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The minute you start walking down a path toward a yak shaving party, it’s worth making a compromise. Doing it well now is much better than doing it perfectly later.

By letting go, you’ve cleared up space for new quests. No more dozens of tabs open forever; you saved them, then let them go back into the ether. No perpetual thinking on an idea; you wrote it down, let your second brain remember for you.

you are procrastinating or being akratic or falling into perfectionism (closely related to procrastination), by deliberately overcomplicating something or trying to use fancy or shiny new techniques, which of course frequently lead to new subgoals because you aren’t familiar with them yet.

I think it’s a lot easier to actually pay attention and concentrate with someone when you’re working with something that’s as analog as a notebook. Being on an iPad or a laptop when you’re in-person – as much as I’d like to – can create a barrier between two people.

Writing is not the outcome of thinking, it's the place where thinking takes place. Only once your thoughts are out of your head can you begin to make sense of them.

Fifteen years from now sometimes seems like a million years from now but then I remember how quickly the previously fifteen years of life have flashed by and suddenly I’m terrified. It’s an absolutely wild variety of terror, this “oh goodness I only get so much time with these human beings while they’re young and what if I mess it all up” feeling.

Electronic keyboards came and went, but using them—lifeless, rickety, bereft of voice or vibration—was like cooking with earplugs in your nose.

The problem is that when it comes to sleep, unlike almost every other area of life, effort is not rewarded. In fact, it is actively punished. The more you try, the less you are likely to succeed.

Adoption is referred to as a primal wound by Nancy Verrier, a therapist specializing in adoption and separation research. She says that there is an indelible impact when the connection between a child and its biological mother is severed. The experience can manifest as a devastating loss, with impacts felt years into the future.

What is so illuminating about the Musk messages is just how unimpressive, unimaginative, and sycophantic the powerful men in Musk’s contacts appear to be. Whoever said there are no bad ideas in brainstorming never had access to Elon Musk’s phone.