Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
Focus is about saying no. Anyone can say no to bad ideas, but only a focused person will say no to good ideas. Focus is something that people consistently bring up as a key to success. When Warren Buffett was asked the key to his success, …
We are drowning in information. Most of that information is irrelevant. If only we could sort what matters from what doesn’t. The good news is that you can train your brain to evaluate the quality of information. Not only can you …
There’s a good chance most of the problems in your life and work come down to insufficient slack. Here’s how slack works and why you need more of it. Imagine if you, as a budding productivity enthusiast, one day gained access to a time …
Innovation doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Doers and thinkers from Shakespeare to Jobs, liberally “stole” inspiration from the doers and thinkers who came before. Here’s how to do it right. *** “If I have seen further,” Isaac Newton wrote in a …
The key to better results isn’t working harder. Most of us already work long hours. The problem is we don’t always work smart. We all have the same amount of time each day to invest. What differentiates us is how we invest that …
Consider two contrasting daily schedules. Novelist Haruki Murakami starts writing at 4am and writes for about 5-6 hours straight. Then he runs or swims, and reads or listens to music before a 9pm bedtime. He’s known for his strict …
Nothing will change your future trajectory like your habits. We all have goals, big or small, things we want to achieve within a certain time frame. Maybe you want to make a million dollars by the time you turn 30. Or to lose 20 pounds …
Echoing the comments of William Deresiewicz, Charlie Munger offers some sage advice on multi-tasking: I will say this, I know no wise person who doesn’t read a lot. I suspect that you can read on the computer now and get a lot of benefit …
Comedian Drew Carey outsourced the development of his productivity strategy to David Allen, author of the cult classic, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, who “taught him how to adhere to specific next steps …
We’re often told to manage our time, but managing our energy can be far more effective. Managing your energy lets you fully engage with whatever you’re doing. Here, we examine the four key principles of energy management. *** One of the …
To-do lists are evil from a productivity perspective, it’s much more effective to schedule time. This is something New York Times science writer John Tierney and psychologist Roy F. Baumeister expand upon in “A Brief History of the …
A telling excerpt from an interview of Warren Buffett (below) on the value of reading. Seems like he’s taking the opposite approach to Nassim Taleb in some ways. Interviewer: How do you keep up with all the media and information that …
People ask me about productivity habits all the time. I’ve packaged most of that advice in a productivity webinar available to members but I wanted to tell you one counter-intuitive strategy that a lot of people use to increase their …
In a world of more requests than we can possibly fulfill, learning how to say no with grace and style is a skill we all need. We should be saying no more than we say yes, although the opposite is usually true. We say yes too quickly and no …
“Resist the temptation to say yes too often.” *** Everyone wants a part of your time. Even me. The problem is we don’t really understand the nature of time. And so we waste it. We can learn to better harmonize our time …
“The goal of a mini-habit is to be consistent. In fact, consistency is much more important than what you accomplish with this daily habit.” The Mini-Habit The idea behind mini habits is that you can get to a larger habit if you start small, …
“Think of all the years passed by in which you said to yourself “I’ll do it tomorrow,” and how the gods have again and again granted you periods of grace of which you have not availed yourself. It is time to realize that you are …
It’s interesting to think about the things you want to accomplish in life and work towards those goals. This is, after all, what we’ve been taught to do since birth. But over time we accumulate other habits and end up spending …
We start every day knowing we’re not going to get it all done or fit it all in. How we spend our time is really a function of priorities. That’s why Peter Bregman argues in 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and …
Rather than read all of these self-help books full of things you should start doing to be more productive, it’s often better to look at what you should stop doing that gets in the way of productivity. Looking at a problem backwards is …
Here are some easy tips to improve your performance at almost anything. How you practice makes a big difference. You need to think about feedback loops, deliberate practice, and working in chunks. The mindset between top performers and …
We’re not designed for multitasking and we’re certainly not designed to work continuously without a break. We’re designed to pulse, that is alternate between expending energy and recovering. Pulses (via Overwhelmed: Work, …
You’re busy. I get it. But what can we do about it? What would you do if your schedule suddenly opened up and we found we have more time? I bet you’d reply with read, travel, and maybe even sleep. Some of you would want to …
Why did you click? Was is for the promise of being awesome? Was it the ten ways to get smarter? Was it for the image that has nothing to do with the post? Why do you want things to be so simple and easy? The best way to be more productive, …