If you expect to do anything important in life - stay healthy, develop expertise, build a business, become financially independent - there is one quality that you absolutely need: the ability to delay gratification Knowledge, skill and experience are essential, of course. A little bit of luck now and then is useful too. But without … Continue reading Don’t go overboard with delayed gratification
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On Certainty
Certainty doesn't exist but we're just never aware of it. One of the many ironies of the pandemic is the way it has intensified our awareness of how little control we have over the future. It has intensified our awareness; it has not created uncertainty. In our pre-pandemic world, we reassured ourselves with the story that we were … Continue reading On Certainty
On the Value of Values
Imagine you just received a job offer. It's from a reputed corporation and comes with a fantastic compensation package, but the job itself is boring and requires you to be on the road most of the time. What would you do? For some, this would be a dream come true - “What? All that money … Continue reading On the Value of Values
Career advice for high-schoolers
A few weeks ago I participated in a career panel for high-schoolers at my son’s school. Generally, I avoid advising people I’m not familiar with, but I thought about my younger self, realized how valuable such a forum would have been to him, and decided to share whatever experiences I had with the students. After my … Continue reading Career advice for high-schoolers
Why we’re always late
When I set out to write this blog I had a very modest goal: to publish one post every two weeks. And yet, for the duration of this exercise, I've been able to keep to this plan only once, missing my deadline by at least a day on every other occasion. Being delayed on an … Continue reading Why we’re always late
Routines are deliberate choices about how we use our time
For most people, the idea of repeating a fixed set of actions day in and day out, maintaining a routine, in other words, conjures vivid images of boredom and monotony, the apparent sameness suggesting their lives lacks excitement. But everyone I know who produces consistently lives and swears by a routine. They take advantage of … Continue reading Routines are deliberate choices about how we use our time
Adding friction to your online shopping experience
Shopping in the modern world is an experience to behold: access an unlimited array of products any time of day from the comfort of your own home and with only a few clicks have it delivered to your doorstep, sometimes, in only a few hours. Online shopping wasn't always this easy. Retailers started shifting their … Continue reading Adding friction to your online shopping experience
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
Say you're walking around at a conference and someone stops you and asks, "How good are you at what you do? How much do you know about your area of expertise? How confident are you in the decisions you take?" How would you respond? Most people with only a slight hesitation will confidently rate themselves … Continue reading The Dunning-Kruger Effect
Developing technique for everyday activity
Pick up a book, any book, preferably one with dense text. Open to a random page and read for five minutes. Don’t worry about comprehension, just read until your time is up and count the number words read. Now repeat the test with a slight modification - use the index finger of your dominant hand … Continue reading Developing technique for everyday activity
Bertrand Russell on the importance of leisure
Humans are obsessed with work. Work serves as the lens through which we, as individuals, societies, and nations, evaluate progress and development. And according to this view, leisure is a nuisance, that only serves to slow down progress. The importance of work over leisure is apparent in the literature from the past two centuries. Technological advances … Continue reading Bertrand Russell on the importance of leisure
The Skatter Brain 