Betterment

How often should you succeed at a task, to maximize learning? I review research suggesting the answer is close to 85%.

If your plan, your idea or your art doesn’t involve any significant hurdles in moving forward, it’s probably not worth that much. If it were easy, everyone would do it. The tactic is to…

My father is a construction man. What could he teach me about being a software engineer? Well, quite a lot.

Posted on 2022-06-29

Plenty of people insist on freedom and independence. More rare and far more effective is to claim responsibility instead. “I’ve got this,” can go a long way.

One is very skilled at following the recipe. Quality control, consistency and diligence. The other understands how the recipe works, sees patterns and opportunities and changes the recipe to fit th…

If you can do it once, you might be able to do it ten times. And if you do it ten times, it will become a skill and a practice. You’ll do it more naturally and more often. Sending a note, cha…

We all have a personal tech stack. And the more we intentionally curate the tools we use everyday, the more productive and happy we will be.

If you and I play a game of cards, the winner will largely be decided by luck. Get good cards and you come out ahead. If you and I play 100 games of backgammon, the better player will win, because …

Resilient systems are better than fragile ones. Leave the campsite better than you found it. Clean air is better than dirty air. It’s more reliable to invest in things that produce positive i…

Two former officers on creating a "startup sequence" that will help you crush the day ahead.

We’re not very good at predicting the future. We’re very good at being aware of the urgency of the moment, and familiar with our need to deal with emergencies. Before we react, though, …

Malpractice by one of us is malpractice by all of us. When a calling turns into an industry, that can change. In an industry, it’s buyer beware. It’s us against the rest. It’s a q…

This is a very different task than snake charming. The first is far more common, but it requires heavy equipment and is often dangerous… On the other hand, if you have empathy and patience, i…

Productivity is about doing more with less. Here are the ten best books to help you finish your work without stress and exhaustion.

Sketchnoting, or visual notetaking, is a method of taking notes using illustrations, symbols, graphic layouts, and text. Here's why I love sketchnotes and you should too.

This can be an uncomfortable question. Not because any of us have unlimited time and unlimited money, but because it puts us on the spot in a few ways: Are you able to understand the project well e…

It’s possible to create a life where we only perform tasks when we feel like it. More likely, though, we end up with commitments. Commitments require us to do work when they feel like it, reg…

In a classic experiment conducted by the psychologist Solomon Asch, participants were placed in a group, shown a “target” line alongside a set of comparison lines of varying lengths, and asked which was closest in length to the target. The answer was always obvious, but unbeknownst to the study’s actual participants, they had been placed […]

What is time? Obviously, the simple answer is the 24-hour daily cycle that’s broken down into minutes and seconds, to which we've all chained ourselves.

Identify the signals that it's time to say no and ask for more information

When you’re trying to make an argument in a scientific journal or a history monograph, you’ll need footnotes. Show your work. Make it clear who came before and what you’re basing …

One-on-one instruction is highly underrated. Here's why you should get tutors for the skills and subjects you care about.

The best way to make things better is to see how they are. And then do something about it. Acknowledging the problem is not the same as giving up. Too often, we’d rather not hear about it, or…

Sometimes people criticize the youth of today for their failure to launch into adulthood. They think those stuck in prolonged adolescence are lazy, soft, and unambitious. Other people lay the blame at the feet of the mothers and fathers of these young adults. They say that parents coddle their kids, indefinitely extending their childhood. These […]

How much does a puppy cost? At the shelter, maybe you need to put up a hundred dollar fee or donation. But that’s tiny compared to food, vet bills, time spent walking, chew toys, yak bones, b…

Compared to easily-overlooked carrying costs, carrying benefits are practically invisible. Pay once, but come out ahead over and over again. There are habits, assets and learnings that seem too exp…

It’s one of the best metaphors for life, marketing, achievement, community and possibility in all of TV cartooning. The coyote is always looking for a quick win. Because he doesn’t pers…

The non-networked world was driven by push. The merchant stocked goods and waited for you to come buy them. The manufacturer made things in advance and advertised so you’d go buy them. The ca…