Tag Archives: Planning

Systematic Learning

Posted on July 22, 2012 by AJ Kessler

Chris Guillebeau was interested in building a lifestyle business (i.e. something that requires little startup capital and lots of flexibility).  Instead of picking a business at random, Chris did what we should all do. In The $100 Startup, Chris started … Continue reading →

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Old People

Posted on June 3, 2012 by AJ Kessler

Building relationships with your peers is important.  But when you’re younger, or just starting out in a field, it’s more important for your immediate future to build relationships with people that are five, ten, and twenty years ahead of you. … Continue reading →

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Dieter Rams on Design: Understand People

Posted on May 11, 2012 by AJ Kessler

Dieter Rams has been successful because he deeply understands people, both physically, psychologically, and how they operate in the world.  He’s not some sort of mind reader: You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people; design is … Continue reading →

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A Hell of a Eulogy

Posted on December 16, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Worrying about your legacy is ridiculous.  Fretting over how people you will never meet will come to judge your life is not only rewardless, it’s counter-productive.  It generally inhibits your ability  to focus on how the living, the people you … Continue reading →

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30,000 Days, If You’re Lucky

Posted on November 27, 2011 by AJ Kessler

You only get about 30,000 days, if you’re lucky.  If you’re reading this, you’ve probably got less than 20,000 days left. That’s if you’re lucky. You might get cancer; you might have a heart attack or a stroke; you might … Continue reading →

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Plans Are Good, Goals Are Better

Posted on November 26, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Plans, the individual steps you think you’re going to take to accomplish something, are good.  But, plans have this nasty tendency to fail pretty regularly.  One of the steps just wasn’t feasible, or other people don’t do what they’re supposed … Continue reading →

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How To Have Smarter Kids

Posted on November 19, 2011 by AJ Kessler

An interesting new study finds that children whose younger siblings are born more than two years later have higher reading and math skills than children whose siblings are born sooner.  The researchers think this stems, at least in part, from … Continue reading →

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The Long View

Posted on November 18, 2011 by AJ Kessler

In Amazon’s first shareholder letter, published in 1997, the first subsection was titled, “It’s all about the long term.”  Jeff Bezos explains why: If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a … Continue reading →

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Skill Rot, or Why You Shouldn’t Learn That

Posted on November 7, 2011 by AJ Kessler

It’s not like riding a bike: you can’t hop right back on and it doesn’t come back easily, even though you still might end up getting your groin impaled by the contraption you’re trying to control. Skill rot is what … Continue reading →

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How To Not Care When The Shit Hits The Fan

Posted on October 4, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Successful people plan.  People who don’t plan rarely become successful.  You might hit the lottery, but if you want to succeed, you need a plan.  Easy enough. But one plan is probably not enough.  Now, someone who makes a plan … Continue reading →

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Reclaim Your Mornings With An Automated Wardrobe

Posted on August 28, 2011 by AJ Kessler

It can take my girlfriend 20 minutes to decide what she’s going to wear on a given morning.  That’s 20 minutes not spent enjoying breakfast, or the news, or sportcenter, or working out, or extra working time, or whatever it … Continue reading →

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How To Make Meetings Productive

Posted on June 11, 2011 by AJ Kessler

Everyone has been forced to sit in meetings that stretch on forever about something that’s either irrelevant, unimportant, or that they’re uninformed about.  Say someone’s giving a talk about a new technology that’s going to be implemented.  Most people have … Continue reading →

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