Hope everyone had a great Christmas! I put together last month’s and this month’s Instapaper highlights—enjoy.
November Highlights
10 productivity lessons I learned writing an 80,000-word book in 6 months
“The most productive people don’t only step back to figure out where they make the biggest impact, they also make an effort to delegate, eliminate, and shrink everything else.”
This is something I’m working on getting better at in my consulting role. It feels weird to dedicate tasks to other coworkers, but the fact of it is if you’re overbooked, and someone on the team isn’t, it’s your duty to delegate. In the business sense, I’d rather delegate the bulk of the work and make $1,000, than do the entire thing and make $1,500. Because with my time saved I can go and make another sale, or do more impactful work.
Master the basics
“You can never get too good at the fundamentals, so write them down and revisit them often. It’s some of the best advice I’ve ever received.”
I 100% agree with this, and it’s the reason I’m going through DistilledU and some core courses for SEO and web development in early 2017. It isn’t because I don’t know it, it’s because I can always know it better.
How to Deal with Stress: 33 Tips That Work
“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” – Sydney J. Harris
“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.” – Bertrand Russell
These two quotes go hand-in-hand for me. I got extremely sick last week, and it happened to be a very important week at work for me. I was forced to stay home and get better, and it made me realize that what I do isn’t that important. The world doesn’t stop spinning if I’m out for a week, and my health is more important than anything else.
Want to Really Make America Great Again? Stop Reading the News
“’If you wish to improve,’” Epictetus once said, ‘be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters.’ One of the most powerful things we can do as a human being in our hyperconnected, 24/7 media world is say: ‘I don’t know.’ Or, more provocatively: ‘I don’t care.’ Not about everything of course—just most things. Because most things don’t matter, and most news stories aren’t worth tracking.”
This article was spot-on for me. I tend to not be involved in politics that much, so chances are I didn’t read that article or see the latest news clip on Trump or Russia or whoever. People treat this as a sin, but frankly I don’t care about what those people are doing. I have enough to focus on with work and my personal life—I don’t need a bunch of negative and useless news filling my brain as well.
December Highlights
Lazy Leadership: Why I rarely go to the office, only see my team a couple times a week, and let other people make important decisions
“If your business depends on you, you don’t own a business, you have a job. And it’s the worst job in the world because you’re working for a lunatic.” — Michael Gerber, The E Myth
The best business owners don’t do everything, they hire amazing people that do things better than them.
Five Leadership Hacks
“To me, a hack is a clever or unexpectedly efficient means of getting something done. A good hack should feel like cheating because the value created by the hack feels completely disproportionate from work done.”
I hate it when someone calls something a “hack” when it’s really not. If your “hack” doesn’t save me time or money, it isn’t a hack.
Getting Things Done GTD: In Praise of the Last Minute
“And if I give myself twice as long to pack, I don’t wind up packing twice as well. Maybe 3% better. But the double stress I put myself through is not worth it.”
An interesting post on GTD and why sometimes saving things for the last minute is best. Packing is one example, but for me creating presentations for client is another. If I have a presentation in 1 month I will stress out for 1 month unless I set a task and defer it for a week before the presentation.
The Fall of the Music Blogger
“….oh, and stop calling albums classic or throwaways after it’s been out for 2 hours, y’all don’t even remember the lyrics to one song yet, stop it.”
The way we live today people are calling albums classics or trash within minutes of hearing a few songs… that’s ridiculous. There are very few people I listen to when it comes to music opinions, and this is why.
1,500 People Give All the Relationship Advice You’ll Ever Need
“Respect yourself and your wife. Never talk badly to or about her. If you don’t respect your wife, you don’t respect yourself. You chose her – live up to that choice.”
“One reader commented that at her wedding, an elderly family member told her, ‘One day many years from now, you will wake up and your spouse will be a different person, make sure you fall in love with that person too.’
This article was a great read for those in relationships. I read it and immediately sent it to my fiancé and we exchanged notes on what we thought we did well on, and what we thought we could improve on from the list. I highly recommend it.