've found have helped me get better.

"Good school learners are often bad mistake-based learners because they are bothered by their mistakes. I particularly see this problem in recent graduates from the best colleges, who frequently shy away from exploring their own weaknesses."—Ray Dalio, Principles

Blog Post: Why I Switched From Squarespace to Webflow​

For those of you interested in building a personal website, I explain why my recommendation is now Webflow.

tl;dr: speed.

Book Notes: Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson​

I re-read this again after enjoying It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work, and loved it.

A quick read, packed with information about how to work and how to build products and startups. I'm convinced there's something for everyone in the book.

Article: No Meetings, No Deadlines, No Full-Time Employees - Sahil Lavingia​

Sahil is the founder of Gumroad, a platform that makes it easy for creators to sell online.

As we enter the new year, this piece helps spur thinking about what our work could be like, and how we might improve our own work habits.

Article: 28 Ways to Find the Stillness You Need to Thrive - Ryan Holiday​

It was a crazy week.

Here are some ideas for finding a little bit of calm.

Article: What's In My Bag, 2020 - Matt Mullenweg​

Matt Mullenweg, by all accounts, is a wonderful, thoughtful, interesting person, and this is his annual post about the items he's enjoyed the most from the previous year.

This year had an extra #vanlife focus, since he spent a lot of his year traveling around in a van, working remotely.

I can vouch for some of the items on the list:

AllTrails app

Theragun

everything Matador

Phillips Hue lights

Article: Shearing Sheep, and Hewing to Tradition, on an Island in Maine - NYT​

A break from the usual programming, but a glimpse into what life can be like for those of us outside the usual tech/hub city bubbles.

What I particularly like about this example is the mix of lifestyles. Taking a few weeks off throughout the year to pursue something totally different from one's usual profession appeals a lot to me.

(One I've been thinking about: taking time off for construction of cottages/cabins)

10 Tweets

Some of my favourite tweets and tweetstorms from the week:

​20+ takeaways from To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink​

​Career advice you don't want to hear - Nick Huber​

​10 significant lies you’re told about the world - Julian Shapiro​

​10 strategies for publishing weekly - Lenny Rachitsky​

​A tool to avoid pointless meetings by faking a bad connection on Zoom - Ryan Hoover​

​Making 100 YouTube videos - Visa Kanv​

​Whiteboarding with kids before bedtime - Marcin Czech​

​Saving $15K as a bartender to travel the world - Alice Lemée​

​The Blank Sheet Method to 10x reading comprehension - Farnam Street​

Thank you for being part of the newsletter every week.

It means so much that you let me be part of your inbox, and I love building a community of like-minded people with you.

If I could ask one thing: could you forward this to one person you think would enjoy it? They can sign up directly for the newsletter here.​

If you haven’t yet, feel free to follow me on Instagram and Twitter, and say hi!