The Best Minute: On excellent work, being right, and setting an alarm

2 QUOTES FROM OTHERS

I. Morten Hansen on how to do excellent work:

“Instead of asking how many tasks you can tackle given your working hours, ask how many you can ditch given what you must do to excel.”

II. Willard Van Orman Quine and J.S. Ullian on the difference between being right and having been right:

“The desire to be right and the desire to have been right are two desires, and the sooner we separate them the better off we are. The desire to be right is the thirst for truth. On all counts, both practical and theoretical, there is nothing but good to be said for it. The desire to have been right, on the other hand, is the pride that goeth before a fall. It stands in the way of our seeing we were wrong, and thus blocks the progress of our knowledge.”

2 IDEAS FROM ME

I. Habits lead to freedom. The more (good) habits and routines you have, the more time and space you have to think about other things. Many of the most disciplined people are no more disciplined than you, rather they have developed habits to guide what they do.

II. Setting a bedtime alarm can be just as important as setting an alarm for when you wake up. If you go to bed on time, getting up on time becomes a lot easier.

1 INTERESTING FACT

You get used to smells to not overload your brain.

To keep your nervous system from exhausting itself with continuous stimuli, the receptors experience temporary sensory fatigue, or olfactory adaptation. Odor receptors stop sending messages to the brain about a lingering odor after a few minutes and instead focus on novel smells. That’s why your nose adjusts to your coworker who wears too much cologne but perks up again when he eats pad thai at his desk.

Source: Mental Floss