7-40 Challenge | Round 4, Day 18 Parkinson's Law says work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Give yourself two weeks to do something that takes a day, and it'll take two weeks. Not because the work is hard. Because you'll let it. I've been watching myself do this for months. I … Continue reading Breaking Parkinson’s Law
Category: Work & Data
In Search of Soho People
7-40 Challenge | Round 4, Day 11 Malcolm Gladwell opens The Tipping Point with the story of Hush Puppies. A dying shoe brand — almost pulled from production — that exploded into a national trend because a handful of kids in Soho started wearing them. The company didn't cause it. They nearly killed the brand. … Continue reading In Search of Soho People
The Skill That Felt Like Thinking
7-40 Challenge | Planning Week Chris Guillebeau wrote something today that stopped me mid-scroll. He said the skill that built his career was something he hadn’t labeled for a decade. It came so easily he didn’t count it as a skill. It felt like thinking. I know that feeling. Years ago, I’d come home from … Continue reading The Skill That Felt Like Thinking
Not All About Me (Fourteen Years Later)
7-40 Challenge | Planning Week In 2012, I wrote a blog post called “It Is Not All About Me.” I was writing about collaborative leadership — about casting a vision and then letting other people help shape it instead of dictating every step. It was a good post. It was also about half of the … Continue reading Not All About Me (Fourteen Years Later)
Passion Is Not a North Star
I just finished Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You. His thesis is that passion follows mastery — you don’t find your dream job by following your heart, you build it by getting so good at something valuable that opportunities find you. He profiles people who spent years developing rare skills before the work … Continue reading Passion Is Not a North Star
David Willis 