So true…

Life is slower on paper, and that’s a good thing!

Seth on dates:

One of the most expensive things a service business or freelancer can do is promise that work will be done by a certain day. Which is something we need to do, of course, but we should charge appropriately. “It’ll be done soon,” should be way cheaper than, “It’ll be done at exactly 11 am on Tuesday.”

And one of the most important things we can do to focus our energy and commitment is be prepared to promise a date certain. It sharpens everything.

Seth nailed the essence of a Zoom meeting:

The purpose of a meeting is not to fill the allocated slot on the Google calendar invite. The purpose is to communicate an idea and the emotions that go with it, and to find out what’s missing via engaged conversation.

Messier is better.

For meetings, I have a yellow legal pad and a .5mm rollerball. I used to roll with a .38mm, but the .5 feels way more messy and therefore better.

Productivity is a philosophy.

Influencers make us feel that productivity is important, and yet they rarely define the term, let alone helpfully. For example, David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) book, which became very popular in software circles, uses the term productivity very loosely. Many of the core examples in the GTD method relate to general activities such as cleaning one’s garage as opposed to working with knowledge. And the GTD principles have no reference to cognitive science, even though cognitive science is the modern interdisciplinary science of understanding the information processing we do in our brains, with or without the aid of technology.

Write about the things you practice; practice the things you write about. Words without action is fraudulent. (It’s hard, but I try.)

Professionals don’t need fake deadlines and don’t respect them. Instead, we have the chance to build in appropriate slack, get our priorities straight and keep our promises.

In the world of the compass, direction is important. Where are we going? Why excatly are we once again on a Monday morning feeling out of control? In the world of the compass we are concerned less about 'getting stuff done' and more about getting the right things done. Do those and we invariably have to get less stuff done tomorrow.

Change your clock for a compass.

Having a clear purpose is the key for a happy life.

Even when researchers compared lonely people with purpose to social butterflies without it, purpose came out on top. In other words, it’s possible when we’re doing things to better our society, the body assumes there’s a society there to better. We’re technically alone, but it doesn’t feel that way.

Via Jason Kottke