How do I choose what to work on?
Kuhn’s essay at the end is long. It’s the step that turns the first three into a plan.
- Climbing the wrong hill
Uses the hill-climbing algorithm to explain why smart people stay on career paths they don't want, and why moving to the higher hill early beats climbing the wrong one.
- fun is the only metric that doesn’t lie
signull argues that real, absorbing fun is a more honest measure than money or prestige and the only sustainable fuel, so plan your days around what would make the work fun.
- Do It Your Way
Housel argues the best strategy is the one that fits your personality, from talented bloggers who fizzled under media company style guides to investing and spending choices that suit you.
- Searching for outliers
Kuhn argues that jobs, hires, relationships, and blog posts follow heavy-tailed distributions, so you should draw many samples, filter for maybe-amazing over probably-good, and expect to fail a lot.
Next path: How do you make your own luck?