The two-minute rule
Prepare for the unexpected. When starting a new habit you will have ups and downs. For me, I wanted to write this newsletter weekly, so it meant a new habit to write a little bit every day and share it every Friday.
This week has been a big down. Last week, my second kid was born, and I haven't had a single moment to sit down and write anything. I am writing this on my phone while waiting for the first pediatric visit. These moments of “me time” are precious.
As I did not have too much time and energy this week to follow up with the habit I used a trick from Atomic Habits: the two-minute rule. This consists of reducing the habit to the bare minimum. If you want to read more, the goal should be to read 1 page every day:
The point is to master the habit of showing up. The truth is, a habit must be established before it can be improved. If you can’t learn the basic skill of showing up, then you have little hope of mastering the finer details.
So what I did this week was to do a little bit every day. And my main goal was to not skip this issue.
Podcast with writing tips
This Sunday I spent one hour assembling a changing table from Ikea. I used that time to listen to David Perell's podcast Write of Passage — remember what I said before about not wasting this precious time?. Write of passage is a cohort-based writing course from the same author. David started publishing small podcast episodes with the tips he shares in the course.
Every episode is a tip, which the author already has an article about it on his website. I listened to a bunch of them during that hour as I was not even realizing the episode changing to another. Some of the tips are already applied to this newsletter already.
- Listen: The Write of Passage podcast.
How China conquered the keyboard
Johnny Harris could talk about any topic and make it interesting. He made me watch long videos about history when it was one of the topics I did not care about in school.
This week I saw this video, on how china adapted the QWERTY keyboard in the late 80s. They had to fit a language with more than a thousand characters in a hundred keys.
Forty-Year Career
I also recently read an article shared by a colleague titled A Forty-Year Career. It’s an interesting framework to follow to have a fruitful career. These are the areas the article takes into consideration for that purpose: pace, people, prestige, profit, and learning.
Your coworkers being an important part of your day-to-day experience is unsurprising, and what I’ve found increasingly true is that your current coworkers also have an outsized influence on your career long after you’ve stopped working together.
I recently experienced what the article says, as I recently changed my job because a coworker from a previous work recommended me.
Read: A Forty-Year Carrer
Here’s why Twitter is a great long-term skill to learn.
No, I’m not talking about Twitter in this section. But the headline was catchy enough for you to start reading this, true? This is a headline from the Subject Line Generator website. Even if you don’t use it, it can give you ideas on how to approach a topic from another perspective. These are other interesting ones generated about Twitter:
Why I’m teaching my kids all about Twitter.
The Pro’s and Con’s of a career in Twitter.
Read: Subject Line Generator Formula
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See you next week!