Self-improvement

I lack self-discipline. There are many reasons for this, none of them important now. The fact remains: I don’t need to discipline myself, besides basic practices like going to work in the morning. I can buy whatever I want, exercise if I want, and watch movies if I want. We all know that, but what about the subtler cases? I don’t actually buy anything I want. I don’t eat McDonald’s at every meal. But I do […]

Growing up, I always wanted to be a writer. (Queue 5-minute reverie about Goodfellas, which is exactly what I want to talk about. The reverie, not the movie.) When I was a kid, I’d read a great book and think, Man, I’d love to be a writer. Just sit there at my desk and write. Mug of tea next to me, open window with the breeze gently blowing the curtains. Even when I started writing seriously […]

Read this today in Peter Drucker’s Managing Oneself: Throughout history, the great majority of people never had to ask the question, What should I contribute? They were told what to contribute, and their tasks were dictated either by the work itself—as it was for the peasant or artisan—or by a master or a mistress—as it was for domestic servants. And until very recently, it was taken for granted that most people were subordinates who did as they were told. […]

This line from the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid (“Your focus needs more focus”) has been spinning about my head lately, as I went through another round of reducing my active projects. Great things come through focus. Demonic focus, as Tom Peters calls it. But focus doesn’t mean 18 hours of work every day. It means concentrating on one and only one thing at a time. Now, I’d […]