On building versus tending
The tension between making something new and maintaining what exists.
Topic
#foundations
22 posts on this topic.
The quiet discipline
The work that happens when no one is watching, and no one will know.
The useful constraint
On putting walls around your work, on purpose.
The sunk cost you live in
On staying somewhere long after the reason for staying has expired.
The single source of truth
The quiet cost of keeping things in more than one place.
The problem with best practices
Borrowed solutions to someone else's problem.
The dead hand of defaults
Most of how you live was decided before you thought to ask.
Writing things down
Not for memory. For thinking.
Why constraints clarify
On the counterintuitive freedom that comes from working within limits.
The 2-minute rule, revisited
David Allen's rule works. But it's teaching you something bigger.
On commitment and optionality
Why keeping your options open might be the most expensive choice you make.
The return policy
Why knowing how to quit is a core competency, not a flaw.
Clearing the decks
What you put away matters as much as what you pick up.
The slow hunch
Why the best ideas take years to arrive — and how to help them along.
One non-negotiable
The thing you do no matter what is the thing that defines you.
What first principles actually mean
Most people talk about first principles thinking. Almost nobody does it.
The morning ritual myth
Why copying someone else's morning rarely sticks.
Small reps compound
The case for doing the forgettable thing, every day, on purpose.
The identity you inherit
Before you can build who you want to be, you have to see who you were handed.
The floor, not the ceiling
What minimum viable commitment actually buys you.
Why systems outlast motivation
Motivation is a visitor. Systems are the house.
The keystone hour
Why the first hour you control shapes everything that follows.