Lessons from failing to sell WordPress themes at the start of the gold rush

I’d like to take you back in time six years, to a time when the world of blogging was very different. The “premium WordPress theme” was in its relative infancy, the default WordPress theme was Kubric (HuffPo claims “Kubrick has helped change the face of cyberspace”) and WordPress 2.9 had just launched, boasting the addition […]

Deep work in practice: reimagining my workflow for radically less distraction

“One of the more embarrassing and self-indulgent challenges of our time is the task of relearning how to concentrate. The past decade has seen an unparalleled assault on our capacity to fix our minds steadily on anything. To sit still and think, without succumbing to an anxious reach for a machine, has become almost impossible.” – Alain de Botton

Five minute journal: how could today have been even better?

Reviewing fifty days of using the five minute journal for better wellbeing and productivity. Does it work? Is it nonsense?

Survivorship bias: understanding “how to” case studies that make everything look easy

A mainstay of the modern product creator’s marketing toolkit is the case study. They typically walk you through step-by-step what the creator did and show how you too can do this. They typically come with a title that looks something like: I made this many thousand dollars in this many hours whilst doing surprising thing. […]