Nelson Mandela on exercise on Robben Island
When he was in prison on Robben Island, Nelson Mandela spent long periods engaged in hard manual labor— breaking rocks into gravel, and working in a quarry. You
How Richard Feynman had time for physics: “I have invented another myth for myself—that I’m irresponsible”
One of the pleasures working on a book like REST is that it provides a great excuse to read about the lives of all kind of fascinating people, and
Why you don’t have self-discipline on screens
This. Exactly. “The ‘I don’t have enough willpower’ conversation misses the fact that there are 1,000 people on the other side of the screen whose job is to
“I’m not a writer, I’m a rewriter”
I'm deep in the last phase of revising the book, and came across these two quotations about rewriting. First is David McCullough, from an interview in the Paris Review:
Another “contemplation has been crowded out by modernity” data-point
Nietzsche, writing in 1882: “Soon we may well reach the point where people can no longer give in to the desire for a vita contemplativa (that is, taking
Getting Things Done so you can do nothing
David Allen, of Getting Things Done fame, has an interview in Fast Company in which he talks about the value of... getting nothing done: "A hallmark of how
Wilder Penfield: “Rest, with nothing else, results in rust”
"Rest, with nothing else, results in rust," Wilder Penfield wrote in his great essay The Second Career: "It corrodes the mechanisms of the brain." The essay was an argument against
Michael Corballis: “we are programmed to alternate between mind-wandering and paying attention”
It seems we are programmed to alternate between mind-wandering and paying attention, and our minds are designed to wander whether we like it or not. In adapting to
“men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work the least”
From Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists (1912 translation), pp. 96-97: [Leonardo da Vinci] also painted in Milan, for the Friars of S. Dominic, at S. Maria delle
“the stage of incubation should include a large amount of actual mental relaxation”
From Graham Wallas, The Art of Thought: Voluntary abstention from conscious thought on any particular problem may, itself, take two forms: the period of abstention may be spent