This post is about a certain kind of procrastination; I call it “over-managing.” It’s when you know what you should be working on at a given time, but instead of doing the work, you continue to deliberate over big-picture / planning decisions. As productive individuals, we have to be good Managers, but we also need to be able to call the plan “good enough” and be the Employee. Continue reading
Hue Paint tool: Match your photos to any color scheme
Hue Paint is a digital tool I made to force a given hue (color) onto an image, but only where it looks right. So, if you pick out a specific “red,” you can make all the reds in the image match it, and leave the other colors unchanged. This is a subtle way to make any photo match a given color palette. Continue reading
Hidden hues: The surprising color associations we share
What color is Monday? What color is three? It turns out, we do associate random things with certain colors, and in many cases we tend to report the same associations. There IS a color of Monday. Continue reading
Crosspost: The generalist’s skillset
I put this together to talk about meta-skills: the broad skills that help all generalists manage and balance their particular skills and interests. In my own life, the reason I got interested in productivity and time management and the like was because I was a generalist, and I needed to get good at juggling everything. So this page covers what I’ve learned so far, and I’m sure I’ll add to it in the future. Continue reading
Crosspost: Necessary generalists
I wrote this short series to talk about a weird thing in the modern world: there are a few areas where pretty much everybody needs to be knowledgeable. Each individual now bears some responsibilities, fully, which in past generations were shared or outsourced. Since we each need to have these few areas covered, on top of whatever else we’re doing in our lives, we’re all necessary generalists. Continue reading
Crosspost: A place for generalists
This is a crosspost from True Generalist. This post goes deeper into why I made that site, what being a generalist means to me, and why the present time and place is an ideal environment for generalists. Continue reading
New project announcement: True Generalist
I’m very excited to announce a brand-new project that I’ve been working on for the better part of last year. It’s a website called True Generalist (truegeneralist.com), and it’s all about giving generalists the resources they need to excel at everything they do. Continue reading
My scorched-earth policy on New Year’s resolutions
At this time of year, everyone either writes a “How to set and keep your New Year’s resolution” article, or a “Why you shouldn’t set a New Year’s resolution” article. This is the latter. Continue reading
Balance and meta-balance
I’ve been noticing that a recurring theme in my writing here is balance between opposites. I’ve written about balancing consumption vs. production in your life, and recently about balancing systems vs. goals for achieving what you desire. And I can think of a few more that I haven’t written about yet, that I’d like to touch on. It could become a pain to try to keep so many balances in mind, but I thought if I could arrange most of it hierarchically, that would be much cleaner. Continue reading
Goals vs. Systems
Last year I wrote about setting personal goals. One bit of feedback I got went something like, “Goal setting is a bad mindset, you should use systems instead.” I’ve heard that idea before, with a few different justifications. I do have some thoughts, and experience, on using systems to build skills or manage productivity, and I realized I should write on that too in order to make the goal-setting content more complete. Continue reading
Descent (image series)
This one came from another dream I had. Nothing really happened in the dream that I can remember, but the physical space was pretty striking. There’s lots of meanings we could ascribe to this. I have an interpretation, but I’d rather leave it up to you. Continue reading
Choosing Battles on the Internet
A couple years ago, I noticed that I’d been holding onto a mindset that was counterproductive, and I’ve often seen this mindset in some of the online communities I spend time in. I like talking with people who believe in the truth-seeking power of good-faith disagreements, but some of these kinds of people have a tendency to overestimate the value of argument, which causes them to engage in conversations they shouldn’t. And I think I have good heuristics for avoiding that without giving up on rational disagreements entirely. Continue reading
AI Historical Figure banner art (image series)
This is the art I made for my AI Historical Figures project. It’s used by the AI Twitter accounts as the profile picture and banner image. I wanted to develop a style that’s unique and recognizable, so Twitter users who saw multiple accounts would make the connection that they go together in a series. Continue reading
AI Historical Figures on Twitter
I’ve just started two Twitter accounts that use artificial intelligence to emulate the thoughts of two long-dead historical figures—apocryphal writing to entertain fellow enthusiasts. Twitter provides a never-ending torrent of content to respond to, and the idea of being able to hear a historical figure’s simulated thoughts about a given present-day event just sounded really fun to me. The model does an impressive job both at copying the vocabulary of the original person, and also often getting historical details right. Continue reading
On Credibility: Whom to trust on the Internet
Figuring out which strangers to trust on the Internet is a challenging problem, but potentially a very rewarding one. Ideally you’re interacting with transparent, accountable people who may even be experts in their fields, who may have tons of invaluable wisdom and knowledge to share—if only you trust them. I’m weighing in on this because I have reason to believe I’m particularly good at solving this problem. Continue reading
