I’m against downloading music. While this may not seem like an unusual position, as a college-aged kid, this puts me in the minority. Most of my friends have fairly large unpaid-for music libraries. Unfortunately, I see the trend expanding as many of my middle-aged friends are getting iPods and jumping on the free-music bandwagon. I’m […]
Sprinting Theory: How to Have Self-Discipline on Steroids
There ain’t no such thing as willpower. Explaining away wins and losses by some magical force is only useful if you don’t understand anything about your own psychology. Having concrete theories about why your self-discipline can fail you is far more useful. I’m going to explore one of those ideas for putting your self-discipline on […]
Riding the Tipping Point: 6 Tips for Using Exponential Growth
If nobody can work 100 times harder than you, then how can some people earn 100, 1 000 or even a 1 000 000 times the results? The answer is that most problems don’t work on a straight line, giving the same amount of results for each hour you invest. The Stonecutter’s Dilemma is a […]
How to Start Projects You’ll Actually Finish
How often do you get that next “great idea”? How often do those “great ideas” result in something you can hold in your hands? It’s easy to have that work-in-progress sit in your basement or hard drive for months without ever being “quite ready”. It’s even easier to start projects that get pushed aside after […]
I'm a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, podcast host, computer programmer and an avid reader. Since 2006, I've published weekly essays on this website to help people like you learn and think better. My work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, TEDx, Pocket, Business Insider and more. I don't promise I have all the answers, just a place to start.