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  1. Digest / Writing Ideas

How to spend your time

PreviousEconomy / SocietyNextLife

Last updated 5 years ago

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  • Simply put, the value of news is not that high. You won't miss anything if you don't read the news. Spend the time on something that's more valuable.

Writing Idea: Definitely one of the most important lesson I learned during graduate school is that we should learn to sell. Presentation Skills. Chinese students vs. Domestic students.

Parkinson’s Law - tasks expand to fill the amount of time allocated to them.

The Law of Triviality states that the amount of time spent discussing an issue in an organization is inversely correlated to its actual importance in the scheme of things. Major, complex issues get the least discussion while simple, minor ones get the most discussion.

Parkinson uses to illustrate it. He asks readers to imagine a financial committee meeting to discuss a three-point agenda. The points are as follows:

  1. A proposal for a £10 million nuclear power plant (too advanced for the whole group)

  2. A proposal for a £350 bike shed

  3. A proposal for a £21 annual coffee budget

Bike-shedding happens because the simpler a topic is, the more people will have an opinion on it and thus more to say about it.

Stop Reading the News
Learn to Sell, Learn to Build
Why We Focus on Trivial ThingsFarnam Street
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