Dickie's Digest - Parkinson's Law, The Tail End, and Deep House
Friends,
Sitting down to write the Digest every Sunday has become something I look forward to each week. Throughout the week, I’m constantly on the lookout for interesting things to share, doing what I can to not lose track of any of them. But what often ends up happening is I find too many things to put in a single newsletter. I then spend too much time thinking about which ones are going to make the cut and which are going to get dropped. So this week I set up two constraints - only three things could make it in the final edition, and I could only spend an hour writing it. These constraints take advantage of Parkinson’s Law, an idea I explore in this recently published article. These constraints focused my efforts and eliminated the non-essential, which hopefully leads to a better Digest! If you get a chance to read it this week, let me know what you think and if any of it resonates.
Thanks to those of you who signed up over the past few days — here is this week’s edition of the Digest. As always, reach out if you find anything particularly interesting. Have an epic week!
Best Reads of the Week
Understanding Parkinson's Law Changes Everything
Parkinson’s Law — work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Understanding it can make us more efficient in our daily operations.
But there’s a bigger idea at play here — constraining a resource leads to better utilization of that resource. Understanding this and applying it to our lives changes everything.
The Tail End — Wait But Why
If you’ve never read this before, stop what you’re doing and read it. Tim Urban so eloquently puts the shortness of life in perspective. It’s impossible to read this and walk away without a refreshed outlook on life.
The most profound but chilling line: “If you’ve graduated from high school, more than 95% of the time you will spend in-person with your parents has already elapsed. Does that change how you think about the last 5%?”
MEGATHREAD TIME: In 40 tweets I will describe 40 powerful concepts for understanding the world. Some are complex so forgive me for oversimplifying, but the main purpose is to incite curiosity. Okay, here we go:
6:25 PM - 6 Feb 2020
HANDS DOWN the coolest Twitter thread I’ve ever come across. 40 concepts that you might not have heard of but have definitely experienced. A few of my favorites:
Peter Principle: People in a hierarchy such as a business or government will be promoted until they suck at their jobs, at which point they will remain where they are. As a result, the world is filled with people who suck at their jobs.
Goodhart’s Law: When a measure becomes a goal, it ceases to become a measure. E.g. British colonialists tried to control snakes in India. They measured progress by number of snakes killed, offering money for snake corpses. People responded by breeding snakes & killing them.
Subselves: We use different mental processes in different situations, so each of us is not a single character but a collection of different characters, who take turns to commandeer the body depending on the situation. There is an office “you”, a lover “you”, an online “you”, etc.
Best Listens of the Week
Deep House Relax, a playlist by Spotify
This is my go-to playlist to listen to while studying or writing anything. The bass-heavy, up-tempo beats keep me better focused than all other playlists.
I struggle to focus if there are too many vocals in the music I’m listening to, so the majority of these are instrumental. It’s also one of the few Spotify playlists that transition smoothly from one song to the next without any break in the music, which I find pretty awesome.
Quotes and Questions
QUOTE - “Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.” - Lin Yutang
QUESTION - How can you apply Parkinson’s Law to your life? What resource could you better utilize if you placed a constraint on its supply?
End Note
If you’re enjoying the Digest so far, I’d love it if you shared it with a friend or two by forwarding it or sending them here to sign up. In a world full of noise, I’m trying to make this email the one with the most signal that you receive each week — I hope you’re enjoying it.
Be sure to follow me on Twitter or respond directly to this email to get in touch. And should you come across anything interesting this week, send it my way! I love finding new things to read through members of this newsletter.
Have an epic week,
Dickie