Creative pitfall: You don’t need to innovate in every area

I think a massive creative pitfall beginners make is subconsciously assuming they need to innovate in many areas, at the same time.

For example, to get started making music, a budding musician might assume she needs to:

  • 1 – Write her own lyrics
  • 2 – Write her own vocal melody
  • 3 – Write her own chord progression
  • 4 – Write her own instrumental melody
  • 5 – Write her own song arrangement

…which sounds like a tremendous amount of work! (And it is!)

But that’s not accurate assessment of the effort needed to complete the goal (make a song). It’s actually an assessment of the upper bound of the effort.

In reality, you can (and should) “steal like an artist”:

  • 1 – Use your favorite song’s lyrics
  • 2 – Use your favorite song’s vocal melody
  • 3 – Use your favorite song’s chord progression
  • 4 – Use your favorite song’s instrumental melody
  • 5 – Use your favorite song’s arrangement

(You will probably also do this subconsciously anyway, as you draw from your influences.)

Of course, these vary in terms of how acceptable they are to “ship in production” without giving credit to the original. #1 should always be done with credit, and is usually considered “Doing a cover” song. On the other hand #3 is 100% fair game to use, and release with no credit. There are only so many chord progressions actually used in popular music.

However, provided you give credit where it’s due, as you mix and match these options, you can explore the creative space of tradeoffs between originality and effort.

The lower bound is “stealing” on every dimension possible, which produces the platonic ideal of a “Cover Song”. There is nothing wrong with this, and this is how virtually every artist in the world gets started. (e.g. Justin Bieber)

At this level of your journey, the absolute most important metric to optimize (lower) is the friction & effort of doing the craft. Only once you’ve built your creative muscle stronger, can you tolerate more strenuous artistic projects that explore different parts of the effort vs originality space.

This concept applies to any other creative practice, including starting a business or learning to code. In fact, the inspiration for this idea was this Indie Hackers interview with Michael Seibel of Y Combinator, where he advises startups to select where they innovate.

It’s not enough to have good ideas

You also need to present them well.

This is one of the things I’ve learned on Twitter in my decade using it. On Twitter, the slightest change of phrasing can make or break a tweet. Part of learning the game is learning how to express information in a way that’s more likely to be received well. Usually that means being a combination of: valuable, concise, and punchy.

The general lesson is that you need to be aware of the venue, and its communication norms. What is the communication style is common, and commonly successful?

This applies not only to online platforms, but also real life communities you may be a part of, such as your work.

So if your ideas aren’t landing how you’d like them to, or you believe a great idea you have is being unfairly overlooked by others, take a moment to pause. How do the successful people in the venue communicate? And are there any ways you could restructure your presentation to better fit the venue? You might be surprised at how little it takes.

How to learn everything

Some people ask how I can do many things β€” code, make music, make visual art, live stream, blog, podcast, indie hack.

I don’t think it’s because I’m ultra talented or special. I do believe talent is real, that people can have natural aptitudes, and that I might have some β€” maybe for music or code β€” but definitely not for all of these areas.

I think it’s simply because after a lifetime of trying things, I’ve realized that the process of learning is basically the same for everything.

And the most important part is to have confidence that you can actually do the thing. Not counting yourself out from Day 1 is half the battle. (I see this all the time β€” “Oh wow, I would love to learn to paint… too bad I’m not artistic.”)

Much of what makes crafts seem difficult is the unknown of what happens behind the scenes. Before you learn to produce music, or make visual art, or code, you look at the artifacts produced by those artists and your jaw drops. You have no sense of what the creative process looks like, so it’s natural for it to seem intimidating and beyond your ability.

But then you get a chance to observe the artist, and you see that they’re simply using a bunch of Ableton Live presets, or Photoshop layer effects, or a bunch of code libraries that someone else built. And you see that it’s not so hard, after all. (Usually thanks to the efforts of skilled tool-builders, behind the scenes. Giants whose shoulders you stand on.)

This is not to say that one can realistically become expert-level skilled at everything. For example, I’ve spend hundreds of hours skateboarding, and although I love the sport & art form, that is one thing I simply do not have natural ability for. That’s fine.

