Quotes

Things I read.

[emilyboyd]

I’ve met a lot of famous musicians. The miserable ones were upset they weren’t more famous, bitterly comparing themselves to the superstars. The happiest ones were thrilled to be able to make a living making music.

Think like a bronze medalist, not silver | Derek Sivers

[emilyboyd]

I don’t stare at blank sheets of paper. I don’t spend days and nights cudgeling a head that is empty of ideas. Instead, I simply leave the novel and go on to any of the dozen other projects that are on tap. I write an editorial, or an essay, or a short story, or work on one of my nonfiction books. By the time I’ve grown tired of these things, my mind has been able to do its proper work and fill up again. I return to my novel and find myself able to write easily once more.

Isaac Asimov wrote almost 500 books in his lifetime—these are the six ways he did it — Quartz

[emilyboyd]

What Jenkins lacked in pitch, rhythm and vocal range, she made up for in attitude: “People may say I can’t sing,” she said, “but no one can ever say I didn’t sing.”

It's Okay To Suck | Hazlitt

[emilyboyd]

Another woman said she KonMaried a bad boyfriend. Having tidied everything in her home and finding she still distinctly lacked happiness, she held her boyfriend in her hands, realized he no longer sparked joy and got rid of him.

Marie Kondo and the Ruthless War on Stuff - The New York Times

[emilyboyd]

People think you have to be serious to do a good job. But I think if you’re having fun, you can do better. You can look back someday and say, wow, I had a good time instead of being so stressed out.

Atop the Gymnastics World, Simone Biles Can’t Suppress Her Grin - The New York Times

[emilyboyd]

If you start by mak­ing some­thing peo­ple ac­tu­ally want, focus on mak­ing users happy, make sure you have a good growth rate and don’t over­hire, you’ll be in a very happy po­si­tion. You will be mas­ter of your own fate in a way that very few peo­ple ever get to be.

Jessica Livingston's Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail · The Macro

[emilyboyd]

For me, I decided to focus on finishing one thing each day. I looked at my todo list, picked one thing that would move my business forward, and did that.

Finish one thing today — Nathan Barry’s Blog — Medium

[emilyboyd]

So you got a lot done this week? Good for you. But what exactly did you get done? Was it work you’ll remember next month? Was it work that’ll matter next year? Did you learn anything that’ll help you tomorrow?

Getting less done — Signal v. Noise

[emilyboyd]

Reading has been essential. I have always wondered why people put so much energy into trying to have coffee with some famous entrepreneur when reading a book is like getting many hours of their most crystallized thoughts.

Drew Houston of Dropbox: Figure Out the Things You Don’t Know - The New York Times

[emilyboyd]

The first thing is having a healthy paranoia for trying to find out what you don’t know that you don’t know. The question I would ask myself — even in the beginning, and I still do today — is, six months from now, 12 months from now, five years from now, what will I wish I had been doing today or learning today?

Drew Houston of Dropbox: Figure Out the Things You Don’t Know - The New York Times

[emilyboyd]

The important thing to remember is that the joy these items spark is ephemeral at best, contained in the moment when they were first received. Thank the items for it, and then set them on fire.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up for New Parents - The New Yorker

[emilyboyd]

The answer is that these products do an incredible job of solving their users’ problems, and their complex interfaces are a key reason for their success.

Why I love ugly, messy interfaces — and you probably do too — Signal v. Noise

[emilyboyd]

What grabbed my attention early in the development of the project was how the GTA V in-game world reacted to the deer and its random actions. The AI in the game is just so dense and nuanced. One of the early clips I recorded while testing exemplifies this, where the deer runs by a man on the street and he says, “What in the fucking world is that?”

The Grand Theft Auto Deer Cam Is Mesmerizing -- Following: How We Live Online

[emilyboyd]

One HUGE thing is on Sundays, I look at all the things in the upcoming week I DON’T want to do and remove them. Poof. Gone. It’s your life. One time. Remove anything religiously that does not help towards your main goals.

My Organization System | OkDork.com

[emilyboyd]

You have to remind yourself that you can do the very best you can when you're very, very relaxed, no matter what it is, whatever your job is. The more relaxed you are, the better you are. That's sort of why I got into acting. I realized the more fun I had, the better I did. I thought, well, that's a job I could be proud of.

Bill Murray's Advice on Relaxing Your Way to High Performance

[emilyboyd]

Paraphrased slightly, he said: “Questions are places in your mind where answers fit. If you haven’t asked the question, the answer has nowhere to go. It hits your mind and bounces right off. You have to ask the question — you have to want to know — in order to open up the space for the answer to fit.”

What are questions? — Signal v. Noise — Medium

[emilyboyd]

“A new business is like a baby,” Mr. Wilson said. “It cries, it’s puking, it’s 24 hours a day and sometimes you don’t know why you did it. But then you give it a bath and put some powder on it and you can’t believe how beautiful it is.”

After His Lululemon Trouble, Chip Wilson Tries Again - The New York Times