Category: life
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The Journey to Writing my Book
My book was finally published yesterday. It sounds a bit cheesy to talk about a 'journey', but this does feel rather like a cairn on the summit of a gently sloping trail of learning which I've been travelling along for over a decade. When I started blogging all that time ago I had no inclination…
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Shipped in 2016
What can you say about 2016? A strange and disconcerting year in so many ways. But there is also lots to be grateful for. Every year around this time I write myself a kind of end of year review listing all the main things I've been involved with throughout the year, as a way of…
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Dr Samer Attar
It's not often I post about stuff like this but every so often something just stops you in your tracks and really touches you. Orthopaedic surgeon Dr Samer Attar lives and works in Chicago but has made several trips to Aleppo in Syria to work in the hospital there. The story he tells in this Radio…
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On Finding Your Purpose
Careers advice should be far more focused on teaching kids how to learn to find what they love doing. More experimentation, less limitation — neilperkin (@neilperkin) January 22, 2016 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js I rather like what Karl Pillemer had to say about why we should all ask our elders about how best to live. So much wisdom…
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Shipped in 2015
Each year (originally inspired by something Ian did) I do a kind of end-of-year review of the major projects that I've been involved with over the year. It's my habit to think aloud on this blog and this is my way of stepping back and looking at the shape of what I've been doing over the…
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Do Not Follow Your Passion
I liked what VC Ben Horowitz (who wrote the excellent Hard Thing About Hard Things which I really enjoyed) has to say in this commencement address about why 'follow your passion' (something that has become a very popular convention) may not actually be the best career advice. Whilst doing what you love may work out…
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The Modern Blight of Overwork
'…the long hours…may be the byproduct of systems and institutions that have taken on lives of their own and serve no one’s interests. That can happen if some industries have simply become giant make-work projects that trap everyone within them.' Lots of truth in this New Yorker opinion piece about the modern blight of overwork,…
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On Worrying
As I said here, I don't necessarily think that I worry more than most (but then who knows, and this is the second time I've written about worrying in two years) but I do dislike how self-sabotaging and unproductive it can be. Which is one of the reasons that I loved this commencement address by poet…
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On To-Do Lists
I rather liked this approach to doing a To-Do list from Peter Bregman, taken from this write up (found via Fraggl) of his 18 Minute plan to managing your day and finding focus. What I particularly like about it is the more comprehensive way in which it is inclusive of elements that sit outside of work tasks.…
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Coming to Australia
I'm posting this somewhat later than intended (it's been one of those weeks) but I'll be coming over to Sydney next week for meetings and to begin the planning for an exciting (but for now secret-squirrel) work-related project. I'm always keen to meet ODF readers and subscribers when I travel so if you're in Sydney…