It’s just to say that once you start doing different things, you stop being scared at the prospect of learning something new. You learn the ways you learn things, and also have the confidence that you can do it. Your learning muscle grows stronger every time, accelerating future learning.

You also stop being scared of being a beginner and looking bad. Because once you’ve exited the beginner stage of anything once, you now know that being a beginner is actually a noble state, and nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone was a beginner once. The only people that make fun of beginners, are those perpetually on the sidelines, that have never dared to step into the arena.

In short, over time, learning gets easier because you develop familiarity with the activity of learning. The phases of learning become like old friends that you visit and catch up with after not meeting for some time. But most importantly you build significant confidence in yourself. And that’s what matters most.

You need your own workshop

This is originally Derek Sivers’ idea, from his book “Anything you want”.

We all need a place to play.

Kids need playgrounds and sandboxes. Musicians need an instrument. Mad scientists need a laboratory.

Those of us with business ideas? We need a company.

Not for the money, but because it’s our place to experiment, create, and turn thoughts into reality. We need to pursue our intrinsic motivation.

We have so many interesting ideas and theories. We need to try them!

The happiest people are not lounging on beaches. They’re engaged in interesting work!

Following curiosity is much more fun than being idle. Even if you never have to work a day in your life.

That’s the best reason to have a company. It’s your playground, your instrument, your laboratory. It’s your place to play!

Get the ideas out of your head and into the world.

https://sive.rs/laboratory
  • Gardeners need a garden.
  • Car enthusiasts need a garage.
  • Entrepreneurs need a business.
  • Artists need a studio.

But what about systems programmers?

Systems programmers need a project. A place for them to explore, work, play.

Live streaming myself working on my baby operating system has felt great over the last 14 weeks. And now with Sivers’ idea in mind, I can totally see why. It’s finally my own project where I have full control, and it’s a large enough project where there is infinite potential for the things and can do and learn within it.

No matter what your craft is, if you aspire to be great at it, you need a safe, comfortable “space” to work on your craft.

If you have aspirations, but don’t have a space, you likely haven’t fully committed, or given yourself permission to publicly identify as an enthusiast of the craft. (Actions speak louder than words).

Taking action to make that space for yourself can be scary, because it exposes physical, undeniable proof of your interest, which is vulnerable. But in my experience, it can also be deeply affirming, exciting, and motivating.

Getting into reading again by playing offense

I used to look at long non-fiction books and immediately wince, thinking of how long it would probably take me to read it, and what a slog it would probably be. Of course, this is a strange point of view that seems to forget that books can actually be captivating and fun.

But beyond that, something that helped me is changing my perspective. Rather than letting the book be in control, I now try to play more on offense.

Instead of allowing a long book to suck a potentially infinite time out of me (which means in practice, I won’t even start), I now give books a budget. If I only have 2 hours of time to give a book, oh well, that’s all it gets. I stop and move on. Hopefully the book can deliver some of its meaning in that time frame, or even better, captivate me and convince me to renegotiate my relationship with it β€” and give it more time.

Instead of putting the responsibility on you to slog through and make it to the end, put the responsibility on the book to earn your time.


(This does work better when you don’t pay for the book – ideally by lending it from someone else.)

I like WordPress

Among programmers, it’s very unfashionable to use WordPress for your blog. (“PHP? Yuck.”) Instead, you should be using the latest minimalist static site generator, hosted on the latest free static hosting.

(A decade ago, this was Jekyll on Github Pages β€” I haven’t bothered to keep up, but I did put in my time. At various points, my blog was based on Jekyll, Pelican, and Octopress).

In 2020 I decided to restart my blog, but just use WordPress.

Three years, later this has been an unambiguously good decision. I keep running into things that save me significant time, compared to me trying to code this myself, or use a static site generator.

I think the proof is in the pudding. If the goal is to actually publish writing on the internet, consistently, over a long period of time, I’ve done that (or at least am well on my way β€” see the Archive).

Here are some handy things I’ve found myself needing that were just there for me. I’ll add to it as I run into more.

