Hey Everyone,
Hope you're having a great week. Here are a few things I've been reading, writing and pondering lately. Enjoy!
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1. Structured Procrastination
Here's a great way to trick yourself into being more productive:
The observant reader may feel at this point that structured procrastination requires a certain amount of self-deception, since one is in effect constantly perpetrating a pyramid scheme on oneself. Exactly. One needs to be able to recognize and commit oneself to tasks with inflated importance and unreal deadlines, while making oneself feel that they are important and urgent. This is not a problem, because virtually all procrastinators have excellent self-deceptive skills also. And what could be more noble than using one character flaw to offset the bad effects of another?
2. How To Know Which Skills to Develop at Each Stage of Your Career
This is so true, especially in the marketing world where there are only a handful of "hard skills" to develop.
While every role is different, the secret is to progressively invest more in your “soft skills”–your ability to get things done, your leadership abilities, and your likability at work (like it or not).
3. Buffer Is Moving to a 4-Day Workweek for the Rest of 2020
Interestingly, this is a pilot to see if it can work in the longterm.
I liked this article because it also outlined a number of the logistical challenges that this change creates. A 4-day workweek sounds great, but is actually pretty complicated in practice. I'll be curious to see how this goes.
4. Tweet of the Week
I had to read this twice (okay, three times). It's so true.
Shifting from quality as a yield fraction of quantity (the high-grading intrinsic approach to quality) to quality as a controllable process outcome (six sigma) is a total valley of death. Creative work should be defined as that which cannot survive the transition.
— Venkatesh Rao (@vgr) February 19, 2020
5. Random Links
- This is Ghost's enterprise sales page 🤣
- Privacy.com has a virtual credit card that makes companies play by your roles. Looks very cool.
- This is an incredibly satisfying video of a person drawing a boat.
- Here's how much that meeting costs
- A really interesting read: From 1,018 Applications to 2 New Tuff Team Members
Have a great weekend!
Jimmy
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