Wow. We’ve had over 10,000 visitors in the last 24 hours. It started with “How do I write so much, you ask? Well, glad you asked -” hitting the front page of Hacker News, but then there’s been a steady stream of tweets and blog referrals. It’s been crazy, and it’s still going. After it settles down I’ll do an analysis post on the traffic, comments, emails I’ve gotten, etc.
This leaves me scratching my head – hmm, I now have a lot of new visitors and readers (hi, welcome, glad you’re onboard). And like I said in “How do I write so much?”, I don’t think someone can exactly control the quality of their output. You give your best, but you’re not always firing at your highest level.
So I’m cheating, and I’m producing a best-of here. I took the best posts on here, and grouped them in a way so you can find exactly what you’re looking for. I’d also like to invite you to comment on which you like, make suggestions, ask questions – I read every comment. Alright, here we go -
Want to get more done?
The Evolution of My Time/Habit/Life Tracking (probably my best post on getting more done)
The Joys of Public Accountability
More About Intek – Knowing a Skill vs. Living a Skill
Some General Life Goals
Guest Post: On Being On-Track With Obsessive Tasks
Why Isn’t My Book Done?
Fill Up Your Dead Time
New Word: intek
Positive Sum Games Don’t Require Natural Talent
Quitting Spectator Sports
Becoming Prolific
My Philosophy:
Me? I’m a strategist
I think greatness is something you do, not something you are
Guest Post: Greatness and Humility
Becoming a Liberal and Magnificent Tipper
Why Build? Because I Like Humanity
Producing is a Million Times Better Than Consuming
Luck Doesn’t Exist
Rule an Empire, Fistful of Rice
Bad Stuff That’s Happened to You = Expensive Lessons You’ve Already Paid For
If luck doesn’t exist, then should we give way to fatalism?
Cowboy Science
We All Get 24 Hours…
Watching the Lightning
Observing the Pain
A Lot of Victory is Just Walking Around
Some General Good Advice:
The Problems With Half-Working
Is it cheaper to fly internationally to buy your next suits, luggage, etc?
Hey you – yeah YOU – you can be an entrepreneur
I Think Good Marketing Is Mostly Just Having People Want to Spend Time With You
I’m Realizing How Much a One Night Vacation Can Be Worth
On Refining Diet
If You’re Intelligent, Beware the Cleverness Disease
Constantly Improve Your Environment
Gratitude Tracking
Some Collected Quotes and Poetry:
Invictus
Going to sleep a lot and rejoin the land of the living tomorrow. (Hamlet)
Patience – In Macro, Yes; In Micro, No (Tokugawa quotes)
Sun Tzu says – Make It Look Easy
Wisdom Shouts in the Streets (Proverbs from the Bible)
We’re Living in the Future (video: “Everything’s amazing but nobody’s happy” – watch it now if you haven’t already seen it)
A Few More Things I’m Working On:
Whose on Your War Counsel?
My Spending Over the Last 8 Days
Mark This Down and Watch Me
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Seb,
I have been followed your articles for quite a while now and I have to say 3 positive things that most occur to me.
1. Some of your writing are well successful. I mean they are clever. You can consider yourself in privileged position.
2. You are different, although it more of the bold style you go for that trap people. It is like ‘ hang on a minute, what he is talking about’
3. You write in the same way that you talk. I only assume this cause I never met you in person. This can be very powerful if you know how to take advantage of your charisma. There is nothing more beautiful than the man who can transform his character in to words.
Aside from this wonderful achievement, there is few negative points I personal feel. I hope my comment will contribute for the better. I taught my kid to write sometimes and realize that school homework’s these day drive even adult crazy, let alone those guys. But there is some very simple old tips that I find it works really well for me as a journalist many year ago.
1. You got to be relax when you write. Don’t push yourself to win an argument, that is normally a major mistake. A strong argument is grew upon clear research, thoughtful observation and clever articulation. We must put the ‘ me, me, me’ out for a second and pretend like someone is listening to you carefully.
2. Try to write a draft by hand. Typing is no good. Computer kills poetry. Do you believe that? When you take time to write down by hand (not the whole thing), it actually give you more time to consider and re-structure. You must design a piece of writing as much as you design your thought.
3. Always write backward.
Every now and then, I told my kid don’t try to do things just to meet deadline.(however deadline is interesting on it own) Do it over and over again until it is sound like a waterfall in your head. Despite some of your strong opinion, I just want to say one more thing on this ” It is not about quantity, it is about quality”.
Be a strong man as you are! Good luck!
