19 December 2023
The Trust Ratio
All ratios are wrong, but some are useful. I’ve recently started to track my weight, subcutaneous fat percentage, basal metabolic rate, and…
21 November 2023
Core Product, Whole Product
If Thanksgiving were a product, it would have mixed reviews. Some people love turkey and stuffing. Others hate the heavy food. Some enjoy…
14 November 2023
Yogurt Making
I started making homemade yogurt. It’s not complicated: mix some starter, vanilla extract, and whole milk and cook it over low heat for…
24 October 2023
Halloweenacy
On Friday the Thirteenth, my cousin married a man with a pumpkin on his head. As storms raged outside the unheated barn, I watched the…
12 October 2023
The Preference Pyramid
A donkey died in the desert. Some say it died of dehydration, yet it was only a stroll to a watering hole. Others say it died of starvation,…
19 September 2023
Fork in the Stone
The Bear is a television series that follows an award-winning chef who returns to Chicago to run his family’s sandwich shop. In the second…
05 September 2023
Papercuts
Let’s play product designer for a moment. Imagine this user story: As a corporate employee I want to increase my 401K contributions So that…
24 August 2023
Woodshedding
Saxophonists create magic with improv jazz—their free-flowing harmony knowing no rules yet delighting the ear. Like any magician, jazz…
12 August 2023
Maps and Territory
I have this arbitrary goal to climb the highest point in each of the fifty United States, and enough other people share this arbitrary goal…
10 August 2023
Galápagosization
In a rural Chinese village, Wu Yulu builds robots from scrap metal. One of his walking, talking robots with rubbery lips pulls the farmer…
03 August 2023
Welcome the Hydra
Hercules underwent twelve labors, and his second labor was iconic: slaying the Lernaean Hydra. A reptilian creature with twelve venom…
28 July 2023
Beware Scale
I live three blocks from three grocery stores with three unique names, yet they’re all owned by one company. QFC, Fred Meyer, Safeway…
08 June 2023
The Portmanteau Strategy
Urban planning nerds love to hate a stroad. “Too ugly!” they say, “Too dangerous!” Most towns built in the last century revolved around a…
26 May 2023
Bike Commuting
When my office reopened in 2022, I had to relearn commuting. I tried driving, but I couldn’t stomach the daily parking cost. I tried public…
05 May 2023
The Ski Lesson
Ski season is over in the Northwest, but I’m grateful for my experiences on a half-dozen mountains this winter. From the upper bowls of…
24 April 2023
Glass, Rubber, and Cloth
Cloth In high school, I was obsessed with unicycling. I filmed videos balancing on the roof of my parents’ house, won the school talent show…
05 April 2023
After-Dinner Mints
My favorite Seattle restaurant scores high on three dimensions: friendly staff, reasonable prices, and tasty food. Aptly called Amazing Thai…
15 March 2023
A Party of One
I never played Dungeons & Dragons, but I was always fascinated by the character classes. Like the fellowship in The Lord of the Rings or the…
22 February 2023
Rootwork
When I was ten and obsessed with Redwall, I arose an hour early to write a page for my fantasy saga about warring anthropomorphic animals…
08 February 2023
Cover Crops
February is the month when New Year’s Resolutions go to die. We might as well cancel that gym membership, pause our Duolingo subscription…
26 January 2023
Start with the Jar
If you’ve seen Rudolph: The Red-Nosed Reindeer, you’ll remember the Island of Misfit Toys. When sitting around a fire on Christmas Eve, the…
11 January 2023
Four Frames
I have a document called “resolutions.doc,” where I log my new year’s resolutions. I’ve been writing resolutions for so long that the file…
23 December 2022
Social Arithmetic
Any good novel or film illustrates that people “contain multitudes” and aren’t reducible to numbers. From a humanist perspective, this…
17 December 2022
The Conversational Octopus
The words we use to frame an interaction can flavor our behavior. For instance, are we having an argument or a conversation? Argument is War…
09 December 2022
Seven Puzzles
It’s puzzle season in North America. During these dark, cold months, I’ve come to enjoy jigsaw puzzles to get off screens, do a low-stress…
02 December 2022
