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Zag, Marty Neumeier’s guide to differentiation for high performance brands. I’m structuring this one as a key takeaways list. It’s a short read, very well suited for revisiting in the future to check in on the quality of the brand being built. This is my first run-through. Page 7: Reduce clutter – clutter comes in multiple forms in the marketplace, but the ones we have control over are feature clutter (too many features in a product), message clutter (too many elements per message)....

My tiny brain LOVES the dopamine kick that comes out of winning virtual games and achievements. That might mean getting to level 80 in WoW, dominating the galaxy in an empire builder game, or getting all equipment upgrades in a FPS. They all work. And allll the little steps and unlocks on the way work as well. Most of the time, playing those games nets me only stupid prizes. However, every so often, I’m able to cage the mind in a positive reward loop – to gamify something that’s actually helpful....

I will routinely perform 10x better in a situation if I’ve spent roughly 1-2x the duration of the situation on preparing for the situation. That mean’s for a 30 minute meeting, with 30-60 minutes of prep, that meeting will see me deliver 10x better results than if I was winging it. Nothing else delivers that kind of ROI. No stimulant or nootropic comes close. The caveat is – of course – that the bill is paid with the only completely non-renewable resource available to me; time....

A few days ago, the chimney sweep visited. We don’t even have a fireplace, but the tenant downstairs does. The job of a chimney sweep is to sweep the chimney. Open it up, clean out soot with his chimney brush, close it, and hoover up any soot that spilled. The chimney sweep doesn’t have to do more than that, to get an A+. The guy visiting us did way more. He brought all of himself to his job, and showed up with energy, smiles, and a clear aim to deliver a pleasant experience....

Picking a title for this little riff was harder than it usually is. “Bias for inaction” popped up, among other things. But the correct naming of what I wanted to reflect on is more akin to aiming. I believe in action. Doing lots of stuff, eventually figuring out what stuff is good. Having lots of ideas, eventually having one that’s good. But I also believe that there’s a spectrum involved. So it’s not binary, action or inaction....