CategoryPersonal

The Empty Restaurant Paradox

People outsource their thinking all the time. You. Me. Partly because we need to (there’s too many decisions to make daily) and partly because we’re lazy. Sometimes we outsource our thinking and mistakenly think we’re embracing the so-called ‘Wisdom of the Crowd‘. A quick example. Two Asian noodle places are located nearby. One has a big queue outside and the other...

84 to 85 = shoulder pain

I’d been wondering why I was getting pain in my right shoulder recently. Nothing sharp, just a dull ache by the end of the day. I realised (by accident) that it was the height of my standing desk. I’d bumped the height switch a few days prior and the height had gone from 84 up to 85. And in the following days the shoulder pain started. I took it back down to 84 (ie 1cm lower), and the...

Game Changer

Game changer Definition: Any new feature—no matter how basic or specific to a particular area—which is talked about breathlessly on social media as if it’s going to unlock some amazing new level of productivity or performance. Usually accompanied by at least one fire emoji. Ideally, if it is in beta, that makes it more of a game changer. Bonus: if it’s a private beta, then it’s...

Why I cancelled Duolingo

I’ve been using Duolingo for a while. I pay for the Premium (Super) version. But I cancelled this week. Not because I don’t use it. Not because I’m replacing it with another tool or ChatGPT. I cancelled it because I’m sick of so much upsell. The bottom set of icons used to give me access to different features. Now two of the six are just for upsells. I’m fine with...

Sucking your AirPods clean

My right AirPod had been playing up for the last few months. It was considerably quieter than the left one. I’d done all the obvious things – cleaning away wax build up, resetting and repairing, checking balance levels in Accessibility settings etc. No change. Then I came across this post that suggested I ‘suck’ the AirPod speaker. At that point I was happy to try anything...

Rewards

Many, many years ago I was going to a nightclub with a group of friends. We got there and one guy in our group was denied entry by the bouncer because of his shoes (he had pointy toed boots – winkel pickers were having a resurgence at the time). So we all had to leave (we weren’t going to leave him on his own outside). We walked back to his hotel, where he changed his shoes, and then...

Frustration and Learning

Another quote, I saw somewhere on social, but have no idea how to credit the original person…

Frustration isn’t a sign you’re not learning. But ease is.

The Expertise Blind Spot

Or: Why We Can’t See the Gap Above Us (I saw this idea while scrolling on social, but then got distracted and when I came back my feed refreshed and I lost it… but if I find the source again I’ll link to it here.) There’s a theory that we can’t understand or differentiate the levels of expertise above us. We can only differentiate them below us. If we have reached a...

Which life will you live?

Living all your different lives.

There’s not enough time to live all the different lives you’d love to live.

Different locations, different jobs, different circles of friends.

So because the time is limited, you’ve got to choose carefully.

Which life do you want to live?

It’s time to be ruthless. With all key ingredients. That make up your recipe for life.

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