#work (66 quotes)
Time is the most perishable good in the world, and it is not replenishable. You can’t earn an extra hour to use on a busy day. Nonetheless, we usually have a vague feeling that there is plenty of…
— , Meetings Are a Matter of Precious Time If you can identify what are the valid criticisms of your code or your ideas or your writing, and who are the trolls, and which are the other people just being temporarily stupid obtuse geniuses-in-waiting, you can parlay all that valid feedback and move from fool to slightly less fool in quick time.
— , on being a bit of an idiot Freelancers are unlike normal people and will automatically know where the printer is. Though, of course, your computer won’t be networked to it. It will take IT three days to attach you to a printer named after a celebrity.
— , Tuesday Tip No.59 - How To Freelance If you’ve got a list of 20 things you should be doing, pick the most important one or two and then just let go of the rest. You will never upload your music to every one of these sites. You will never contact every person. You will never enter every contest. Just take the one or two things that would make the biggest difference in your career, do those one or two, then stop. Turn your attention to the next one or two most important.
— , Derek Sivers Interviews → Tim Ferriss Don’t let thinking get in the way of building – build, then think.
— , Delighting with Data It’s a widely accepted axiom of business that great companies grow their revenues and profits year after year. Yet quietly, under the radar, some entrepreneurs have rejected the pressure of endless growth to focus on more satisfying business goals. Goals like being great at what they do… creating a great place to work… providing great customer service… making great contributions to their communities and finding great ways to lead their lives.
— , Small Giants If the breathless advocates of “the free distribution of ideas” are serious, they need either a) to come up with a realistic proposal as to how I am to keep feeding myself while giving the fruits of my labours away for free; or b) come out and say honestly that they don’t think any such thing as a “professional writer” ought to exist, and that I should just get a job like anyone else. In a way, I’d respect people who came out and said the second thing. What I don’t respect is people who can’t see that those are the choices.
— , Free your mind Even though print continues to cash in significantly more ad revenue than digital media, printed news will – from a purely economical point of view – undoubtedly fail.
— , Surfing the Avalanche Would you miss your current project if you were doing something else instead? Would anyone miss it? It’s a valuable question and a simple way to decide if you’re on the right track. Could you stop what you’re doing right now and switch to something else without disappointing anyone?
— , On Being Missed I’m appalled by those who [judge] advertising exclusively on the basis of sales. That isn’t enough. Of course, advertising must sell. By any definition it is lousy advertising if it doesn’t. But if sales are achieved with work that is in bad taste or is intellectual garbage, it shouldn’t be applauded no matter how much it sells. Offensive, dull, abrasive, stupid advertising is bad for the entire industry and bad for business as a whole.
— , Hey Whipple, Squeeze This Remarkable visions and genuine insight are always met with resistance. And when you start to make progress, your efforts are met with even more resistance. Products, services, career paths… whatever it is, the forces for mediocrity will align to stop you, forgiving no errors and never backing down until it’s over. If it were any other way, it would be easy.
— , The forces of mediocrity Nothing can substitute for depth of analysis, and there’s proven value in specialization – it’s what education, career paths, scientific research, and technological innovation are built on – but generalism is a secret talent. With so much complex information, fragmented in so many ways and developing faster and faster, it is increasingly important to have generalists around to make sense of it all, of the big picture.
— , What Specifically Do Generalists Do? I remember a time when it felt like, being on a major label, our interests were aligned. At times, it’s a pretty well-oiled machine and the luxury is that I feel like I’ve got a team of people who are taking care of the shit I don’t want to think about. I don’t care about the radio guy, I just want to make music. But those days are gone.
— , Trent Reznor and Saul Williams Discuss Their New Collaboration, Mourn OiNK Rick Rubin – Recording Industry – Rock Music – New York Times
“Panic has set in, and now it’s no longer about making music, it’s all about how to sell music. And there’s no clear answer about how to fix that problem.”
— , The Music Man I explained all of this to the student. When I was finished he replied, "So, rather than just taking on jobs you can put your heart into, you should find a way to put your heart into everything you do." Which was a wonderful way to put it.
— , Creating Short Films for the Web You do not have to spend a lot of time and effort on those who strongly resist change. You only have to help and protect those who want to change, so that they are able to succeed.
— , Effecting Change