Activation Energy: Favourable Is Not the Same as Likely
Paper on a table will not burn, though burning releases energy. Something has to supply the initial push — and most stalled intentions are barriers, not disagreements about value.
Topic
Productivity & Systems
The Pareto Principle: Your Effort and Your Results Are Not the Same Shape
A few pea pods produced most of Pareto's peas. The lopsidedness he kept finding everywhere contradicts a default we apply constantly — treating twenty tasks as twenty roughly equal things.
Opportunity Cost: The Free Ticket That Costs You an Evening
Money spent arrives with a bill. The alternative you silently rejected never does — which is why we count one half of every decision carefully and the other half not at all.
Compound Interest: The Pond Was Empty Until It Wasn't
A lily pad covering a pond on day thirty covered half of it on day twenty-nine. Nothing about its growth changed — only the base it grew from. Human intuition fails at this reliably and expensively.
Inversion: The Easier List Is the Backwards One
Ask how to be a good manager and you get admirable vagueness. Ask what would make you a terrible one and the answers are specific, short, and something you can act on tomorrow.
Parkinson's Law: The Deadline Decides the Duration
A two-page report takes a week if you have a week and a month if you have a month, and comes out about the same. Where the extra time goes is more interesting than the fact that it vanishes.
Your Notes Are Probably a Graveyard, Not a System
Most note-taking systems are optimized for capturing information. Almost none are optimized for finding it again later, which is the entire point.