I don’t really care about winning; I’m not at all competitive. This also means that you cannot really motivate me by setting specific goals (with the one exception of doing Jack Shit, obviously). I’m a “journey man” — I mostly care about the journey, not the destination. However,
In 1962, president John F. Kennedy visited NASA for the first time. As he toured around, he met a janitor carrying a broom in the hallway. “What are you doing here, son?” the president asked. The janitor stood still, broom in hand, and dreamily glanced up towards the sky. “I’
“Thanks for coming to me with this. Here’s what we’re going to do.” I stop and feel my pockets. Nothing. “Ok, in this day and age, who still carries a wallet? Anybody got any coins on them?” Everybody starts feeling their pants and skirts. Frank finds some loose
Naively you may have thought: “I’m sure that Zef got a lot of pushback on his openness about his ambition to do Jack Shit, so probably this week he’ll walk some of that back.” Hah! No. I’m going to double down on it. I’m going to
My ultimate goal is to have to do Jack Shit. Don’t worry, “Jack Shit” is a technical term. It’s named after a person in late 17th century England, who was famous in the productivity community for his shockingly empty calendar. So, please don’t be upset about me
World Peace
“Good morning! How are you doin’?” He keeps asking me that. Why? For many weeks now I’ve smiled and nodded, and been saying all is fine. I’m not sure that’s the correct answer. Does he know that something’s off? I mean, it’s not been the
Magic happens on mountains. There is a long, although not consistently documented history of this fact. A notable early example is from 1446 BC (disclaimer: this is a surprisingly-specific AI-generated estimate): Moses spent some quality time up mountain Sinai, and came down with the 10 commandments. Since then, a slew
Essentials
I couldn’t fall asleep last night. I had an epiphany. I grabbed my phone, opened SilverBullet and quickly jotted down a formula. “I need to remember this in the morning,” I thought. Little did I know that the morning was still far out. Plenty of time to start applying
There’s a rare gem buried in most companies’ secondary benefits: the training budget. Every year we’re allowed to spend a certain amount on “personal development.” Traditionally the intention of these budgets is to send you off on some training course, or attend a conference. However, it’s 2023.
No More
“We have this amazing idea. We’re going to apply the model of Tinder to... the jobs market! Tinder for Jobs, it’s a slam dunk!” It’s 2018, and I’m being pitched a new job. The product pitch is clear: we’re going to revolutionize the job market
No More
“Oh, you’re doing OKRs? Sweet. Ah, a feature lists masquerading as key results. Classic mistake. It’s where we were in my previous place two years ago. I know how to fix this, allow me to fast forward you two years. You’re welcome.” In the new place, I
Yesterday I accepted a job offer. I’ll start in a few weeks, and I’m very excited about it. I’ll share more specifics when I can, but not today. The search is over. I’m happy and relieved. As I’m still processing this, let me dump an