Steering Pegasus
Everyone has the potential to do great things, and I’d venture half of us have the ambition to realize that potential. But few can manage…
20 November 2022
Going Reptilian
The world is complex. But navigating complexity is taxing, so we gravitate toward simple dichotomies of this or that, one or two, red or…
10 November 2022
Thinking Caps
Are we anything but the roles we play? Be it at home, work, or play, we wear a dozen hats: Parent, friend, volunteer, manager, peer, runner,…
29 October 2022
Frankensteining
I hope you’re enjoying spooky season. With Halloween around the corner, I thought I’d spill some ink about a season classic: Frankenstein. K…
21 October 2022
Finding and Making
I spent the last two weeks in Budapest visiting coworkers. Alongside goulash, bathhouses, and palinka, I enjoyed learning a Hungarian folk…
17 October 2022
Embracing Seasonality
What if knowledge work changed with the seasons? Last week, my sister and I hiked the Skyline Trail at Mount Rainier—a beautiful romp…
22 September 2022
Caves and Cathedrals
How does our environment shape our thoughts? My favorite short story is “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver. Carver is known for his grounded…
17 September 2022
Exploring the Great Lake of Knowledge
Should we generalize or specialize? What if there was a sixth Great Lake? Beyond Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario, and Superior imagine you…
08 September 2022
Creative Distillation
“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.” — Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, 1657 Imag…
01 September 2022
Concentration Muscles
If I wasn’t sweating, I wasn’t working hard. This perspective served me well in entry-level jobs that required physical exertion, like…
25 August 2022
Crawl, Walk, Run
Remember being a baby? Of course not! But let’s pretend we remember how it felt to drag our little bodies across the floor for the first…
11 August 2022
A Square Sees a Sphere
I have this strange little book on my shelf called Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott. It’s not a particularly good book…
04 August 2022
The Tragic Sandwich
A customer wanders into a deli to order a sandwich. He’s hungry after a long and stressful morning and wants something easy for lunch…
28 July 2022
Wicked Problems
Let’s talk about wizards and muggles. And no, not the Dursley kind of muggle. Jazz musicians in the 1920s coined the term “muggle” to…
21 July 2022
Recursive Pareto
A rook, a bishop, and a pawn discovered a scroll. The pawn unrolled the parchment and read, “Buried treasure lies beneath the chessboard…
14 July 2022
Four Stages of Competence
I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed. But I’m also not the dullest. I am merely as sharp or dull as the average tool in the shed. Over time…
07 July 2022
Wabi-Sabi
Picture a small clay bowl. It’s not quite a perfect circle. There’s a dimple on its rim and a chip on its side. This bowl is wabi-sabi (侘寂).…
23 June 2022
Baseline vs. Target
How many words do you write each day? If you don’t have a clear and precise number, the answer is zero. To make progress on any metric, you…
21 June 2022
Input vs. Output
Imagine a big, strange Dr. Seussian machine. You feed it groceries, and it spits out gold bars or useless goop. You don’t know how the…
19 June 2022
Cobra Effect
During the British rule of India, venomous cobras plagued Delhi. The government offered a bounty per dead cobra to reduce the snake…
09 June 2022
Dogfooding
Dog food is a $56B industry, only $11B short of the $67B baby food industry. Given declining birth rates and an ever-growing preference for…
07 June 2022
Localhost Trap
In the 2000 film How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Jim Carrey recited his to-do list, and one item was especially salient: “Solve world hunger…
05 June 2022
Vocal Minority vs. Mobile Minority
Two types of minority groups could drive majority change: one that exhibits perceived change and one that creates actual change. The Vocal…
26 May 2022
Red Pill or Blue Pill
Near the beginning of The Matrix, the protagonist receives two pills. Either he can take the Blue Pill to expunge dangerous thoughts and…
24 May 2022
One-Way and Two-Way Doors
