the crucial step in programming is not the actual act of mechanically typing commands into a computer, but instead crafting the underlying solution t… - Cal Newport

A good career mission is similar to a scientific breakthrough — it’s an innovation waiting to be discovered in the adjacent possible of your field. If you want to identify a mission for your working life, therefore, you must first get to the cutting edge — the only place where these missions become visible.

It’s not just that we’re less clear than we think, but we’re often completely misunderstood. You were sure that you were sending a nice note, while your receiver is equally sure you were delivering a pointed critique. When you build an entire workflow on exactly this type of ambiguous and misunderstood communication — a workflow that bypasses all the rich, non-linguistic social tools that researchers like Alex Pentland documented as being fundamental to successful human interaction — you shouldn’t be surprised that work messaging is making us miserable.

The sugar high of convenience is fleeting and the sting of missing out dulls rapidly, but the meaningful glow that comes from taking charge of what claims your time and attention is something that persists.