Good Morning. Let’s take time to wander.
Welcome to new subscribers. The Tuesday Toolkit is a weekly newsletter covering tools for improving work & life and sharing a bit of fun. Thanks for being here.
| Tool of the Week This week, we’re doing something a little different. I’m announcing the end of Season 1 of the Tuesday Toolkit. Similar to how TV shows operate in stretches then take a break. This edition of the Tuesday Toolkit marks the 15th straight week of publishing. For reference, all past editions are available online here. The next couple months will be used as time to recharge, wander, and prepare for an even better Season 2. This Jeff Bezos quote sums my thinking up nicely. “Sometimes (often actually) in business, you do know where you’re going, and when you do, you can be efficient. Put in place a plan and execute. In contrast, wandering in business is not efficient … but it’s also not random. It’s guided — by hunch, gut, intuition, curiosity, and powered by a deep conviction that the prize for customers is big enough that it’s worth being a little messy and tangential to find our way there. Wandering is an essential counterbalance to efficiency. You need to employ both. The outsized discoveries — the “non-linear” ones — are highly likely to require wandering.” I put processes in place that helped me build my website, write a book, and kick this newsletter off. I’m fairly efficient now that I have worked out the kinks. But I’m still hungry for more. I have more iterating to do. Like Bezos says, wandering is a necessary counter balance to efficiency. It’s time to wander. But, before heading out, let’s take a look at what I’ve learned so far. Lessons Learned Over the last four months, I’ve digested a ton of engineering material, articles, podcasts, news bits, videos and more in order to provide interesting, thought provoking and fun content for all of you. Here is a break down of lessons from a long the way that stuck. Enjoy! |
- There is an audience on the internet for nearly everything. It’s larger than you expect it to be, even after expecting it to be bigger than you expect.
- The unknown unknowns are more dangerous than the known unknowns.
- Note taking apps skyrocket your productivity when used well. I use Evernote and a quick access widget on my cell phone’s home screen. When you have a thought that you want to do something with later, write down as much as possible and you become 100x more effective when the time is right.
- One can over analyze anything. Finding the right balance between gathering more info and making decisions with what you do have is dynamic and inconsistent.
- Anything you’re good at is a microcosm for everything else.
- Quality decreases subjectivity. -Robert Pirsig
- All great careers, to some degree, become sales jobs. You have to evangelize your plans to customers, prospective employees, the press, investors, etc. -Sam Altman
- Self-respect is a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can be developed, trained, coaxed forth.- Joan Didion
- Careers are a jungle gym, not a ladder. – Austin Rief
- Step back to see if two goals are competing. E.g. if you need to feel smart and you need to succeed, you may blow it one area if you’re (bad) idea leads to (failure) because you wouldn’t listen to someone else’s ideas. – Ryan Holiday
- Use humor in the ideating phase. If you’re laughing, you’ll let more ideas fly.
Ultimately, the best thing I can say I have learned, though, is that doing is a better teacher than contemplating.
| Things to Improve on Sure, I learned a lot over the last few months, but I have a long way to go. Here is a short list of areas I want to do better at. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts as well. |
- SEO & marketing
- Editing & voice
- Social media presence
- Research
| To wrap this edition up, I want to say Thank You. Thank you for tuning in each week. Thank you for sharing your love and feedback. I plan to do some guided wandering into the areas of improvement outlined above and coming back in 2021 with even more to give. I love you, Quinn Thanks for tuning in this week! If you found value in this, please share it with your friends, colleagues, associates, acquaintances, family members, bowling leagues, partners, tinder dates and strangers. The larger we grow this audience, the more greatness can be shared. And I’ll be able to give away free stuff. The weekly newsletter might be paused, but let’s hang out on Twitter: @Quinn_Hanson22 |
OpsCombinator 