You're not here to read my excuses but I'm gonna lay some on you anyway. Crunch time on preparing a presentation and then delivering a presentation at the International Leadership Association last weekend, crunch time on getting my thesis proposal signed off, getting hired to do some teaching in the spring... yadda yadda. End result, sparse writing. Another end result, a new The List today because, let's face it, writing these are easy and makes me feel somewhat productive.
Onward!
1. The Printing Press, Literacy, and the Creation of a Secret Society of Adults
A really interesting theory about how television is essentially erasing the differences between adults and children. Probably overstated, but an interesting article nonetheless.
2. Elon Musk's Secret Weapon: A Beginner's Guide to First Principles
The idea of reasoning from first principles instead of analogy or basically boiling down everything to its most fundamental components and then going from there. In many ways, I think this is why I found (and still find) minimalism an interesting philosophy to explore. I've got the beginnings of an article written about applying first principles to our lives that I'm hoping to push out sometime next week.
3. The Art of the Finish: How to Go From Busy to Accomplished
If you're a subscriber to The Workologist Newsletter then you likely saw the article I wrote this month about how being really, really good at GTD can make it easy to do "fake work" most of the time. I've adopted the methodology in this article as of a couple weeks ago and so far it is working really well.
4. How to Be Excellent
This was a relatively crazy/surprising find. Bobby Robins is a professional hockey player who plays for the Boston Bruins (boo!) and is also a really, really good writer. His story is pretty interesting considering he made his NHL debut this year at the age of 32.
With my thesis proposal signed off I now need to start collecting data in the very near future. To aid in that effort, I'm creating a list of people who are potentially interested in participating. In the near future that would mean taking a short survey or two, possibly doing an interview if you're interested, and/or participating in a training program (again, only if you're interested). If you want to be kept in the loop with opportunities to participate in my research you can sign up here.
Photo by Edsel Little