The reason people get good ideas in the shower is because it’s the only time during the day when most people are away from screens long enough to think clearly. The lesson is not to take more showers, but rather to make more time to think.

Charlie Munger’s 3 rules for life.

Your ability to simply show up consistently separates you from 99% of competitors.

everyone should take a gap year (or at least 6 months) once every 5 years

Pro Tip: 50% of the skills you can foster by just observing what successful people are doing in your field and replicate it.

Innovation is just efficiency hidden in disguise.

Чим більше закопуєшся в конкретні задачі тим більше це тебе віддаляє від побудови успішного проекту (бізнесу), бо немає часу над реально важливими речами. Прєкол. Decision fatigue is real.

А ось ще один прікол, чим відрізняється школа і реальне життя - в житті ніхто тобі не скаже «Макс, яку дурню ти робиш», бо всім своїх справ вистачає. Тож треба вміти час від часу зупинятися і самому задавати собі це питання.

Always work for yourself, even if you’re actually working for someone else

Run, then buy shoes. Build, then raise money.

There’s a distinction I often use that keeps coming up in conversations, and then people say “that’s really good, have you written it down anywhere?” and I have to shamefacedly admit that no, no I have not. Anyway, this is me writing it down somewhere.

I just finished a project.

We spent 4 months building a software system, running experiments, writing an academic paper, and submitting it to a journal for publication. So now we are done. The end. Right?

No! This is what I call stopping at 90%.

If time is the scarcest resource, the strongest endorsement you can give to a company is choosing to work there.

Bill Gates used to go offline to do a Think Week twice a year. All he'd do is read, think, and plan.

When doing deep work, context switching is the enemy.

20 years from now, the only people who will remember that you worked late are your kids.

A few of the responses:

“The graveyard is full of ‘irreplaceable’ and ‘important’ people.”

“I don’t remember what I was working on, I can’t tell you why it was important. But I can tell you how my not being there made my kids feel.”

Really makes you think about tradeoffs.

Don’t let a large corporation suck the life out of you

There is usually a block of time each day when you are at your best—​peak energy, peak enthusiasm. Let's say it's 2 hours per day. How do you spend those 2 hours? Who or what gets your best time?

If hard work leads to success, the donkey would own the farm.

According to the Apple co-founder, the best employees are also a pain in the butt to manage.

Everyone I know successfully generating passive income are the least passive people you'll ever meet

In an 8-hour day, the average worker is productive for 2 hours and 53 minutes. Why are we all pretending to work?

A great framework for change management by Dr. Mary Lippitt.

“Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do, not keep up with every damn thing in the world.” —Charlie Munger

Focus is the way.

Genius Execution > Genius Strategy

You don't have to solve the majority of hard problems you encounter in either business, design, or programming. Almost all of them can be restated as an easy problem, if you dare question the assumptions, reweigh the trade-offs, and stop diving after sunk cost.

Don't set your deadlines for Monday. Don't agree to deadlines for Mondays. Respect yourself, your time, and your family/friends enough to remove all temptation to work on weekends.

One of the more surprising things in business is the degree to which an inexperienced person with the right mindset will outperform a highly experienced person without it.

Planning on paper > planning on a screen

At least for me. Fewer distractions, and something about physically exerting yourself to put ink to paper makes the whole process feel more substantial and real

In the modern world, don’t minimize your risks - maximize your opportunities

Most careers turn into sales jobs when you get senior enough.

Whenever you find yourself thinking you’re late to a new technological trend, remember that Walt Disney thought he was late to animation in 1923

Most people lack focus, not motivation.

Showing up every day is the growth hack.

Don't spend time talking about whether you think something will work. Test it.

Don't spend time asking people what they want. Create it and validate.

Don't spend time asking people what they like. Look at what they use.

You're not an employee, you're a business. We just changed all the names.

• Posting your resume is marketing
• Interviewing is sales
• Salary negotiation is pricing
• Your employer is your customer

You were meant to make things, but not by being a cog in the machine.

Either we agree on how to measure it, or it becomes politics.

Tips I use to avoid burnout:

• Learn to say "no" more often. Know your limits. It's easy to over-commit
• Time is your biggest asset. Spend it on what matters most.
• It's OK to ask for help. This includes seeking collaboration vs. going alone
• Take short breaks to recharge

Busy is a new stupid

I’m excited to finally be letting the world know that I’ve moved onto a new opportunity after three years at Toptal. I've founded Integral Labs, a company that will allow me to work more closely with many companies on a variety of projects. For those wondering, I'll still be fully remote.

