Rework and Habits
MY new year holidays break led to me catching up on some books and longform interviews. Here are some that stood out for me:
I re-read Rework by Jason Fried and David Hansson and this time it resonated with me much more than it did last year when I had first read it. It’s an easy book to read with some unconventional wisdom and mostly relevant for young growth companies. However, some of the principles are equally valid for mature players. For instance, the whole discussion on core competence and whether that intrinsic view is still relevant in the current fast changing environment (also captured in Ram Charan’s latest book) made me rethink the long-standing principles of business strategy. The authors discuss, among other things, about how to build momentum (for example, by releasing something every two weeks) and de-commoditising your product (competition can never copy the ‘you’ in your product). Rework made for a breezy read but one that I made quite a lot of notes on. Recommend this book to those working with start-ups on in mature companies aiming to challenge the status quo.
Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of content that has recently come out on how to build better habits. While I am religiously sifting through all I can, the one that stood out for me was Andrew Huberman’s podcast on the topic. The tools he propose are grounded in neuro-science and he explains the science first before jumping onto the tools, which is helpful. Again, I made copious notes and I suggest listening to the whole podcast as it’s quite dense. There are three things that I took away and plan to implement myself: one is focusing on building procedural memory by listing down and playing in my mind the steps that I would need to take while building new habits. The second learning was around bucketing habits that I want to build into three main phases of a day to overcome what Huberman describes as ‘limbic friction’. Finally, I plan to try the technique of breaking habits by augmenting a negative behaviour with a positive one (yes, augmenting and not replacing). This last one may seem like a counterintuitive approach, but given that it has been proven in studies, I believe it’s worth a shot.
Janan Ganesh wrote this reflective piece in the FT and it made for a fun and educative read. Some points that stood out for me are
o Don’t befriend people in the same profession. It is not just mind-narrowing, it creates a single point of failure. To lose your job is to lose your social life.
o Never support a cause or idea because the people on the other side are objectionable.
o To hail a taxi or attract a bartender’s attention, keep perfectly still for several seconds and then raise a hand. The movement will stand out in their peripheral vision.
o It is pointless to read one book on a subject. The knowledge won’t stick unless reinforced with at least one other. So read concurrently or straight after.
A quote that I came across:
Do less but do better. Narrow the focus. Raise the standard.
- Shane Parish
