Month: December 2009
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How To Read a Book a Week
Yep, I finally did it. I read over a book a week all of the past year. More than that– I never fell behind or stopped. I was always ahead of schedule for the entire year. So now, this coming year, guess what? I’d like you to do the same. Here’s how. Why in God’s…
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Internalizing the Panopticon
Spend enough time around any social group, and you internalize their rules. In other words: Spend enough time around a group, and you’ll have a very strong feeling of what they consider acceptable. More than that, you’ll actually start to behave that way. This works the same with your family, your workplace, and probably your…
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I Can’t (Read: Don’t Want To) Change
Have you ever tried to get rid of a bad habit, or change yourself for the better– quit something you enjoyed even though it was bad for you? I tried to quit coffee a few years ago because I was drinking so much of it, and figured switching to tea might be an option. It…
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One Tiny Thing
“I just need this one tiny thing before I can get started.” Do you know people like this? Friends, colleagues, or acquaintances who need the new laptop before they can write? That need just a little bit more time to do what they need? Whatever they intend to do, what they have is not sufficient?…
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It’s All Investment
Just finished reading Your Money or Your Life. Good, but so pointlessly long. It gets you thinking though. People try to be smart about investment. They know they have these assets which should work for them— stuff that they’ve done once (like work) becomes money, which can become something that gives back forever. There’s also…
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Modes
It’s amazing how easy it is to shift between modes of thinking. As you may have read in Trust Agents, I write using the Dvorak keyboard. Just now as I sat to write a post about something else entirely, I looked down and began typing the way you probably do– the way it says on…
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My Holiday Book List
So I’ve read 52 books this year! I’ve actually read a ton more, but the 52 were those I counted as fully read and over 150 pages or so. I was ahead of schedule all year, too. I’m pretty proud of having done that (but more on that later). Today, since I’m shopping for books,…
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Plugging the Holes
I was touring the Parisian subway system a few days ago. Since it’s Christmas-time, there are ads everywhere telling us that the malls are open late, or on Sundays (gasp!). But there was one more thing: Massive amounts of jewellery ads. The purpose of jewellery as a Christmas present is as follows: To convince your…
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2010 is the Year of the List
I used to name my years. It started maybe 5 years ago. I have this vivid memory of the exact moment when I was explaining it to my friend Jean– we were in the train station heading towards our office when I told him about how I started naming my years. I’m thinking this was…
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Why You’re a Social Media Douche
Informal poll: How interesting are your friends’ Facebook pages? Let’s try an experiment. Compare your “real” friends’ Facebook pages to those that belong to the social media douches in your network (you know who they are). I’m going to bet that your normal friends have far more interesting, diverse pages that contain actual conversation, jokes,…