Alex
Hey Alex, thanks for the comment and feedback. For the kind words, yes, cheers, thank you. I try to write like I speak, but it’s tricky. Not quite. But close. Sterile-purely-neutral-academic-tone is ok when it’s necessary, but it puts people to sleep.
Your feedback:
> 1. You got to be relax when you write.
> 2. Try to write a draft by hand.
> 3. Always write backward.
I think that’s all good stuff. I already write backwards. I used to take lots of notes by hand, but I don’t any more for space reasons. I’ve filled up extensive notebooks with notes, and I’ve got four notebooks still with me full of notes. I stopped that, and now it’s all on the computer. I lose creativity, a little, but my notes are always accessible, and I don’t have to worry about having them checked in in my luggage but I’m on the plane, or whatever. iPhone+laptop is my note-taking/outlining. I like paper, maybe I’ll go back to it when I’m settled in somewhere again. Or maybe not…
About relaxing in writing – this is something to think about more, I think you’re on to something here. I like Paul Graham’s style – he writes like he’s unraveling a mystery with you, and enjoying the discovery. Something like this:
“What You Can’t Say”
The Conformist Test
Let’s start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?
If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you’re supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn’t. Odds are you just think whatever you’re told.
The other alternative would be that you independently considered every question and came up with the exact same answers that are now considered acceptable. That seems unlikely, because you’d also have to make the same mistakes. Mapmakers deliberately put slight mistakes in their maps so they can tell when someone copies them. If another map has the same mistake, that’s very convincing evidence.
Like every other era in history, our moral map almost certainly contains a few mistakes. And anyone who makes the same mistakes probably didn’t do it by accident. It would be like someone claiming they had independently decided in 1972 that bell-bottom jeans were a good idea.
–
He takes a potentially really adversarial, controversial position, and he’s so… cool about it. I think you’re on to something about this relaxation point. Cheers for the feedback.
Ah very well Sebastian, you give an example of someone who is kind of remarkable essayist of our era. Yes I agree with you, he always seems to be incredible relax. All best people I know are in fact. They don’t need to rush because they know they are on top of things. They are going to win no matter what. Relax is the secret charm and powerful weapon. It shows that you are rich and fulfill,has no desperation.
Also i said ‘ simple old tips’ because everyone knows these but ignore them. You do actually have very charming style IF you could just less tense up and take some of the masculine effect away.
Best
Alex
The best of list is something I was looking for as a new reader. Thanks. I also love how you respect the people who comment, as some bloggers get very defensive. We’re not going to mention names.
It is, however, a little hard to keep track of the comments here. It would be great if you could add a commenting platform that has multiple threads. Maybe something like Disqus or Comment Luv. Just an idea.
Best of luck.
ziweb
> The best of list is something I was looking for as a new reader.
Good, good. Thought that would be useful.
> Thanks. I also love how you respect the people who comment, as some bloggers get very defensive. We’re not going to mention names.
First – thanks for the kind words. Second – I massively respected Arrington, I think he’s amazing. He’s got a brutally hard job, and all kinds of people kick dirt at him, and yet he puts out pretty good info. TechCrunch is good. I can’t even imagine trying to deal with something that big, with people you don’t know ready to spit at you or kick dirt. I understand why people get unfriendly sometimes, pressure can be a vicious thing. It can juice you up, and you want to stay grounded, but at the same time… I don’t know, I don’t judge the guy if he lashes out sometimes, he’s got people who are really mean and nasty to him, yet he’s doing some pretty cool things, got some talented writers, covering a cool and emerging scene. I respect the guy. We all got our faults, but I respect him a lot.
> It is, however, a little hard to keep track of the comments here. It would be great if you could add a commenting platform that has multiple threads. Maybe something like Disqus or Comment Luv. Just an idea.
Yeah, I didn’t have so many commentors before! I just installed CommentLuv on your recommendation, I’l test it out for a few days. I gotta see if it slows down the site or is cluttered, but if not I’ll keep it. Does it thread comments? It doesn’t say that it does… if not, I’ll need to get a comment-thread plugin to keep things organized, we’ve got an explosion of new visitors and contributors.
Also – you submitted me to Reddit? That’s so cool man, thanks for that. Best wishes and thanks for all the good advice.
Edit: I think I just turned threaded comments on, will test momentarily. That should help readability too. Cheers.
Yeah threads are working so that’s cool. No thank you for writing that cool article, I got some good link karama on reddit :).
I just started reading the comments on TechCrunch, and that was the first comment I read from Arrington. So I guess it was a bad first impression. Thanks for clearing that up.
Arrington is not getting any love at reddit.
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