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How walks create the foundation of Craig Mod's creative work

I’ve been publishing controversial thoughts, essays, books and software for half my life. It has endowed me with a thick skin to repel the haters, and kept me going whatever they said. But after close to two decades of having my work often judged favorably, I’m still no better at dealing with gestures of adoration. In fact, I think it’...

How to launch a successful paid subscription product.

Why we’re so tired of optimizing our work lives, and what we should do about it.

Success in most things boils down to a simple, but easily ignored distinction: do the real thing and stop doing fake alternatives instead.

In crypto land, 2020 was all about DeFi. So far, 2021 has been about NFTs (hot jpeg summer anyone?)

Asana, Google Docs, and Meeting Readers Where they Are

The platform behind creator platforms is none other than Stripe. In this post, I interviewed Ellen and Connor on what role Stripe wants to play in the creator economy.

We can’t just walk away from our inboxes, our jobs, and the housework, says Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It. But what if we could change our relationships to them?

You’re not writing enough! And you’re writing too much!

After the "keep it simple" in programming, the "keep it short" for writing.

The problem with Notion and Roam is aesthetics, and the design consequences. Notion looks polished, like a webpage. Roam’s thought graph looks like art. Apple Notes lacks features. Evernote h…

You want to be productive. Software wants to help. But even with a glut of tools claiming to make us all into taskmasters, we almost never master our tasks.

Digital typography always looks crisp. The words on our screen seem official, because they’re not the victim of sloppy or rushed handwriting. But sometimes, we might be better off with a litt…

What is this? A gas fee for ANTS?

Is the first draft the hardest? Is it different from a third draft, or a twelfth? Does a first draft possess unique challenges that we have to attack in a one-of-a-kind way? Yes, yes and yes. First drafts are killers A first draft is different from (and more difficult than) all subsequent drafts because in…

We’ve spent 130 years indoctrinating kids with the same structure. Now, as some of us enter a post-lockdown world, I’d like to propose a useful (though some might say radical) way to re…

Yesterday, I announced on Instagram that my newest book, Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave, is available for preorder. It will be my 12th book in 10 years, and so there were a bunch of comments from people who wondered how I was able to get another one done so quickly.  How do you write books faster than I read them?  What’s your secret to writing so many books?  The answer is that I have a system, a process that helps me be productive. It’s not my system exactly, as I’ve taken many strategies from the greatest writers to ever do it. Although I talk about the creative process at length in my book Perennial Seller (which for some reason is currently $1.99 everywhere you get your ebooks), I thought I would detail some of my rules that I follow as a writer. I think they can help anyone be more productive.  [1] Read. Read. Read.  A book is made of books. “The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading; a man will turn over half a library to make one book,” Samuel Johnson said. As I was putting together the bibliography for Courage, I counted something like 300 books I was directly sourcing from.  [2] Always be researching The bulk of the work is researching—collecting stories, anecdotes, and data to marshal your argument. The writing is stringing those pieces together. I’ve found stuff I’ve used in in-flight magazines, discovered snippets on social media, even heard things mentioned on TV. As Shelby Foote put it in an interview with The Paris Review: “I can’t begin to tell you the things I discovered while I was looking for something else.” [3] Put good advice where you work Print and put a couple of important quotes up on the wall to help guide you (either generally, or for a specific project). When I was working on Ego is the Enemy, I had this quote from Machiavelli on the wall to inspire its style and ethos: “I have not adorned this work with fine phrases, with swelling, pompous words, or with any of those blandishments or external ornaments with which many set forth and decorate their matter. For I have chosen either that nothing at all should bring it honor or that the variety of its material and the gravity of its subject matter alone should make it welcome.” I have another quote that I put up for this book from Martha Graham: “Never be afraid of the material. The material knows when you’re frightened and will not help.” [4] Make commitments I turn in a book proposal for my next book before my latest one comes out. When I have a commitment that I know I have to meet, Resistance doesn’t have the time or space to creep in. Right now I am on a book year path for the next four years. It keeps me honest and keeps me working. Meet deadline, or death.  [5] Work with great people Success requires greater investment in the creative process. Pay for professional help. There’s that saying: if you think pros are expensive, try hiring an amateur.  [6] Have something to say “To have something to say,” Schopenhauer said, “by itself is virtually a sufficient condition for good style.” [7] Have a model in mind Thucydides had Herodotus. Gibbon had Thucydides. Shelby Foote had Gibbon. Every playwright since Shakespeare has had Shakespeare. Everyone has a master to learn from. For me, it’s been Robert Greene [8] Know where you’re going You don’t “find the book as you write.” You have to do the hard work of solving the problem first. You have to figure out the best route, too. One of the best pieces of writing advice I ever got was to–before I started the process–articulate the idea in one sentence, one paragraph and one page. This crystallizes the idea for you and guides you—Nassim Taleb wrote in Antifragile that every sentence in the book was a “derivation, an application or an interpretation of the short maxim” he opened with.  [9] Focus on What You Control As Epictetus says, there’s some stuff that’s up to us, some stuff that’s not. The work is up to you. Everything else is not. If you’re in this for external rewards, god help you. A Confederacy of Dunces was rejected by publishers. After the author’s suicide, it won the Pulitzer. People don’t know shit. YOU know. So love it while you’re doing it. Success can only be extra. [10] Embrace draw-down periods You need what the strategist and theorist John Boyd called the “draw-down period.” Take a break right before you start. To think, to reflect, to let things settle. I started Courage is Calling on my birthday, but not before I took an extended period of just thinking.  [11] Listen to the same song on repeat I’ve found that picking one song—usually something I am not proud to say I am listening to—and listening to it on repeat, over and over and over again is the best way to get into a rhythm and flow. It not only shuts out outside noise but also parts of my conscious mind I don’t need to hear from while I’m writing.  [12] Make little progress each day One of the best rules I’ve heard as a writer is that the way to write a book is by producing “two crappy pages a day.” It’s by carving out a small win each and every day—getting words on the page—that a book is created. Hemingway once said that “the first draft of anything is shit,” and he’s right (I actually have that on my wall as a reminder).  [13] Don’t let the tools distract you  Great artists work. Mediocre artists talk a lot about tools. Software does not make you a better writer. If classics were created with quill and ink, you’ll probably be fine with a Word Document. Or a blank piece of paper. Don’t let [...]

The 4 steps used by a 5-times-bestselling writer

As work becomes more personal and creative, demand for alternative personalities will increase.

For the longest time I thought that avoiding being vulnerable to people was strength. It's not. And it hurt my friendships.

The author of Atomic Habits is a master of content repurposing and focused action.

The world doesn’t actually care if you do the things on your calendar. It’ll keep spinning either way. In fact, in many ways it would prefer that you just didn’t. For, every time …

I first came across Parkinson’s Law in Tim Ferriss’s 2007 book, The 4 Hour Workweek. Ferriss summarized it as follows: “Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion. It is the magic of the imminent deadline. If I give you 24 […]