My wife and I had been interested in small, micro-sized startup ideas for over 16 years, at one point pursuing six projects at once. As you can imagine, we were spread so thin, none of the ideas took off. So we began looking for a simple way to manage the chaos of startup ideas and…
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This cartoon was the subject of the New Yorker’s great cartoon caption contest, where readers are invited to submit their caption for the cartoonists drawing. Our favorite caption (that didn’t win) was: Mistakes were made. We make so many mistakes daily that it was heartening to see this image of Noah’s miscalculation. Although we don’t…
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We found this wonderful image on Maria Robledo’s Instagram. Ohhh, what a great method of storing receipts (emptying pockets or bag then-and-there.) Thrown into a space between books —some amazing ones at that— they take on a curious beauty. We have a box in an easily-accessible file cabinet that we throw them into to collate…
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According to motivation scientist Heidi Grant Halvorson at at 99U “Making if-then plans to tackle your current projects, or reach your goals, is probably – without exaggerating – the most effective single thing you can do to ensure your success.” Yikes! Sign us up! What do we have to do? If-Then thinking works like this: You decide…
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Dig this brilliance from E.B. White, author of the great Charlotte’s Web. He starts his day plan with a Principle — “…change the world and have one hell of a good time” — instead of a schedule, and knocks all the day-planning strategies and productivity experts on their heads. Yay! via French by Design what happens…
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Over the past several months, Pixar’s former story artist Emma Coates‘ 22 Rules of Good Storytelling has been flying around the web. Although we find it to be excellent advice for writers, we found annotating it made it even better: a list of fine life principles for any creative soul. Our favorite: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not…
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We were reading a packed-full-of-revelations1992 interview with poet Gary Snyder when we came across this amazing, of-the-cuff line. What a concept! The context is his answer to the question about whether he’d work as Secretary of the Interior or other political post if asked: I’ve never thought seriously about that question. Probably not, although I am foolish…
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CreativeMornings Short: George Lois on Courage from CreativeMornings on Vimeo. (Video link here.) In this short, great clip from design legend George Lois‘ CreativeMornings talk, he gives what he considers to be his most essential piece of advice for creatives — for anyone — : “be courageous!“. And suddenly we realized that Lois is curiously reminiscent of the Cowardly…
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Like many people, we’re always trying to find ways to increase productivity without stressing ourselves out. We’ve discovered that along with the idea of being more productive and in control comes the pressure to accomplish things. I can have the effect of making us “look over the fence at other people’s greener grass” and be…
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