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The Books of No Excuses

I buy books to dissect their strategies as much as to read. A sub-genre of these purchases is the “no excuses” book — a book that exists to show you why you have no excuses not to publish your next book. Kevin Kelley’s new book, Excellent Advice for Living, is

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The Workspace of the Future Is a Workbench

A few months ago, I shared some aspirational garden offices. But I didn’t share the aspirations for what should go inside those offices. For example, this is a beautiful office, but it’s not a place for work. It’s a place for leisure. So, what makes for a

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Your 3-Step Book

What if you could create a table of contents for everything you’ve posted online? How many chapters would you be proud of? I’ve done it. It’s not difficult. It’s not even as time consuming as you might think. The secret is constraints. Don’t worry about

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Solitude Deprivation

Since I’m doing some editing and cleaning on my site, I figured it might be fun to do another link love issue. Enjoy! — CJ 1 Author Cal Newport explains the collected research on whether smartphones are bad for kids or just another moral panic. This was more even-handed than

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When Pay to Play Doesn’t Pay

Seth Godin just posted about the search tax you’re paying: “Amazon took in more than $30 billion in ad revenue last year, money spent to elevate some products over others in the hierarchy of attention.” Amazon, like Google, YouTube, and Apple’s App Store are often referred to as

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You’re not namedropping enough.

I wasn’t kidding. Curation is probably your best bet for the near future. And it’s been too long since I shared some great links and quotes. Enjoy! — CJ You’re not namedropping enough. I love this. What’s the secret of the most successful local publication ever (grabbing

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Principles for Creating with AI

As usual, when I find myself writing too much about a topic, I have to distill it all into a set of principles — easily digested by a (very) mere human. These principles are backed by real data, case studies, and personal interviews. They are subject to change, ridicule, and memes…

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Choose your stressor.

Here’s just a quick lesson I learned from a road trip to the Smoky Mountains this past week. Even with the views, the southern cooking, and time with family, I put in plenty of work — both for myself and others (related: see my new post at StudioNorth on B2B

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They tricked us.

All of the following rock guitar gods sold tens of millions of albums. Guitar players, like myself, believed for years that these artists had access to futuristic tools and production tactics that were out of reach for the ordinary musician. The opposite was true. * Eddie Van Halen’s iconic striped

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Consistency is simpler than you think.

Why does mediocre writing and photography often get more attention than best of the best? Why do mediocre “coaches” get more attention than industry veterans with decades of advice summed up in a single book, video, or blog post? What are we missing here? The hardest problem to solve in