Shane Parrish

Free time? →

Published July 18, 2021  ·  All posts on Jul 18

In his free time, …

~ Shane Parrish, from What Can We Learn From the Prolific Mr. Asimov?

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I mean, I knew Asimov wrote a lot. But it turns out I had no clue how much. I’ve read a bunch of his science fiction back in the day, but I’ve never read any of his other writings, and there’s no way I ever will. And really, that’s ok. Because trying to be a “completist” leads to a lot of wasted time. Instead, a little of this, some of that, a dash of variety, and some spice of life. Festina lente.

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And sometimes I trip over answers →

Published June 28, 2021  ·  All posts on Jun 28

Why do great writers write?

~ Shane Parrish from, Why Great Writers Write

Why, indeed. I write—and this reason is one of many mentioned in that article—because it’s the only way I know to be sure I actually understand a concept. I used to think that, at least some of the time, I was writing because I had something which I found interesting, and I’d wanted to share it. But I now realize that, no, what makes me want to share it is that I don’t want to forget it [the interesting thing.] Wait, sorry. I’m not explaining this very well. I write because the act of pinning-down my thoughts, to create concise— no wait, it’s not really about concision. (Score! It’s a rare day in mixed metaphors that I get to use that one.) The act of choosing one idea, from my usual flurry of thoughts, forces me to evaluate them; Choosing forces me to decide which of these thoughts is the most important— *derp* I was talking about why I write, and now I’m talking about how I write. I’ve gone astray. With word play. Clearly then, I am not a great writer, and actually I never claimed to be one, nor have I ever, truth be told—interjections be interjected… Do you know the difference between using—these guys—or these guys, to delimit an aside, (versus going full-on into parenthesis)? Swimming. Dashes are when you expect the swimming reader to duck their head under water, and commas—but never comas—are for a brief dive in the shallow end, (and we get out the parenthesis when our swimmer needs the warning that a deep breath will be required before we dive to the bottom of the deep end to investigate something sparkly spotted therein.) Quite proud of that ridiculous, previous sentence which uses as it espouses the variations thereof. *glancing up* Wait no, I’ve written a rambling wall of text.

Why, indeed, do I write? CLEARLY I have no frickin’ clue.

Perhaps I should settle for: Why did I write this post? Why did I use that linked article, combined with a title hinting that I learned something over which I’d tripped? Because It contains a larger block of context around a quote which I already, very much liked about the Muse.

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PS: The title is a reference to, Sometimes I look stuff up.

Recovery is key →

Published June 10, 2021  ·  All posts on Jun 10  ·  

Not only do most deliberate practitioners not spend all day at it, they also devote a lot of time to recuperation and recovery. They sleep as much as their bodies need. They nap if necessary. They take frequent, refreshing breaks. Most of us understand that rest is necessary after physical activity. But we can underestimate its importance after mental activity, too. Deliberate practice needs to be sustainable for the long term. How long a person keeps at a skill is often far more important than how many hours a day they spend on it.

~ Shane Parrish from, The Ultimate Deliberate Practice Guide: How to Be the Best

I’m going to trot out a rare: HOLY CRAP! Because that post is a small book on deliberate practice. If you’re only up for some skimming, click through and smash-scroll to the summary and book list at the bottom of that post.

Then I’m going to briefly stride over one of my fave soap boxes: Sleep.

…and settle onto pointing out that I make a deliberate practice out of working on writing these blog posts. I’ve been working, (off-and-on, one break involved some lawn mowing,) for four hours this morning from that one Parrish post. I’ve read it, blogged [this] about it, posted about it in another community, captured a few quotes, learned more about the Oddyssey, and wrote a blog post about a common Homer quote.

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Culture →

Published June 4, 2021  ·  All posts on Jun 4

The Halo Effect tells us that we will find a lot of false positives. The attributes we think are causal of success are the same ones we often deem causal of failure when company performance deteriorates. This is the strategy paradox.

~ Shane Parrish from, Culture Eats Strategy: Nucor’s Ken Iverson on Building a Different Kind of Company

It’s an interesting post about culture. I’m interested in Iverson’s memoir— But to be honest, I don’t have time enough as it is to read the shelves of books already in my possession. (Let alone the hundred in the “wishlist” queue.) So ima let this one pass.

But culture does interest me. I’m apparently an inveterate systems builder. For better, but often for worse, I’m drawn to build processes and communities. Once— just once— I’d like to see something I create grow on its own. Not, “…and make me rich” nor “…and make me famous.” Just simply grow on its own. A great idea is not enough. Skill and knowledge are not enough. Timing is not enough. Vision and charisma are not enough. There’s something ineffable—because if I could describe it I’d go do it rather than write rambling blog posts casting about for something I think, despite my efforts to look around, is always just out of my field of view… There is something ineffable which I am missing.

