On information diets, studios vs startups & simple truths
Edition #045
Hey friends,
I hope you're having a fantastic Sunday Monday!
This week I made a basic freelance mistake.
A few weeks ago I shared how I'm reducing the number of freelance projects I'm taking on to focus my attention on building products and creating content.
In an attempt to eagerly finish up my freelance work I pushed deadlines forward and felt the consequences.
I don't normally advocate working 10+ hour days but occasionally you need to sprint and this last week was one of those sprints.
I have 3 launches over the next couple days. 2 startup websites and a newsletter with the Slow Growth team - you can sign up for that here.
Being overly-ambitious with our time is something we all struggle with. The planning fallacy states that we're all overly optimistic and underestimate the time needed to complete a task.
One trick I've found handy to combat this is to multiply every estimate by 1.25 - this adds a 25% buffer into your week.
For example I think this newsletter will take me 60 minutes to write (but usually it's a little longer) so I'll multiply that by 1.25 and allocate 75 minutes to write the newsletter.
Adding buffer time into your day gives you a better idea of how much you can actually get done. In turn, this will make you prioritise the most important things and shut out the noise.
I'm looking forward to following my own advice this week 😅
Here are this weeks finds:
I.
🥗 On improving your information diet
(Tool)
🤌🏻 This newsletter has been one of the best things I've done for my own personal development. It's made me more mindful about the content I consume and consistently pushed me towards finding better quality information on living better and building a profitable internet business.
One tool that has played a huge roll in that recently is Mailbrew. Mailbrew lets you plug together sources from all over the internet (places like reddit, blogs, twitter, research journals) and then Mailbrew sends the most interesting to your inbox everyday.
I currently have 4 brews set up (1 daily and 3 weekly), which have helped me spend way less time crawling through the internet to find interesting, unique content.
II.
🐻 On studios over startups
(Article)
🛠 Building useful tools has always been more interesting to me than building a startup. Sure they are not mutually exclusive but the illusion that you have to sink your whole life into one idea is a little misleading.
This article from Greg Isenberg makes a great case for building a product studio instead of a startup.
"A product studio is a lab for generating and testing ideas, then turning them into businesses."
Over the next 5 years we will see more creators follow the studio first model. Pieter Levels has done this with NomadList, RemoteOK and a long list of other projects. The trickiest part about these businesses is building a community to serve in the first place.
III.
✏️ On 100 simple truths
(Article)
🧠 I'm a sucker for short and sweet Tweets. Sure they can be a little THINKBOI but this post from traf is awesome. A few favourites:
"Being creative is just combining interest with initiative."
"Mediocrity is the path of least resistance, also making it the most competitive."
"What separates creators & consumers isn't the ability to create, but the willingness to publish."
One interesting idea
"Burn yourself on the stove and you might persuade yourself that you should go nowhere near a stove. Grow up in a home with low expectations and it's possible you'll begin to believe them. The story we tell ourselves leads to the actions we take" - Seth Godin
End note
If you enjoyed this edition of the Sunday Filter then I’d love it if you could share it with a few friends. You can send them over here to sign up or share on Twitter.
Have a great week!
- Stephen