This is a special version of Weekly I/O. In this Rumination, I will pick learnings that I found worth reviewing in all 50 inputs from Weekly I/O#61 to #70, categorize them, and connect some with their related inputs from the Weekly I/O learning archive.
Hope you enjoy it!
Product and Design
- People aren't buying your product for the molecules. They're buying it for the way it makes them feel. The subjective experience matters more than the objective characteristics of the product. [Experience not Characteristic] | Related: [Feel] [Game Design]
- Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. [Design is How It Works]
- How Apple develops products? A chain of demos and feedback continuously evolves an idea towards a product. No brainstorming session and no whiteboard discussion. [Creative Selection]
- A/B testing cannot substitute for taste in creating appealing products. Relying solely on A/B testing is abdicating your responsibility to the users. [No A/B testing]
- Algorithms and heuristics are two sides of the same coin in product development, with algorithms providing objective measurements and heuristics offering subjective judgment. [Algorithms and Heuristics]
- What makes a design good? Examine it using the Discoverability and Understanding Framework. [Discoverability and Understanding]
Psychology and Human Behavior
- Parkinson's Law of Triviality: The time spent discussing various topics within an organization is usually inversely proportional to their level of importance. [Parkinson's Law of Triviality]
- Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. The more time we allot for a work, the more time it will take to finish it. [Parkinson's Law]
- Random Intermittent Reward is the most powerful mechanism to keep people repeating the same behavior. Social media triggers dopamine hits intermittently to keep us scrolling. [Random Intermittent Reward]
- We can never know the actual reasons why we do anything. The observations of split-brain patients reveal that our true motivations are unknown behind all logical decisions. [Split-brain and Made-up Reason]
- The shortest path to transfer from shame to normalcy is through pride. [From Shame to Normal through Proud]
- Our envy is like WiFi. It is usually limited to a hyperlocal network. We are jealous of our friends, but not celebrities. [Envy is WiFi] | Related: [Mimetic Theory]
- Getting rewards without effort or achievement is detrimental and destroys people's motivation. [Reward without Effort]
Writing and Creativity
- How to express your thoughts clearly? The 3x3 rules: make less than 3 points, explain in 3 ways, and repeat 3 times. [3x3 Rules]
- If you want to use an exclamation mark while writing, it means your words aren't strong enough on their own. Strengthen your sentences instead of compensating with a mark. [Drop Exclamation Mark]
- To write well, delete most of what you put on the page, as films often shoot 50 to 100 times more footage than what actually appears in the final cut. [Delete Most in Draft]
- The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable. [Make Art Inevitably]
- No amount of technology will make a bad story good. [Technology and Story] | Related: [not Correctness] [Only Imperfect Produces Art]
- Generative AI is to digital art as photography was to traditional art. The value of having good ideas grows when new technology lowers the need for technical skills. [Gen AI and Photography to Art]
- Regarding sharing creative work, the word "release" carries a double meaning. It signifies that the work is made available to the public and that the author is liberated from the pursuit of perfection. [Double meaning of Release]
Decision-making and Career
- Region-beta Paradox: People can be better off when things are much worse. While moderate situations prompt endurance, crisis triggers action. [Region-beta Paradox]
- The XY problem: Avoid focusing on the attempted solution rather than the actual problem. People don't want a faster horse. They want to get to their destination faster. [XY Problem]
- 70-20-10 Rule: Spend 70% on your core business, 20% on adjacent or nearby things, and 10% on wild bets. [70-20-10 Rule] | Related: [Look Up and Around] [Career as Portfolio]
- A useful introspective question for choosing projects: What would you do if you knew you would fail? [Choice when Doomed to Fail] | Related: [Three Questions for Evaluating Projects]
- Our twenties are about watching our dreams go up in flames and learning from the ashes. Sometimes failure is the only way to learn, and what if the worst case is just moving back with our parents? [Failure in 20s]
Business Strategy and Marketing