  • Automatic redirects if you change a post slug
  • Rich plugin ecosystem for nearly everything
  • Extensive documentation, both first and third-party on how to do things. Even ChatGPT can advise.
  • Ability to customize with PHP if absolutely necessary
  • Migrating to a different permalink structure was a piece of case with the Redirects plugin
  • Built in RSS feed
  • Built in Recent post
  • Built in Top posts/pages (via Jetpack)
  • Built in downtime monitoring (via Jetpack)
  • Easy mailing list integration (MailChimp, ConvertKit, etc)
  • Built in grouping and taxonomy features (Tags, Categories)
  • Built in Monthly Archives
  • Built in comments
  • WordPress/Jetpack mobile app for easy editing/moderation on the go

Be your most authentic self (and write about whatever you want)

I love writing about computers, but I also love writing about other topics like creativity, art, and productivity. However, many programmers out there strictly blog about technical topics, which made me feel a bit weird for posting random stuff like poems or my experience with GTD.

This led me to a dilemma: Do I blog all in one place, or do do I perhaps create a separate blog for non-technical content?

My answer is to apply my “golden piece of advice”: Do what feels most authentic to you.

For me, writing about all of my interests is the most authentic expression of myself, so when in doubt, I do this. Curbing this instinct, and making a strictly technical blog just to be like “all the other programmers” wouldn’t be.

It’s totally possible that “all the other programmers” simply don’t feel a desire to write about anything else. So making a strictly technical blog is their maximally authentic expression of themselves β€” which is great for them! Let’s all do what feels most authentic to us.

Hiding in this case study is a profound lesson about life. The situation applies equally to any other life situation where you feel some pull to act in one way, but feel some hesitation upon observing “everyone around you” seems to act.1

When in doubt, apply the “golden advice”: Do what feels most authentic to you.


I’m very happy with this decision. It feels great to have a single place which all of my thinking, which also has the practical benefit of making it easier for potential followers to submerge themselves in all my content.

I also believe this will win in the long run as it’s more likely to resonate with like-minded people that can respect having a myriad of interests β€” the kind of people I’m looking to connect with!

Lastly, there’s the non-trivial but subtle benefit that simplicity of infrastructure & accounts actually matters and translated into a lot of time saved.

WIP: Fame is a hamster wheel

Different forms of capital have different benefits and drawbacks. Money has the benefit that it can grow itself over time, with the downside that it is heavily scrutinized and taxed. Fame has the benefit that it is not taxed, but has the interesting drawback in that it requires maintenance, and lessens over time.

To retain your fame, you need to continually be doing things and delivering value to your audience. Otherwise, your audience will naturally shrink as people forget about you, and their attention is diverted elsewhere by others playing the fame game.

So if you think achieving fame will make you happy, be careful. The moment you achieve the fame you’ve been seeking is not the “end” β€” it’s actually the beginning of a hamster wheel you’ve just stepped onto. You might stop to celebrate, but don’t stop for too long β€” now you need to worry about maintaining it (or even exploiting it), lest you lose it and become a “one hit wonder”. The only other alternative is to keep running.


(This post was written based on my small experiences obtaining nano-fame with my offlinemark and comfort projects).

3 weeks of GTD

I read GTD (Getting Things Done) a few weeks ago and have been applying it since then.

I can say since implementing it: my stress is lower, I feel much more in control & at peace, and I’m happier overall. So I’d say it works β€” or at least there’s really something to it.

Concretely:

The process of taking a fuzzy/vague/unpleasant idea of a project and progressively making it concrete by 1. Identifying the specific outcome, and 2. The specific next action has been critical for me. I wasn’t aware of this and would often get overwhelmed by these fuzzy ideas and let them linger (which made them worse). I often find that after doing the 2 steps, the idea is much less overwhelming, and often much easier than I thought (or even can be done trivially).


I was using Omnifocus wrong β€” I now work out of my Forecast view which I believe is the intended way to use OF and actually works well. OF 4 is great, in particular for how much better the iOS app is (specifically implementing Focus mode).


I find that I make more forward progress on things in general. Adding an action to a list gives me extra “credit” for having done it, because now I can check it off. But the big thing is I’m now aware of things that I can take action on (and how small and simple they often are). Often I get stuck on actions that involve other people (Ask person X this, post on Slack asking for help with X), and having an action be made concrete and on a list can help me power through it and simply send the text or make the call. I’m more aware that I have no answer to the question “So what’s you’re excuse for not taking the action to move X forward?”, and just do the thing.


