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Notes

Notes

Short essays on building, discipline, and the small choices that compound. Published weekly.

15

The 30-second test for marketing copy

Take any line on your homepage. Read it aloud. Now ask: based on what? Specific copy compounds; puffery quietly bleeds you out.

14

Most "intelligent" features make the user dumber

A genuinely intelligent feature gives you more capacity to think. A dumb-intelligent feature gives you less. Three principles for tools that strengthen.

13

Your best week beats your best workout

Anyone can have a great workout. The right unit isn't the day. It's the week. Why most underperformance is an average-week problem.

12

The five lenses I run before I touch code

Most builders build for one person and act surprised when the product is brittle. Five lenses I run before writing a line, in twenty minutes.

11

Discipline is automation, not motivation

Almost every productivity book is dressed-up motivation talk. Real discipline is the system you build so you don't have to summon any feelings.

10

What compounds and what just looks like it does

Followers grow but don't compound. Decision quality, taste, and a body of work do. The difference between a busy career and a great one.

09

A practice has no off-switch. Habits do.

A habit is something you do. A practice is something you are. Why identity-level commitments survive what action-level habits don't.

08

The strongest claim is the one you can defend in 30 seconds

Most marketing copy isn't lying. It's worse. It's un-defendable. The 30-second test forces honesty.

07

The decision log is the only honest content moat

Every other content moat can be copied. The decision log can't, because no one else made your decisions.

06

You don't need an audience. You need a body of work.

Audiences are loaned to you. Bodies of work are owned. The asymmetry between loud, short-lived growth and quiet, permanent compounding.

05

Standing rules beat strong opinions

Why a small rule, written down once, beats the same opinion you'd re-derive fifty times. Discipline is what's left when willpower has gone home.

04

Why I started a decision log

I started keeping a decision log because I kept making the same mistakes. What it costs, what it earns, why most operators don't.

03

Most ambition is procrastination wearing a suit

The most ambitious people in any room are often the least active. Why ambition can become a beautiful way to never start.

02

Time is the only edge

Every edge sold to you can be copied. The one thing nobody can copy is the years you've already spent.

01

Going wide is how you avoid going deep

Going wide is one of the most respectable ways to avoid the hard work. It looks like ambition. It feels like ambition. It is, in fact, a polite version of avoidance.