Costs Of Persuasion

Each time you allow someone to influence you against your will — whether through convincing you to buy something you didn’t want, doing something you didn’t want to do, working on something you don’t have time for — there are costs on others. Those closer to you bear a higher share of these costs. Because we feel uncomfortable letting down the requester, we pass the costs on to our loved ones instead.

Technology

Technology is morally neutral. Its effect is the difference between how much you use the technology and how much the technology uses you.

Shoulds

If you sit with your thoughts, you’ll see that ‘should’s run your life.

Minimize the ‘should’s from your inner monologue.

Compliments

If you take criticism personally, beware compliments. They are options for criticism in the future.

Consuming Media

Hypothetical: imagine that all the media—news articles, TV shows, podcast episodes—that you consumed this week was instead experienced two months from now. How much of what you consume will have no relevance or impact on you in two months? What is timeless?

Advice

All is true; none is true.

No advice works for everyone. All advice works for at least one person.

Buying

If you want to buy something, wait a week. If you want to buy it the next week, wait another week.

If you still want to buy it the week after that, buy it.

Some desires may fade, and that’s just as good as having spent for it.

The Brain’s Potential

What if I worked on every work assignment like it was a timed final exam in school?

How much time would I reclaim? How would my priorities shift?

The Best Book

The best book is the one you will absolutely devour. A love for reading is critical and should be cultivated at all costs. So read any book— romance novel, young adult literature, textbook — that gets you reading more.

I often start and discard books quickly. For a long time, I thought this was bad. My flawed solution: stop reading books altogether. How short-sighted.

Now I see it simply as an issue of match fit. When you read the right thing at the right time, you’ll read the whole thing. To get there, sampling may be better than forcing yourself to read every page of something that will just diminish your love of reading. The best book is the one you read.