Note: As I wrote last Friday, I took yesterday and today as Think Days. What a worthwhile experience! I’ve got lots to share with you about the process, and I’ll have a full write-up on Friday.

I once spent several minutes trying to troubleshoot a piece of electronic equipment that, as it turned out, was not plugged in. We’ve all made mistakes like this—looked for an advanced problem without checking the basics first.

When he was CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates spent a week, twice a year, isolated in a cabin in the woods.

What did Gates do for a week by himself? He thought.

He read, too, and wrote. He pondered the overall direction of his company and the forces at work in the technology sector. In other words, he stepped outside the whirlwind of daily life and considered the big questions that we rarely consider (even though the answers to these questions should be dictating what our daily life looks like). Gates considered these “think weeks” vital to his success as a leader, and others have since adopted the practice.

Just a quick note for you today!

I read many blogs but subscribe to relatively few. When it comes to topics like personal development, productivity, lifelong learning, and improving our work lives, I’ve not found anything better than the four blogs below. They bring the heat nearly every time, and if you like this blog, you’re likely to love these.

• Farnam Street. Shane Parrish, the author of Farnam Street, is widely-read and steeped in the “worldly wisdom” of Charlie Munger. Reading Farnam Street has helped me learn to make better decisions.
• Seth Godin’s blog. Seth blogs every day on a wide variety of topics. His daily blog is among the first things I read each morning, and it helps me set the tone for the day with a blend of intellectual stimulation and plain old inspiration.
• Cal Newport’s blog. Cal Newport’s productivity ideas have largely replaced GTD for me, and that’s saying something. His writing has helped me turn my focus to working on the right things instead of simply working hard.
• Scott Young’s blog. Scott is an impressive autodidact who took himself through MIT’s undergraduate computer science curriculum in a single year. Read his blog to learn how to learn.

As a bonus, here are my two favorite newsletters:

The rise of instant text-based communication has drastically changed how we communicate in the workplace, and if you’re over 30, you probably don’t need me to tell you. Instant messaging services like Slack, Gchat, Discord, and even rapid-fire back-and-forth email have had a particularly transformative effect on project planning and execution.

We all know good planning is important, but these days, it feels like we can kinda get by without it. After all, everyone on our team is just a few keystrokes away. This makes it possible to skimp on planning and rely on moment-to-moment instant communication instead. We can now “play it by ear” to an unprecedented degree, checking in with colleagues every time we have a quick question instead of trying to anticipate the question during planning.

“We could all use a little coaching,” business philosopher Jim Rohn used to say.

I’m trained as a musician, and in the music world, coaching is the norm. The best musicians regularly play for each other and take tips from one other, because they know that no matter how good you are, there are things you just can’t see about your own performance. Bonafide virtuosos visit old teachers for a tune-up again and again, as in the case of Hollywood studio trumpeter Jerry Hey, who for nearly 40 years flew from LA to Bloomington, IN, for periodic lessons with his old college teacher, Bill Adam (until Adam’s death in 2013).