How to Do Great Work - Paul Graham
Summary
- Strictly speaking this was not a book but an article online. But it had so many interesting ideas that I ended up processing it like a book. Do yourself a favor and read the original article.
How the book changed me
- So many great ideas to apply! How to chose interesting things to work on, how to develop a great idea through iterations, some interesting ideas on learning, the list goes on!
Details
- Original ideas come from trying to work on something slightly too difficult
- Talk or write about what you are interested
- Dont worry if your tastes are different from other people
- Being interested in something drives producing great work
- Optimize for interestingness
- How to choose an area of interest to focus on
- Carry around unanswered questions
- At a certain point, working harder gives only diminishing returns
- Exponential growth feels like no growth at the outset
- Don't be too choosy about what work you want to do, but finish what you start
- When you're procrastinating in units of years, you can get a lot not done - Paul Graham
- Being prolific is underrated for producing good ideas
- Start small and create successive versions
- Traditional schooling methods induce passivity in learning
- Consider ideas that are opposed to each other
- If you are smart, its dangerous not to be productive