The Four Agreements

Principles

By Ray Dalio. I need to read this book again.

Dalio is a very driven, analytic man. He leads his life and his business in a very rule driven, principled way. This book is about those principles...

Embrace reality and deal with it. An accurate understanding of reality is the essential foundation for any good outcome. Don't confuse what you wish were true with what is really true.

Be radically opened minded, and radically transparent.

Look to nature to learn how reality works.

Evolving is life's greatest accomplishment and its greatest reward.

Understand nature's practical lessons.

Pain + Reflection = Progress

Weigh second and third order consequences. Don't overweight first-order consequences relative to second and third-order.

Own your outcomes. Don't worry about looking good-- worry about achieving your goals.

Look at things from a higher level.

Face harsh realities. Don't let pain stand in the way of progress

Don't blame bad outcomes on anyone but yourself

1. Have clear goals.
2. Identify and don't tolerate problems that stand in the way of your goals.
3. Accurately diagnose problems to get to their root causes. Why? Why? Why? What? How?
4. Design plans that will get you around them.
5. Do what's necessary to push the designs to results

Weakness doesn't matter if you find solutions.

Appreciate the art of thoughtful disagreement
Triangulate your view with believable people who are willing to disagree.
Recognize the signs of closed-mindedness and open-mindedness

Learning, being open minded, growing, can be painful. Use pain to guide you to quality reflection

Get to know your blind spots.

Understand that people are wired very differently. Find out what others are like

Learn how to make decisions effectively.

The biggest threat to good decision making is harmful emotions. Decision making is a two step process. Learn first, then decide.

Look at the data through time.

Make decisions as expected value calculations
Prioritize by weighing the value of additional information against the cost of not deciding.

Simplify!

Thinking -> Principles -> Algorithms -> Great decisions

Cultivate meaningful work and meaningful relationships.

Treat your org as a machine.

Tough love is effective for achieving both great work, and great relationships.

Get, and stay in Sync. Disagree well. By open minded and assertive.

If you run a meeting, manage the conversation.

Find the most believable people who disagree with you and try to understand their reasoning.


Don't get stuck in disagreement. Escalate or vote!

Once a decision is made, everyone should get behind it. Don't allow mobs rule.







Make believe-ability weighted decisions.
Operate by principles
Systematize your decision making.

Deep Work

By Cal Newport.

1. Work Deeply...
1.1. Choose a regular daily time to work deeply, or... cut everything out of your life to work deeply.
1.2. Make a ritual... A Ritual must address

• where you'll work and for how long.
• How you'll work once you start to work. Ban internet usage? Interruptions?
• How you'll support your work? Exercise? Keep your mind clear?

Consider making a grand gesture to support work.

Consider collaborating to support work. It has to be the right kind of collaboration.

1.3 Execute like a business.

• Focus on the Wildly Important
• Act on Lead Measures
• Keep a compelling Scoreboard
• Create a Cadence.

1.4 Be Lazy

• Downtime leads to insights.
• Downtime Helps recharge the Energy needed to work deeply
• The work that evening downtime replaces is usually no that important

1.5 Embrace Boredom

• Don't take breaks from distraction. Take Breaks from Focus
• Regardless of how you schedule your Internet blocks, you must keep your time outside these blocks absolutely free from Internet use.
• Schedule internet use at home, and at work. Practice concentration.

1.6 Mediate Productively-- a period f time where you are occupied physically, but not mentally-- long walk, long shower. Focus on a well defined problem.

• Beware of distractions and looping.
• Structure Your Deep thinking
• Invent a memory palace.

1.7 Quit Social Media

• You're justified using a network tool if you can identify any possible benefit to its use, or anything you might possible miss out on if you don't use it.
• Identify the core factors that determine success and happiness in your professional and personal life. Adopt a tool only if its positive impacts on these factors substantially outweighs its negative impacts.

1.8 Apply the law of the vital few... In many situations, 80% of a given effect is due to just 20 percent of the possible causes.

2. Drain the Shallows

• Schedule Every Minute of Your Day
• Use paper and pen. 
• Quantify the depth of every activity as shallow or deep.
•  Budget your shallow work.
• Finish your work by 5:30. Have a shut down ritual.

3.1 Make People who send you E-Mail do more work.

3.2 Communicate when you will, and won't, respond to email. "If you have an opportunity or introduction that make my life more interesting, email me at.... I'll only respond to those proposals that are a good match for my schedule and interests."

3.3 Do more work when you send emails. Tee the responder up to do the same. 

"When responding to email, take the time to answer the following key prompt: What is the project represented by this message, and what is the most efficient (in terms of messages generated) process for bringing this project to successful conclusion?"

Or don't respond. Don't reply to email that...

• Is to ambiguous or otherwise makes it hard for you to generate a reasonable response. 
• It's not a question or proposal that interests you.
• Nothing really good would happen if you did respond. Nothing Really bad would happen if you didn't

Other quotes...

"His 2013 bestseller, Give and Take, promotes the practice of giving of your time and attention, without the expectation of something in return, as a key strategy in professional advancement"

"David Brooks summarizes this reality more bluntly. 'Great creative minds think like artists but work like accountants'"

"Christensen wrot for a book titled The 4 Disciplines of Execution, which built on extensive consulting case studies to describe four "disciplines""

"Develop the habit of letting small bad things happen. If you don't, you'll never find time for the life-changing big things" -- Tim Ferriss