Shawn Blanc

Coasting in life means you are not taking action. And, thus, you are, by nature: Going downhill; living off the momentum of your past effort; or being pulled / pushed along by someone else.

“Alex & Books” on Twitter: The point of reading is not to memorize every word… It’s to introduce yourself to new ideas, new information, and new ways of thinking. In this exploding information economy of personal knowledge management and building your…

Ryan Holiday: Read. Read. Read. Make commitments Work with great people Focus on effort, not results Make a little progress each day Don’t talk about projects until you’re finished Journal Remember: it’s all material I’d also add rule 9: Don’t overthink it ✚✚

As the warmer months are finally upon us, here’s a refresher on my four rules of book buying: Don’t be a wimp about it. Don’t stress about reading them cover to cover. Make notes and mark up the margins. Share what you learn. ✚✚

“For me, one of the signs of health in emotional margin is how much I’m writing in my notebook each week. If pages begin to stack up without any notes, ideation, or doodling, it’s a sign that I’m not slowing down enough to think on paper.” Great…

A lot of productivity and time management advice includes all the things you should not do. Don’t sleep in. Don’t use your phone in the morning. Don’t check email before lunchtime. Don’t binge watch Netflix late into the night. Don’t have social…

I was recently flipping through Greg McKeown’s book, Essentialism, and came across this quote that I had highlighted: “If you believe being overly busy and overextended is evidence of productivity, then you probably believe that creating space to explore,…

One definition of Focus is “Maximum Clarity”. But, in life, having maximum clarity doesn’t always mean having absolute, perfect clarity. Focus can be a graduating scale. Sometimes, having maximum clarity right now, may still seem a bit vague… maybe you…

A few weeks ago I shared about how my company just celebrated its 11-year anniversary. And many of you emailed me with some fantastic questions about running a business, etc. So I’m wanted to answer a handful of them here. Let’s go…. . . . . . “What…

This is a fantastic Twitter thread from Marie about how she has been using Notion to journal for the past 1,000+ days. (See also how Chloe has begun using Notion to track her habits.) ✚✚

This is a great, short video about the value of getting bored and making stuff. (p.s. Give “Herbert’s” phone schedule a try for a few days and let me know what you think.) ✚✚

I try to make as few decisions each day as possible. Here are some of the things I’ve “automated” about my day, and why it matters. Years ago, I started with automating the trivial parts of my life: What to wear What to eat for breakfast When to get up…

It’s been more than 18 months since my company switched from Basecamp to Notion for managing our entire editorial calendar and all other projects as well. There are a lot of great things and a lot of frustrating things about Notion. Here is a…

In this excellent article from Paul Graham, he talks about the fact that a lot of work kinda sucks — that’s the nature of it a lot of time. And so you have to just dive on in and do it. But, unfortunately, a lot of people and teams will shy away from the…