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Lifelong learning →

Published May 11, 2021  ·  All posts on May 11  ·  

Your education shouldn’t end when your schooling does. If you want to get an edge in life, you must be constantly learning, not coasting along on what you already know. Lifelong learning requires the ability to reflect on your mistakes, a lot of reading, and testing what you know.

~ Shane Parrish

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Lifelong learning →

Published May 11, 2021  ·  All posts on May 11

Your education shouldn’t end when your schooling does. If you want to get an edge in life, you must be constantly learning, not coasting along on what you already know. Lifelong learning requires the ability to reflect on your mistakes, a lot of reading, and testing what you know.

~ Shane Parrish

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That quote from, https://fs.blog/2015/11/lifelong-learning/ , is one of the too-rare times when, upon reading something, I want to leap to my feet knocking my chair over behind me while shouting, “Hear! Hear!”

It’s true that there is some learning which I prefer to observe, rather than directly experience. In such cases “conceptual” learning, rather than experiential learning, is just fine by me. (eg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYtF0UlznC8 )

In general however, ain’t nothing finer than reading something, making a new connection, writing a blog post about that… or spending weeks figuring out how to bend some javascript-DOM-AJAX thing to do what I want… digging in the innards of an automobile to make a new stereo-unit work… digesting some tome from the anti-library… running a year-plus experiment just to see what happens… just generally being all like, “I’m wondering . . .” And then find out where that curiosity leads.

What’ve you been up to in the learning department lately?

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The challenge →

Published May 5, 2021  ·  All posts on May 5  ·  

The process isn’t overly complicated or hard. The challenge becomes moving through it at the right pace in a way that aligns with your principles.

~ Shane Parrish from, How People Make Big Decisions

This is the exceedingly rare case where what I really want to quote is a small graphic from the site, and I simply don’t feel like copying the image and uploading it, just to include it here. (You’ll have to click over.)

I found myself thinking about the little graphic, which has an outer circle describing a process for change. Starting at the here-and-now called, “doing,” forward over a “Rubicon” and then full circle to a new here-and-now of “doing.” There are several ways to fail at changing, by short-circuiting through self-defeating statements. And that’s what I’m thinking about today.

What self-defeating stories am I telling myself? Why?

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It’s about sleep →

Published December 18, 2020  ·  All posts on Dec 18  ·  

The general sentiment here is that everyone else is sleeping so you’re not missing out on something important and you can spend time taking care of yourself, which generally leads to a positive impact on your productivity throughout the day.

~ Shane Parrish from, What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast

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The reason successful people are found doing their important work in the morning—working out, reading, writing, … whatever it is that is important to them—is because it’s right after when they have rested.

I’ll repeat: Sleep is the most important thing. Good sleep. Learn about sleep. Your life is already arranged around sleep, although you may wrongly think you’re consciously in control—you’re not… your body is in control. Fix your sleep.

Then use the time just after resting—that’s probably “morning”—to do what you want to actually get done. All the things that you think interrupt you from doing your real work? …you’re enabling that, and you can change that too.

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The last lecture →

Published December 11, 2020  ·  All posts on Dec 11  ·  

The Last Lecture is a summary of all Pausch had learned and all he wanted to pass along to his children. The lecture, entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” wasn’t about dying rather just the opposite. It was about dreams, moments and overcoming obstacles because “time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think.”

~ Shane Parrish from, Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

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Perhaps you’ve already heard of this book? I had not. Tidy little article from Parrish makes me want to run—not walk—out and buy this book.

On the other hand: I really have a problem with books. There’s already a few hundred in the anti-library. My wishlist of books contains 410— err, correction, 411 books.

This is such a delightful problem, yes?

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Second order effects →

Published December 8, 2020  ·  All posts on Dec 8  ·  

In short, stop optimizing for today or tomorrow and start playing the long game. That means being less efficient in the short term but more effective in the long term. [… I]f you play the long game you stop optimizing and start thinking ahead to the second-order consequences of your decisions.

~ Shane Parrish from, 10 Principles to Live an Antifragile Life

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Fundamentally, we humans and our lives are not mathematically tidy.

Aside: I had a math course once—I can’t even remember the material—and the professor said, “it’s a very subtle point that mathematics should model and predict reality.” …or something to that effect. It was mind-bending; but math is part of reality so why wouldn’t reality model itself? *smoke-emits-from-my-ears* The scene, the room, the lighting, everything are burned into my brain.

Heuristics are always and in all cases true but sort of false, because they are imperfect. But the purpose of heuristics is to enable us to wrap our meager brains around the vastly complicated universe. Maths, as in compound interest, exponential growth, 1/r^2 forces, and Fourier transformations, provide models of reality. The comment about second order consequences challenges us to dig deeper into our heuristics, (which are otherwise known more generally as “models.”)

I’ve said this before, here on the blog and out loud: Have you intentionally created the models you have of the world?

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