Tag: blogs

The best from “Wait but Why?”

I love the blog of Tim Urban: Wait but Why.  He gave a TED talk a year or so ago, but I think it is best to get to know him through his mastery of the quirky doodle & story form that he delivers in his blog.

These are some of my favourite posts, so that you can get a flavour of Wait but Why:

Conor’s Favourites on Wait but Why

The Apple Game – how good a person are you?  People are not just good or bad… there are many more flavours.  Tim explains that he and his friends group people into 9 categories based on his “apple” metaphor.  An apple has skin, fruit and core.  A person can have good “skin” but rotten flesh.  Here’s Tim’s analysis of the 9 types of people: The Apple Game – how good a person are you?

Back in 2015, Tim wrote an email to Elon Musk asking about his rockets.  In a shock to Tim, Elon invited him to come and spend a couple of days with him and write up the story.  Here’s an insight into Elon Musk’s rocket factory as only Tim could deliver: SpaceX’s f**king big rocket, the full story

Given that you are reading this post, you are probably procrastinating.  If you can tell me that this really is the most important task of your day, then skip this…  but otherwise – yes, you are procrastinating.  Why do we do it?  Over to Tim: Why procrastinators procrastinate  but!  there is something we can do How to beat procrastination

but my favourite post of all… and don’t click on this unless you have an hour to go through the post:

Putting Time in Perspective

And, now that you’ve got a taste for this “time in perspective” brand of thinking, here’s another one:  Your life in weeks.

And a bonus.  A new word invented by Tim.  How to feel bad about others feeling bad when they actually don’t.  The word for this: “Cluey”.  Definition here.

You can follow Tim on twitter…

5 Blog Posts that Really Changed my Perspective on Big Things

I had coffee this morning with an entrepreneur from Barcelona and fellow member of Entrepreneurs’ Organisation.  I spoke about a couple of blog posts that had really impacted me and changed my perspectives on life.  He asked me to share my list.  Here it is.

5 Blog Posts that Changed My Perspectives

Opening New Perspectives, Photo Credit: floato

Derek Sivers’ post “You don’t have to be local” was a real perspective shift for me. I have spent many years connecting into the local Barcelona entrepreneur community… and I really resonated with Derek’s perspective. I enjoy writing, blogging, travelling with Barcelona as a base.  This post allowed me to feel less need to search for purely local connection.

Paul Graham’s post “Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule” helped me make a big shift away from my Accenture lifestyle and manager focus towards a creator schedule.  I take fewer and fewer short meetings and look at only taking 2, 4 and 8 hour meetings.  This amount of time allows me to go deep into solutions and actually create something new.  15 minute meetings, 30 minute meetings really just make me feel busy, but do not actually lead to anything productive as an outcome.

David Maister’s short ebook “Strategy and the Fat Smoker” helped me take a more helpful perspective on long versus short term goals.  In the end, strategy fails because the hourly, daily grind of execution doesn’t measure up to the good intentions.  The fat smoker didn’t intend to be overweight and ill at 50, it was due to little daily breaks in the plan.

Leo Babauta writes the blog Zen Habits.  His reflection on “Why We Procrastinate” resonated with my personal experience.  His post didn’t solve my procrastination problem, but it did set me on the path to practicing focus.  My own post on Self-Discipline was inspired by Leo Babauta.

Steven Pressfield wrote “The War of Art” and helped me understand that the little voice in my head that questions why I am writing, who am I to think I have something to say, what will one article change is not me, it is “Resistance“.  Each day, the creator must sit down and push through this voice of resistance and “Do The Deep Work“.

Great Blogs

Bloggers that I love and read every post, but there is not one single post that I can point out:

Reading blogs

I use feedly to keep all the blog posts in one easy to read place.

What else am I missing?

What blog posts have impacted you?  What are the blogs that you regularly read?

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