A physical inbox has been useful. I’ve discovered that having my physical environment be clean is very important for me, and a physical inbox facilitates this by creating a designated, controlled place for clutter.


I’m amazed at how much of GTD and being productive is about writing things down in such a way that will trick your future brain into not being overwhelmed, and actually doing them.

The first part is writing specific, exciting, and inspiring project names (i.e. “Host best friend for a great weekend” instead of “Best friend visit”).

But the second and more important part is realizing how not to name actions. For example, I’ve learned that I shouldn’t write tasks like “Decide A”, or “Problem solve B situation”. My brain will immediately get overwhelmed and resist the urge to even consider this. Breaking those down into even smaller steps is a must. Like “List pros/cons of A decision” (Not too hard – just listing bullets, not “making a decision”), or “Brain dump B situation on whiteboard”).

There’s an art to writing the next action.


Even with GTD it’s still possible to overload yourself and put more into your system than you have capacity for. I’m still struggling with how to manage when I have tasks I constantly postpone week after week.

But I am learning. I’m finding that if something continually gets postponed, there are a few things I can consider:

  • Is it even important? Can I simply delete it?
  • Is it a matter of phrasing? Can I re-word this to be more palatable to my subconscious brain?
  • It is a matter of breaking it down even further to a smaller increment? But not so small as to be meaningless β€” my subconscious brain sees right through that. (i.e. “Make a google doc” isn’t quite enough for me).

What I learned in my 20s

I had the privilege of speaking to my friend Andre’s high school class this week about my career and path to it. I didn’t have time for all the advice I’d give, so I’m putting it here:


It’s ok to not be able to answer “So where do you see yourself in 5 years?”.

That’s a hard question, and it’s ok to not immediately know the answers to hard questions.

In my experience, most of my life was in a state of not really knowing this, with one major exception: When I realized in 2017-2018 that I really wanted to work for Ableton in Germany. Then it became startingly clear where I wanted to be, and approximately what I needed to do.

My advice would be to simply start taking actions while being observant of yourself, and your strengths, interests, and natural inclinations. At what things do you naturally work harder than other people? What things seem like play to you, but work to others? Those are hints at areas you can excel and become world class.

Eventually after enough action (and reflection), you might have an insight about something you deeply want to make happen. And then suddenly it becomes clear.

“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.” – Rumi


It might seem like life is a race, from start to finish, where checkpoints are things like: university, job, marriage, children. When you “graduate high school” (i.e. become an adult), the gun goes off. Everyone starts running and the first one to make it through, wins.

In my experience, the “race” is actually a custom trail for every single person. When you “graduate high school” (i.e. become an adult), the gun goes off and everyone starts running in different directions. Another person’s progress towards their endpoint has little to no relevance on your progress towards yours.

The only competition is to know yourself as fully as possible, and act with maximum authenticity towards that truth.


A simple strategy towards achieving success and fulfillment is looking for:

  1. A “vertical”: An industry which you have particular interest (e.g. music, fashion, film, journalism, activism, sports, …)
  2. A “horizontal”: A skill which you have interest in and aptitude for (e.g. technology, writing, art, photography, communication, …)

And then work at the intersection of the two. Basically every vertical needs every horizontal. Every industry needs programmers, communicators, creatives, etc.

This strategy is not foolproof, but can be a good approximate path for those without one. And it worked well for me!


Seek like-minded peers. The first time this happened to me blew my mind β€” I went to the National Guitar Workshop in 2010 and met a bunch of other teenagers that were interested in writing original metal compositions and recording them on computers. This was a life-changing experience and gave me friendship, motivation, and a sense of community.

Then in college, I went to NU Hacks and the same thing happened. I found a great network of aspiring hackers, and we became great friends and learned together.

In both cases, all these people are now doing amazing things in the world in their field. And these relationships have turned into the kind of life-long friendships that are one of the best things in life.


Greatness is built iteratively, over a long period of time.


Don’t be afraid to exploit your unfair advantages.