# content

studies, articles, blogs & sites i've read and liked.

Content

Tweet - Visualisation

How To Be Successful - Sam Altman

I’ve observed thousands of founders and thought a lot about what it takes to make a huge amount of money or to create something important. Usually, people start off wanting the former and end up...

Fast - Patrick Collison

Some examples of people quickly accomplishing ambitious things together.

Deregulating Distraction, Moving Towards the Goal, and Level Hopping

This is the third post in a series discussing my recent bout of productivity. Within, I discuss two techniques I use to avoid akrasia and one technique I use to be especially productive.

Not because you "should"

A few months ago, a friend of mine was describing her motivational issues to me. As an example, she explained she was having trouble making herself clean her room, despite her dissatisfaction with the constant messiness. I asked: "Have you considered just not forcing yourself?" She blinked, and

Rest in motion

Many people seem to think the 'good' state of being, the 'ground' state, is a relaxed state, a state with lots of rest and very little action. Because they think the ground state is the relaxed state, they act like maintaining any other state requires effort, requires suffering. This is

Slack matters more than any outcome

About a month ago Ben Pace invited me to expand on a point I'd made in a comment. • The gist is this: …

Quit Your Job

Article on the unexpected benefits of quitting your job

Marc Lou Self Documentary

6 things I wish I knew the day I started Berklee

6 things I wish I knew the day I started Berklee

All the evidence-based advice we’ve found on how to be more successful in any job

A guide to becoming more successful through greater productivity, faster learning, and better habits, based on what we've found actually works over 15+ years of research.

Don't End The Week With Nothing

A bit of inspiration (and some hopefully actionable advice) for folks who are still working at day jobs.

Finding Purpose - A letter by Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson's timeless wisdom on finding purpose and meaning, written at age 22. Essential life advice for anyone feeling lost or seeking direction.

Guide.World

List of unique travel writing aggregated by patrick collison

High Agency

Article about what High Agency is and how to gain it

How to Do What You Love

Article on doing what you love, by Paul Graham

How to Maximize Serendipity

David shares how to maximize serendipity in your life through writing. Read here.

How to be more productive

Life Advice from Patrick Collison

Mental Wealth

Reframe mental health from 'fix the problem' to 'invest in your mental wealth'

On Marriage

Poem about marriage

Paul Graham - How to Earn a Billion Dollars

Paul Graham - How to Work Hard

The days are long but the decades are short

Life advice from Sam Altman

There’s no speed limit

Derek Sivers official site. Thoughts on philosophy, culture, self-improvement. Author of Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want.

Things Many People Find Too Obvious To Have Told You Already

Thread by @patio11: \"Some people really benefit from hearing advice that everyone knows, for the same reason we keep schools open despite evein them having been taught before. In that spirit, here's some quick Things Many People Find Too Obvious To H […]\"

This is Water - David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace's remarkable 2005 commencement speech, This is Water, is a timeless trove of wisdom for living a meaningful life. Here is a full transcript along with audio.

Dive In

Nate Soares' argument that you find good plans by slamming a bad plan into reality and updating, not by waiting on the sidelines for a worthy plan to appear.

Blogroll

Andrew Bosworth

Long time Meta employee that writes great essays on career and life.

Derek Sivers

Short, contrarian essays on life, business, and doing your own thing.

Paul Graham

The Y Combinator co-founder's essays on startups, ideas, and how to think.

Sriram Krishnan

Writing on technology, investing, and building products.

Bartosz Ciechanowski

Gorgeous interactive explainers of how things work, from gears to GPS.

Brett Victor

Essays and demos on tools for thought and creative computing.

Nate Soares

Great essays on life philosophy and fulfilment.

Websites I Like

Every Noise at Once

Database of every genre of music on Spotify, including music and examples

Your Life in Months

Input your birthday to see how far through life you are. Humbling.

Teach Yourself CS

Guidance and book recommendations for *actually* teaching yourself computer science.

The Greatest Books

Aggregate of every "the best books" listicle to find the overall greatest reads.

IBM Ponder This

Monthly challenge puzzle from the OG problem solvers.

Project Euler

Programming problems that rise in difficulty.

Jane Street Puzzles

I used to obsess over these when I worked in finance. Good fun.

Studies

The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking

Academic study on the mental benefits of walking

The Tenacious Brain

Academic study on How the Anterior Mid-Cingulate Contributes to Achieving Goals

A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind

Killingsworth & Gilbert find people are less happy when their minds wander, regardless of what they are doing.

Arthur Arons 36 Questions

Aron's set of escalating questions designed to generate closeness between two strangers.

Brett Victors Study List

Counting Blessings Versus Burdens

Emmons & McCullough find that keeping a weekly record of things to be grateful for raises well-being and positive mood relative to recording hassles or neutral events.

Deactivating Facebook & Instagram

A randomised experiment showing that deactivating Facebook and Instagram before an election increased happiness and reduced anxiety.

Effect of Exercise on Depression

A network meta-analysis finding exercise is an effective treatment for depression, with walking, running, and strength training among the most effective.

Human Status Criteria

Buss, Durkee et al. map the criteria that raise or lower social status across 14 nations, documenting both universal and sex-differentiated patterns.

Illusion and Well-Being

Taylor & Brown argue that positive illusions about oneself are linked to better mental health.

Impactful Memos - Sriram Krishnan

Music Drug

Blocking opioid receptors with naltrexone dampened both the pleasure and the displeasure people felt from music — evidence that endogenous opioids underlie musical emotion, and that music draws on the same reward pathways as food, drugs, and sex.

Nature-Based Mindfulness

Djernis et al. find that practising mindfulness outdoors in a natural setting yields larger improvements in well-being than the same training done indoors.

Optimism Increases Longevity

Higher optimism is associated with longer lifespan and greater odds of living past 85.

Placebo Sleep Affects Cognitive Functioning

Simply believing you slept well improves cognitive performance, independent of actual sleep quality.

Repetitive Negative Thinking & Subjective Cognitive Decline

Rumination and chronic worry are associated with subjective cognitive decline in older adults.

Resistance Training for Depression & Anxiety

A meta-analysis of RCTs finding that resistance training significantly reduces depression and anxiety symptoms in young people.

Self Confidence

Bandura's foundational paper introducing self-efficacy — the belief in your own ability — and arguing it governs whether you attempt something, how hard you try, and how long you persist.

Sleep & Biological Ageing Clocks in Middle and Late Life

Links sleep patterns in middle and late life to biological measures of ageing.

Suppression of Unwanted Thoughts

Evidence that actively suppressing fearful thoughts can improve mental health rather than backfiring.

The Effects of Gratitude Expression on Neural Activity

Kini et al. find a brief gratitude-letter writing intervention increases neural sensitivity to gratitude in the medial prefrontal cortex, an effect still present three months later.

What to Work On

Y Combinator

A random google doc I found

Patrick Collison

Tyler Cowen

Gwern

Nintil