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Despite the questionability of this guy's reputation and the outlandishness of some of his claims, this is actually a decent article about time management. I've worked with a lot of people in both academia and startup land who would do well to read this. Here are my thoughts on some of his best points. "Every activity has an opportunity cost." I'm dumbfounded by the number of entrepreneurs and engineers I run into who don't understand the concept of opportunity cost. If you aren't consciously aware that every month you spend doing X is a month you didn't spend doing Y, then you're going to be very inefficient. A startup is a race against the clock (your diminishing bank account), so inefficiency can mean death. "Work all the time you work." One of the unofficial mottos of MIT was "work hard, play hard". In other words, when you're working, work, and when you're not, don't. The most miserable students were those who attempted to study while hanging out, watching movies, etc. They'd spend entire days in a half-work half-play state, which of course results in no work getting done, and less-than-satisfactory entertainment as well. I should know -- that was me for a year. There are some pretty good techniques for breaking this habit, but first you have to be consciously aware that you actually have this problem. "People who succeed also fail a great deal." This is cliche, I know. But it's some of the most misunderstood advice of all time. People only think of it on a macro level, because the examples are always of the form, "Person X failed at starting 3 companies before he created SuperSuccessfulMegaCorp!" But I think it's more important to understand this advice on a micro level. For example, I used to be an incredibly shitty web designer, but now I'd say I'm pretty good at it. What changed? When I first started, I would make a design, it would suck, and I'd say, "I suck." Then I would release my shitty design and move on to something else. Nowadays when I make a design, it still sucks... but instead of releasing it, I start tinkering with it. It continues to suck. I fail for hours and hours. At some point, I usually lose confidence in myself. But I keep working and, on a consistent basis, I always manage to "stumble upon" a great-looking design. So learning to fail is, in essence, learning to be a perfectionist. I think this is a useful skill for any creative profession (writing, coding, designing, etc). |