Amazon popularized the idea of one-way and two-way doors to encourage employee decision-making and appropriate risk-taking. One-Way Doors…
22 May 2022
System I & System II
Here’s a puzzle: Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and bright. She majored in philosophy at an American university. As a student…
12 May 2022
Lindy Effect
“Older is better.” When I lived in California, I drove a 19-year-old truck with electrical issues. I took it to a few mechanics, but they…
10 May 2022
Locksmith Paradox
“Faster value is perceived as worse.” I once slept in a Walmart parking lot in West Virginia. Late that night, I arose to use the restroom…
08 May 2022
Aesthetic-Usability Effect
“Beauty over function.” In 1995, researchers at the Hitachi Design Center studied the “aesthetic-usability effect” with an ATM. A less…
28 April 2022
Eudaimonia
Language constrains our range of expression. It isn’t easy to express a thought or a feeling with words when the language doesn’t have a…
26 April 2022
Potemkin Village
To impress Empress Catherine II during her journey to Crimea in 1787, Grigory Potemkin supposedly built fake, portable villages along her…
24 April 2022
The Tokyo Effect
Tokyo has ~14M people, making it the largest city on Earth. It has thousands of unique stores, like Ma-suya Azabu-Juban—a shop that only…
14 April 2022
Stonecutter vs. Mechanic
The other week, my friend and I went skiing on Mount Baker—a glaciated volcano near the Canadian border. We cruised along gravel roads until…
12 April 2022
Fragile, Resilient, Antifragile
Last month, the power went out at the gym. Lights went black, the treadmills stopped moving, and huge, medieval-looking doors slammed shut…
10 April 2022
Zone Two
I’ve been training for my first marathon for the last few months. I’ve never been much of a distance runner, so my running workouts were…
31 March 2022
Magical Buckets
Sometimes I think about that scene from Fight Club when Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) holds a gas station attendant at gunpoint and…
19 March 2022
The Slowest Hiker
I love the scenic beauty of Washington State—it’s the main reason I moved here. The problem is that everyone here loves the scenic beauty…
17 March 2022
Secondhand Smoke
I’m always amazed by how quickly a clever framing can sway public opinion. In the US, smoking went from a commonplace activity to a near…
15 March 2022
Gravitational Pull
Imagine a group of people as a solar system. Be it a family, company, sports team, organization, church community, or a gaggle of friends…
05 March 2022
Eating the Frog
My cousins and I used to visit a place in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula called “Black Rocks”—cliffs beside the icy waters of Lake Superior. The…
03 March 2022
Underpants Gnomes
On an infamous episode of South Park, the boys do a school presentation about “underpants gnomes”— little elves that sneak into a house and…
01 March 2022
Gray Time
Imagine time as black and white, where black is work time, and white is playtime. If our days were a chessboard of activity, we’d starkly…
17 February 2022
Chronos and Kairos
The Ancient Greeks had two concepts for time: Chronos and Kairos. Chronos is quantitative, purpose-driven, and marked by hours and minutes…
15 February 2022
Cliffhangers
King Shahryar’s wife cheated on him, so he beheaded her in rage. Her beheading wasn’t enough to assuage his anger, so he picked up a…
13 February 2022
Zeignarik Effect
In the 1920s, Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik observed a waiter taking orders at a restaurant. When prompted, the waiter could easily…
06 February 2022
Warrior vs. Soldier vs. Police
A “marketer” in a year-old, ten-person tech startup will vastly differ from a “marketer” in a fifty-year-old, five-thousand-person Fortune…
04 February 2022
Maker vs. Manager vs. Minder
Investor Paul Graham once argued that a maker (such as a software engineer) requires long bouts of uninterrupted time to create valuable…
01 February 2022
Reader vs. Listener
To improve at anything, we must learn. To learn, we must know how we process information. In Managing Oneself, Peter Drucker claims that…
20 January 2022
Mind Mapping
Sometimes a visual artifact helps us understand a problem. A mind map is a tool I like for getting stuff out of my head. How to mind map: 1)…
18 January 2022
What? Why? How?