While this article touches on my personal thoughts and experiences, I hope it’ll provide a framework for others looking to make important and often difficult career decisions, in a world where change is the only constant.

You want to manage up — but what you really mean is that you simply want to work well with your boss.

Who doesn’t? Especially when your boss is pestering you with questions via Slack after work-hours, or failing to give you enough time to complete projects…

Over the years, we’ve all encountered our fair share of successes and failures. As I’ve acquired more of both under my name, I’ve started to contemplate which experiences were truly “great” and why.

People overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten

Don’t quit

If I do a job in 30 minutes it’s because I spent 10 years learning how to do that in 30 minutes. You owe me for the years, not the minutes.

People tend to avoid the important work they fear by doing unimportant work that wears them out.

They suppress anxiety with exhaustion, but they do not address the source of the problem.

Life is so much more fun when you dedicate yourself fully to one big thing, instead of dabbling into a bunch of tiny things. Or in Ron Swanson’s words, don’t half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing.

Athletes didn't get paid more until TV came around. Why? Reach. All of the sudden your talent could be on display in every living room. The internet has given this same opportunity to everyone.

Work on yourself, so that you don't have to work for others.

Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.

Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.

You will definitely die wishing you spent more hours at the office and away from your kids, loved ones and passions. Trust the billionaire sociopath VCs they know what's best for your life and mental health.

Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. You get what you repeat. Your energy is a lagging measure of your sleep habits. Your fitness is a lagging measure of your exercise habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits.

New years resolution #256: take more breaks AND be okay with it

Momentum can trick you into thinking you have to literally ship 24/7 to keep it up (which, at least in my experience, does way more harm than good)

I like to make cool things that reach millions and make money and then spend time with friends.

For a period when I was young, handsome and in the army — and at least two of those three actually happened — I had a terrific Executive Officer (XO), the second-in-command at my unit. Let’s call him Isaac.

Focus on how to solve the problem, not how you will solve it.

You can literally master everything by devoting enough hours on it every day. Being consistent is the hard part, and that's why people quit.

If you're going to call me or make me physically go into your office to do business with you in 2017, well, we're not going to do business

Better to create something that others criticize than to create nothing and criticize others.

My software developer colleagues often ask me where I do get all the time for reading all the tech books or articles, watching conference talks and listening to podcasts. I analyzed my consumption for November and December and here is, what I did (and that’s only the tech related content)

My goal is to decrease my work load to 10h per week + rest free time to do fun + creative + charitable + new projects

Хочу рассказать, как я начинаю работу над каждым проектом.

Раньше мне казалось, что это просто: обменялись парой писем или потрындели в скайпе пять минут — и всё, пора за работу. Ну вроде ты редактор, профессионал, знаешь что делать. Чего тут обсуждать, никогда не редактировал текст что ли?

На деле всё оказывается иначе.

The secret to getting rich is the same as the secret to being an outlier in most fields: to enjoy doing things that make one rich.

The Creative Process

1. This is awesome
2. This is tricky
3. This is shit
4. I am shit
5. This might be ok
6. This is awesome

Always: "Hard work beats talent when talent don't work hard."

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas Edison

A business needs to be able to move at two speeds: fast and slow. So what happens when you've lost your get-up-and-go?

Heard from a Navy seal: "Under pressure, you don't rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training. Why we train so hard."

вообще я убежден, что в современном мире возможность НЕ РАБОТАТЬ - это главная цель и жизненный стимул для любого мыслящего человека

"The harder I worked, the luckier I got." ~Thomas Jefferson

"I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been" -Wayne Gretsky

"Make things people fall in love with. Not things they just tolerate."— @aral

"Being busy" is such a fetish in the startup world. The best entrepreneurs and investors I've met are alarmingly responsive.

I do love our industry, very very much. We have a unique ability to get riled over pure passion for our job. Not many have that.

the best thing for your career is to maximize your audience not your salary

"Don't work on something you don't like. You'll never be passionate about it." - Tony Fadell

STOP wishing and START doing!

We weren't put on this planet to work all-day.

One of my favorite soundbites is: if it hurts, do it more often. It has the happy property of seeming nonsensical on the surface, but yielding some valuable meaning when you dig deeper

"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value." - Albert Einstein