Creating more moments of attention

July 9, 2024

You obviously only have a certain number of hours in your life - but what's slightly less obvious is that you have a limited number of moments of attention in your life. When you pay attention to one thing, there is an opportunity cost - you could be paying attention to something else, like one of your loved ones, a meaningful project, your source of income, or a hobby you love. When you get sucked into a dumb argument online or read an upsetting news story (that will never lead you to ta...

Seven reasons why you could be defining a concept ineffectively

March 2, 2022

Note (December 16, 2022): This piece is cross-posted from the Clearer Thinking blog, where it appeared on March 2, 2021. Can a chosen definition be "wrong"? No. If you choose a definition, then you can define a sound or series of characters to mean whatever you want them to mean. For instance, if you wanted, you could declare that whenever you say "phloop," you mean one of those little paper umbrellas that are sometimes found in Piña coladas. That would be weird, but it wouldn't be ...

How do we predict high levels of success?

September 12, 2021

Below, I outline 13 approaches to predicting high levels of success with differing levels of complexity, including my own mega model at the bottom. Note: here, I use the term "success" merely in terms of achievement, career success, or high levels of expertise, NOT in terms of happiness, living a good life, morality, having strong social bonds, etc. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to be successful in the way this post focuses on. But if you DO want "success" in the sense in...

The formula for productivity – and what you can do with it

January 23, 2019

Written: January 23, 2019 | Released: September 16, 2021 There is a simple formula for thinking about how to be more productive that most people aren't familiar with. It breaks down productivity into the product of three factors, namely: PRODUCTIVITY = TIME x EFFICIENCY x OBJECTIVE More explicitly:PRODUCTIVITY(i.e., the total value - according to your own values - of your work each week on a goal of yours)= TIME(i.e., the total hours you work on the goal each week)x EFFICIENCY(i.e., th...