Creativity is seen as messy, chaotic, squishy, and overly associated with art, so its practical benefits are lost. But creativity can use a…
16 January 2022
Faster Horses
People claim that if Henry Ford built what people asked for, we wouldn’t have cars; we’d have faster horses. This statement is more myth…
13 January 2022
Red, Yellow, and Green Energy
Imagine you could plug yourself into a power outlet and work all night. Like a computer, you could crank away around the clock at a steady…
11 January 2022
Appetite Planning
With resolutions, our eyes are often bigger than our stomachs. It’s easy to set big, hairy, audacious, pie-in-the-sky goals without the time…
09 January 2022
A Ritual of Retrospectives
New Year’s Resolutions are forward-looking—commitments we make (and likely don’t keep) with ourselves to create a future we’d like to…
30 December 2021
The Hedgehog & The Fox
The Fox knows many things, and the Hedgehog knows one big thing. Presented in a 1953 book of the same title, The Hedgehog and The Fox define…
29 December 2021
The Overton Window
What is tolerable to the public? What will 80% of people tolerate? The Overton Window defines the answer to these questions as it sets the…
28 December 2021
New Math
I’m forever surprised by the strength of imprints. Despite overwhelming evidence that says otherwise, sugary breakfast cereals never feel un…
23 December 2021
Astroturfing
An army of Twitter bots disguised as real people complain about cannibal rights. “The meatpacking industry is suppressing #CannibalRights!”…
22 December 2021
Poisoning the Well
A boss arranges one-on-one meetings with two underperforming employees: Becky and Bill. He plans to fire one of them. Boss: “Becky, why did…
21 December 2021
Gaslighting
In the 1944 film Gas Light, a husband turns on and off gaslights at night. When she brings it up in the morning, he tells her he didn’t…
17 December 2021
Jakob's Law & Decorum
Jakob Nielsen had a simple principle in web design: People expect your site to work like all others. People spend 99% of their time on other…
16 December 2021
First, Do No Harm
George Washington was out late riding his horse, got caught in the rain, and developed a sore throat. The next day, his doctor came to heal…
15 December 2021
Unforced Errors
Tennis players make two errors: Forced. The player errors because of their opponent, like not returning a powerful first serve. Unforced. T…
14 December 2021
The Sorting Hat
Some college friends were in town, so I joined them to watch Michigan clobber Iowa for the Big-Ten championship. Like most good friendships,…
09 December 2021
Framestorming
You can’t help but wonder: Is this the right problem? Brainstorming is fine, but you might solve the wrong problem without the right frame.…
08 December 2021
Five Whys
You find out your team wants to deprecate a legacy codebase, but you don’t know why. So, you embrace your inner five-year-old and ask: “Why?…
07 December 2021
In What Context?
