Jonathan Vieker

Here’s a thinking tool that might help when you’re stuck on a big project.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. — Richard Feynman In familiar situations, we behave predictably.

We all go through periods of life when we’re unusually busy.

Willpower ain’t that great.

As I’ve become an evangelist of daily and weekly planning over the last couple of years, I’ve chatted with many people about the idea.

Whom do you enjoy doing business with?

At Disneyland, there’s a trash can every 30 feet.

It’s easy not to plan.

Consistency is a pillar of success in anything—staying in shape, learning calculus, taking bassoon lessons.

It’s freshman orientation season at my university, which means I’m spending a couple days a week meeting one-on-one with incoming students and helping them choose classes for their first semester in college.

Here was the path to a “good career” thirty years ago: Go to college (maybe grad school too) Get a well-paying job Stay in that industry (maybe even in the same company) until retirement.

At work, most of us spend lots of time on big projects with hazy parameters, faraway deadlines and many other people involved.

Most people are not obstructionists.

Efficiency is the watchword of many highly driven, productive people.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.

Warning: I’m about to pat myself on the back in the next paragraph, but bear with me—I promise I’m going somewhere with this.

Here’s a brief thought experiment.

In a couple weeks, I’ll take two Think Days to pause and reassess my life.

I had a colleague once—a fellow teacher—who was quite blunt.

As the plane backs away from the gate, the flight attendant holds up a yellow oxygen mask and says something like this: “If the air pressure in the cabin drops suddenly, a yellow oxygen mask will drop from a compartment above your head.

Seth Godin nailed it.

What the pupil must learn, if he learns anything at all, is that the world will do most of the work for you, provided you cooperate with it by identifying how it really works and aligning with those realities.

A couple of years ago, I was wandering through my university library’s annual book sale when I came across a cache of books on leadership and administration all sitting together on a table as if they’d been donated as a group.

When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, "How well he spoke," but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, "Let us march." — Adlai Stevenson Leadership is about many things, but in a nitty-gritty, brass-tacks sense, it’s largely about…

For better or worse, email is woven into the fabric of our professional lives.

It's not the writing part that's hard.

What gets measured gets managed. --- Peter Drucker When it comes to managing precious resources—time, money, attention—you won’t find a more concise philosophy than Peter Drucker’s.

When are you sharper: 10:00 AM or 3:00 PM?

I quit Facebook about a year ago.

Picture this.

I’d like to share with you a useful skill I picked up from a one-of-a-kind book called How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer Adler.

In the early 2000s, an anesthesiologist named Peter Pronovost began studying a persistent problem in hospitals: central line infections.

What’s the goal of a personal productivity system—the collection of to-do lists, calendars, and other tools we use to keep our lives running smoothly?

New Year’s resolutions are a tricky subject.

If you're reading this brief post, you probably give and receive quite a few presents this time of year.

You're sitting at a red light, waiting to make a left into the grocery store parking lot.

On quiet weekends, I'm often torn between two competing thoughts.

I'm always interested in what tools highly successful people use to do their work.

Ever run out of clean underwear?

Yesterday was Thanksgiving here in the US.

A couple months ago, Sarah and I were hanging out with four close friends, three of whom have graduate degrees in mathematics.

My niece, Emma, gave a TEDx talk last Sunday.

I hope you vote today1.

In late September, my ancient laptop gave up the ghost.

At any moment, we can change our lives in the most awesome ways.

If you want to get better at life, you must set goals.

Imagine you’re a head of state—the president or prime minister of your country.

Ideas without action are stillborn. — Jim Rohn We don’t need more information.

> It's not designed to help us.

Some ideas have been so perfectly expressed by others that there’s really no point in trying to say them any differently.