30 | Finishing Work
Why 99% done is meaningless, engineering flow, a love letter to big business and more
Good morning,
After spending the Bank Holiday weekend drinking and crammed on trains, I’ve received a self-isolation notice. And it’s come at a reasonable time because my On Deck Fellowship finishes this week, and I need to finish my capstone essay for it.
Today is also one of my favourite days of the year. As a shameless Apple fanboy, it’s WWDC - the day Apple shows off the new versions of software for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch.
This week on Future Talk, Sam and I met in person for the first time this year and recorded a couple of episodes. The first is about sex. That’s right, we’ve sunk that low.
You can listen later this week on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts and more.
If I open my writing drafts, I’m met with a lot of unfinished drafts of essays for my website. Most more than halfway through, but incomplete. This got me thinking about the value of unfinished work. There isn’t any. Even though I mainly write for myself, only being halfway through means my thinking isn’t clear.
And then there are the projects I started and didn’t finish either. Not a single one released to the world. Even if they were 99% done, that 1% makes all the difference.
It’s a challenge of focus. But this isn’t combating Netflix, Twitter, etc.; it’s combating my creativity. Jumping around from idea to idea serves me no good.
So it’s time for me to stop.
After my capstone essay is published, I’m going to work on only one long-form piece at a time (I enjoy writing long-form).
With my various coding projects, I’m also only going to work on one and see it through. From mid-June, Sam and I will be taking part in Hack Africa, a hackathon event focused on finding blockchain solutions to support developing nations in Africa.
I’m excited to see what comes of it and my newfound focus.
👀 Recommendations 👀
🔧🧠 How to Engineer Flow - Sharif Shameem. You know those times when time flies while you’re focused on a task? That’s what flow is. Sharif Shameem shares how he achieves flow, and his point about air quality interested me. I had never realized the importance of air quality for cognition. It’s something I’m going to look out for. For me, I need good sleep and no-lyric music; this playlist is my go-to.
📚🏦 Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero. In this book, Tyler Cowen explains why he loves big business. He puts forward a contrarian argument to what a lot of people are thinking right now. As a capitalist, it’s an excellent read. But even if you’re a socialist, it’s worth a read to understand how the ‘other side’ thinks.
🧑💻🗺 Submarine Cable Map 2021. It’s amazing how much we take global communications infrastructure for granted. Submarine Cable Map shows the routes of cables in the sea that give us the connected world we’re in today. And who are leading the push to get more cables laid? The private sector, what a surprise…