You pass an old mare at pasture as you approach the farmhouse-style tech office. You enter the office and head to the conference room. “We…
03 December 2021
Luck Surface Area
Leprechauns Patricia and Patrick collect lucky objects, such as rabbit’s feet and four-leaf clovers. But their approaches are wildly…
02 December 2021
Whitespace
Writing is more than words. It’s how we present words. Whitespace is a neglected element—not a passive background but an active ingredient…
24 November 2021
The Mythical Mother Month
Clarence wants a baby. Clarence reasons that a baby requires nine months of effort, so rather than one woman spending nine months, he could…
23 November 2021
Cheap, Fast, and Good
People want an excellent product delivered quickly for a low price. But it often becomes a “you pick two” scenario. If it’s good and fast…
18 November 2021
Alligators and Kittens
A sad woman in Louisiana loves kittens, as their little meows fill her with joy. So, she adopts a dozen kittens and brings them to her house…
17 November 2021
Don't be caught by the passive voice
Passive voice is objectively wrong in any writing—business, academic, or artistic. Edge cases exist, but the passive voice is often unclear,…
16 November 2021
Inversion is Not
Inversion is not thinking forward. It’s thinking backward. Inversion is not pursuing positive outcomes. It’s avoiding negative inputs. Inver…
11 November 2021
Shaving Yaks
A man wants to buy bananas, but his car has a flat. He needs his air pump but remembers he lent it to his neighbor. He can’t ask his…
10 November 2021
Four-Blade Razor
“Razors” are critical thinking tools designed to “shave away” complexity, and some are especially useful. Stay sharp with Turtle’s new four…
09 November 2021
Hairy Arms
Asha is a young marketer pushing the boundaries for extraterrestrial fashion. Little green people have immigrated to Earth, but humans…
04 November 2021
Cosmic Insignificance
I once set Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” as my phone background because I thought the grainy photograph would put my problems into…
03 November 2021
Six Blind Folks
Six blind folks bump into a mysterious thing. Out of curiosity, they grope it. Person 1 feels its trunk: “It’s soft and long. It’s a snake!”…
02 November 2021
Temperature Check
Weather is the universal small talk. Don’t let your struggles with temperature conversion force deeper conversation! Americans use…
31 October 2021
Beware the Bike Shed
Engineers gather to discuss two designs: One for a nuclear reactor and one for a bike shed. The reactor discussion is smooth and short, as…
29 October 2021
The road to hell is sloppily paved in adverbs
Words are alchemy. They transfer abstract thought from your head to another head and can change the material world. Clear writing makes that…
28 October 2021
Color Coordination for Dummies
We’re all designers. Whether we create slide decks, flyers, or menus, it’s helpful to learn design basics—like color. When done right, color…
25 October 2021
The Asymmetric Crab
Too many Slack conversations start like this: 8:05 AM Pesty Coworker: Hi Justin 8:10 AM Pesty Coworker: How are you? 🙂 8:20 AM Pesty…
13 September 2021
Two Lists
This is part five of my “Draft One” series on writing the first draft of a novel. #5: Two Lists One of my favorite Netflix originals is Aziz…
05 September 2021
The Shapes of Euchre
The other day, a friend and I taught Euchre to our partners. For those not familiar, Euchre is a popular card game in Michigan. Since my…
29 August 2021
Bones Before Flesh
This is part four of my “Draft One” series: Writing the first draft of a novel. Strategies (i.e., Go Big) set a direction. Tactics (i.e., Po…
28 August 2021
How to Play Euchre
First, make a Euchre deck. From a standard pack of 52 playing cards, discard everything except 9s, 10s, jacks, queens, kings, and aces. Set…
22 August 2021
Don't Miss Two
This is part three of my “Draft One” series: Writing the first draft of a novel. Let’s start with a dogsledding reference. My last two…
02 August 2021
Pomodoro
This is part two of my “Draft One” series. #2: Pomodoro A Machiavellian businesswoman answers her own question: “How do you eat a whale? One…
28 July 2021
Draft One
Exciting news! I finished the first draft of my novel. After a year of cycle time and six months of effort, a full draft is sitting on my…
01 June 2021
Doorstops
April 2021. Mount Hood, Oregon — A midnight alarm stirs me from my bunk at the Timberline Lodge. There’s a wall of snow outside the window…
25 April 2021
os28
I turned 28 last week. Late-twenties are an odd age—a major fork in life’s road. For some career-oriented urbanites, 30 is the new 20. For…
14 April 2021
Death of Default
The Palm Springs of Washington… While Miranda Cosgrove didn’t share this view, I appreciated the analogy…
08 April 2021
Seven Plus or Minus Two
At work, I inherited this tool to help people use a poorly designed product. While the long-term solution was to address core issues in the…
28 March 2021
24-Hour Arcade
Time is the great equalizer. Everyone gets 24 hours per day, 365-366 days per year, 73.2 years in a lifetime. But how much of this time is…
20 March 2021
Honey, We Shrunk the Animals
The other day, I saw a bald eagle’s nest. Masterfully crafted in the tallest tree in a two-mile radius, it summoned images of leathery…