Making Mistakes, No Meetings & Finding Stillness
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.
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