- 7 Powers Framework for business strategy: Counter-Positioning, Cornered Resource, Scale Economies, Network Economies, Switching Costs, Branding, Process Power. [7 Powers Framework]
- “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.” - John Wanamaker [Money Wasted on Advertisement]
- The margin you can charge for a product depends on how much extra social status it gives the user. The gross margin on living room furniture is three times higher compared to bedroom furniture. [Gross Margin and Social Status]
- Dollar Auction Paradox: Understanding why companies spend more than what they can potentially earn and why we pay more than the actual value of a product. [Dollar Auction Paradox]
- How Tim Ferriss identifies the next big thing? Understand what technical nerds and rich people are doing, and where people are patching together awkward solutions. [Spot Next Big Thing]
- Capital is not a solution to problems. Capital is a means of scaling solutions. [Capital and Problem and Solution]
Observation and Culture
- Deep connections between people are formed through a trifecta of ambition, vulnerability, and intense shared emotion, each representing a different aspect of time: the future, the past, and the present. [Deep Connection]
- You cannot preach minimalism to people who don't feel the pain and haven't had too much stuff. [Cannot Preach Minimalism]
- Diversity is multifaceted. People with correct points of view can be less diverse than those who are wrong because there are many more ways to be wrong. [Diversity is Multifaceted] | Related: [Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis]
- Perfect seating arrangement and room temperature for comedy show: a little bit tighter and colder than comfortable. [Seat and Temperature for Comedy]
- Places with no repeat customer behavior are designed to optimize for short-term behavior. That's why scammy businesses are usually found around tourist places. [Scam and Tourist] | Related: [Environment and Discount Future Rewards]
- Why do the top 10 companies change every decade, but the top 10 schools remain unchanged? [Top Schools Unchanged] | Related: [Baumol's Cost Disease]
Science and Engineering
- If Math is the perfect description language for physics, AI might be the perfect description language for biology. [AI Describes Biology]
- Overview Effect: Sudden and dramatic shifts in perspective can make the observer into a state of awe with self-transcendent qualities, especially for astronauts viewing Earth from space. [Overview Effect]
- How do robotic mice navigate to solve mazes in the shortest time? Three interesting strategies invented in the Micromouse competition history. [Micromouse Maze-Solving]
- What does the Earth get from the Sun? While the total energy remains constant, we get low entropy energy that fuels life and natural processes before radiating it back into space as high entropy energy. [Entropy and Sun] | Related: [Information and Energy]
- Every breakthrough is at first laughable and ridiculous. In fact, if it did not start out laughable and ridiculous, it is not a breakthrough. [Breakthrough and Laughability] | Related: [Clarke's Three Laws]
Life Tips and Learning
- Would I still do it if I could never talk about this with anyone? Assess whether our motivation stems from intrinsic or extrinsic factors. [Intrinsic or Extrinsic Motivation] | Related: [Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation]
- To raise our energy and get more things done, do energy audits to find out what makes us energized or drained. Double down on energizing one and eliminate the draining one. [Energy Audits]
- Anger is a cover of pain. When people cross our boundaries, we should focus on expressing our pain instead of anger. [Focus on Pain not Anger]
- Most of the pleasure in a dessert comes in the first three bites. After that, you should stop eating it. As a reward, you can eat dessert more often because you don’t binge it. [Dessert Eating Tips]
- The combination of big ambitions, high standards, and low expectations serves as a heuristic for a fulfilling life [3 Heuristic for Fulfilling Life]
- Procedural knowledge tends to be retained longer than declarative knowledge in our memory. All skills start as declarative knowledge and gradually transition to procedural through practice. [Procedural and Declarative Knowledge] | Related: [Knowledge Pyramid] [Skill and Knowledge]
- When assembling furniture, start by tightening all the screws to 75%, then fully tighten them once all components fit together. This principle extends beyond furniture. [Assemble Furniture Principle]
Recap
Try recalling 1 learning you found most interesting from each category and reinforce what you've learned:
