My motivation to write original content for this blog waxes and wanes throughout the week. I always have ideas written down in notebooks or swirling around in my head. I often have a thought or idea or observe something interesting and think, “Hey this would make a great blog post. I’ll do that later tonight.” As is apparent with one scroll through my blog, I rarely follow through. As a stopgap until I conjure up some more motivation, here are some links to original content written elsewhere on the internets by people evidently more motivated than me:

The Days Are Long But the Decades Are Short

Some very useful, actionable, meaningful reflections written by Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator (a very well-known and successful startup incubator), upon turning 30. I was going to pick out a few of my favorites, but really every point he makes is great. Read them all. I saved the link to my bookmarks bar and will probably be turning to it when I need some inspiration or motivation (for this blog, even!)

Video excerpt from David Foster Wallace’s 2005 Commencement Speech

Many parts of this speech have become well-ingrained in our cultural milieu by now, and yet I still get something meaningful out of each and every listen/read. Real education means having a choice, a freedom in what you think. DFW says it better: “You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. That is real freedom.” This is something I strive to think about often. Living proof of this idea is beautifully illustrated in Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning,” which I posted a little bit about last month. The strongest and most courageous people I know embody this philosophy. Writes Frankl, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Workflowy, the previously alluded to to-do list manager I’ve been using lately.

The UI is clean and minimalist, it’s very effective at making me want to get things done, it’s fast, it automatically syncs across all devices, and it’s as scalable as you want it to be. Infinite bullet lists! My “TO DO” is my most used list, but as you can see below, I have other lists like “Want” and “Vision” that expand out into outline form. Click the blurry thumbnail to have a better visual of my approaching-OCD list-making system. As you can see, I have today expanded and all the other days I’ve tracked minimized; this is part of Workflowy’s beauty:

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Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

My mom bought me this book when I was going through a stressful time last year. As is characteristic of these times, I wasn’t reading much (though the question of which was the cause and which the effect are unclear). I finally got around to reading this last month.

The case for minimalism has always compelled me, and I try to enact its ideas through the possessions I own and how I organize my space. “Essentialism” pushes these ideas further, and makes a convincing case for cutting back the parts of your life (not just physical possessions, but the choices you make, the events you participate in, the work you do, the people you spend time with) that you do not consider essential. The philosophy can be as unrelenting or as forgiving as you want it to be, but the main point is that you should give careful consideration to the stuff–both physical and immaterial–that you fill your life with. More time and enjoyment will result.