Focus is important for making improvements. If your focus is spread too widely, you won’t make much progress. If you can’t stay focused on one project for long, you won’t be able to reach a foothold before you slide back to where you started. One trick I like to use to stay focused is to […]
How Much Stuff Do You Need?
You need stuff to live. You need food to eat, water to drink and (at least in most climates) a roof over your head. At a basic level, stuff is necessary for survival. The question is, how much stuff do you really need? And, how can you own things without having them control your life? […]
Finding Motivation for Improbable Goals
In two previous articles, I wrote about my desire to live a completely digital life. A digital lifestyle is when all of your income generation doesn’t depend on a location. Preferably through a business (although freelancing and a few jobs would allow you to go digital), this would mean you can live anywhere in the […]
The Goal of Learning Everything
Recently, I wrote about my goal of learning everything. This is more than a tad ambitious, and probably impossible. Even learning a small fraction of everything can have huge benefits that ripple outwards towards every other area of life. Unfortunately, most people fall into a group I’ll call “functional” learners, and severely cut off their […]
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.