Success & Motivation: What Will You Remember When You are 90. Unique opportunities. How many of them will you have in your life ? 1 ? None ? 100s ? The thing about life is that its impossible to know. As something you has been incredibly blessed, let me just tell you that the things at the top of my list are not numbers or dollars. A lot of people think Im crazy, or chasing publicity, or whatever. Before I started Motley’s Pub with Evan Williams when we were at Indiana University and I wasnt even old enough to drink, it was the question i asked myself. When Im 90, will I smile when i think back, or will I frown and regret not having done it.
There's no speed limit. (The lessons that changed my life.) Whether you're a student, teacher, or parent, I think you'll appreciate this story of how one teacher can completely and permanently change someone's life in only a few lessons. I met Kimo Williams when I was 17 - the summer after I graduated high school in Chicago, a few months before I was starting Berklee College of Music. I called an ad in the paper by a recording studio, with a random question about music typesetting.
When the studio owner heard I was going to Berklee, he said, “I graduated from Berklee, and taught there for a few years, too. I'll bet I can teach you two years' of theory and arranging in only a few lessons. I suspect you can graduate in two years if you understand there's no speed limit. Come by my studio at 9:00 tomorrow for your first lesson, if you're interested. No charge.” Graduate college in two years? Excited as hell, I showed up to his studio at 8:40 the next morning, though I waited outside until 8:59 before ringing his bell.
He opened the door. “Right! P.S. HOWTO: Be more productive (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought) Translations: 日本語 | Русский | Беларуская “With all the time you spend watching TV,” he tells me, “you could have written a novel by now.” It’s hard to disagree with the sentiment — writing a novel is undoubtedly a better use of time than watching TV — but what about the hidden assumption?
Such comments imply that time is “fungible” — that time spent watching TV can just as easily be spent writing a novel. And sadly, that’s just not the case. Time has various levels of quality. If you want to be more productive then, you have to recognize this fact and deal with it. Spend time efficiently Choose good problems Life is short (or so I’m told) so why waste it doing something dumb?
This isn’t to say that all your time should be spent on the most important problem in the world. Have a bunch of them Another common myth is that you’ll get more done if you pick one problem and focus on it exclusively. Having a lot of different projects gives you work for different qualities of time. Make a list Notes. Quot;cartoons drawn on the back of business cards": how to.
Ignore everybody [BIG NEWS: My new book, "Ignore Everybody"was launched June 11th, 2009. You can find out more details here, and you can order the book here: Amazon. Barnes & Noble. Borders. 800-CEO-READ. IndieBound. So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. 2. The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you.
You don't know if your idea is any good the moment it's created. And asking close friends never works quite as well as you hope, either. Plus a big idea will change you. Ergo, they have no incentive to see you change. With business colleagues it's even worse. If your idea is so good that it changes your dynamic enough to where you need them less, or God forbid, THE MARKET needs them less, then they're going to resist your idea every chance they can.
Again, that's human nature. Good ideas come with a heavy burden. 2. We all spend a lot of time being impressed by folk we've never met. I'm as guilty as anyone. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.