Being injured sucks. I should know; I’ve been there enough times. At the moment, I’m dealing with a chronic foot injury. The little bones in the ball of my right foot are inflamed, and they’re taking their sweet time to heal. I could, of course, be upset about this. And sometimes I am. But that doesn’t do me any good. A better option is to use my philosophy. The first… Read More »The Stoic Approach to Injury
I often advise keeping your eyes on the process rather than keeping your eyes on the prize. In other words, focus on your effort, not the results you’re aiming for. Pour your energy into the work, and the results will usually take care of themselves. But last week, Seth Godin reminded me that it’s not that simple: “We expend effort. We create value. It’s easy to get confused about which… Read More »Are Your Efforts Effective?
Lately, I’ve been really busy. My work is in its busiest season. We’ve been house hunting. Friends and family keep inviting us to events we can’t say “no” to. I’m piecing together plans for a complicated vacation next year. And every week, there are a dozen urgent but unexpected tasks to take care of. I also haven’t been writing much, finding it hard to focus enough to do deep work.… Read More »What Stillness Brings
“The meaning you give work determines its difficulty. A coder working on a passion project works 12 hours straight and calls it energizing. That same programmer, doing maintenance on legacy code they consider meaningless, feels exhausted after 2 hours. Your relationship with the work shapes its weight more than the work itself.” –Shane Parrish1 In both of the cases above, the coder was working for money. But in the first… Read More »How to Be Energized by Your Work