Wisereads Vol. 5 — A new newsletter by Readwise
Last week, we shared an exclusive preview chapter from The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma by DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman. This week, we’re excited to share the entirety of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by our good friend, Eric Jorgenson.
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Most highlighted Articles of the week
When I Stopped Trying to Self-Optimize, I Got Better
We’re all so focused on learning new things that we often overlook the unexpected liberation of unlearning. Philosopher Francis Sanzaro shares how he silenced his inner voice while rock climbing in Colorado. “As Saint-Exupery advises, we must take away until there is nothing left to remove. What is left when you do that? Only an action. You are in it, then, in sports or in love, with clarity, intensity and solidity.”
This is Water
The Gettysburg Address. I Have a Dream. The toast I gave at my best friend Ryan’s wedding. Some speeches are so powerful they give you goosebumps — just like the timeless This Is Water delivered by David Foster Wallace. “The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death. It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: ‘This is water.’ ‘This is water.’”
The importance of handwriting is becoming better understood
Writing by hand is slower than writing by keyboard, but there's some evidence this limitation can be a feature rather than a bug. “Studies have found that writing on paper can improve everything from recalling a random series of words to imparting a better conceptual grasp of complicated ideas.”
Most highlighted YouTube Video of the week
10x Your Productivity With This Simple Time Management Technique
Productivity coach Carl Pullein studied how prolific novelists such as John Grisham and Ian Fleming manage their time and discovered a surprisingly effective technique employed by the British author Jeffrey Archer. “[His] time management system is actually very simple. What he's doing is 2 hours on, 2 hours off. 2 hours on, 2 hours off. He begins with 2 hours on at 6 AM and he will finish with his last work session at 8 PM.”
Most highlighted Twitter Thread of the week
Conducting Reference Checks
Please do reference checks, but please don’t just check the box. Flo Crivello shows you how to dig for dirt despite using your potential hire’s closest friends and colleagues as references. “There’s an art to getting someone’s friends / front door checks to say bad things about them.”
Most highlighted PDF of the week
Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of AI on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality
What happens when a bunch of business school professors and BCG consultants examine the effects of GPT-4 on white collar productivity? You get neologisms such as “Centaurs" versus "Cyborgs”. “One set of consultants acted as ‘Centaurs,’ like the mythical half-horse / half-human creature, dividing and delegating their solution-creation activities to the AI or to themselves. Another set of consultants acted more like ‘Cyborgs,’ completely integrating their task flow with the AI and continually interacting with the technology.”
Hand-picked book of the week
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
You’ve probably heard the trope: “Most books should just be articles. Most articles should just be blog posts. And most blog posts should just be tweets.” Naval Ravikant’s How to Get Rich (without getting lucky) was the exact opposite: a Twitter thread that should have been a book.
Eric Jorgenson, newly anointed CEO of the publishing company Scribe Media, solved this problem by writing The Almanack of Naval Ravikant — the comprehensive guide to Ravikant's teachings on building wealth, finding happiness, and applying the force of leverage throughout life. “Making money is not a thing you do—it’s a skill you learn. I like to think that if I lost all my money and you dropped me on a random street in any English-speaking country, within five or ten years I’d be wealthy again because it’s just a skillset I’ve developed that anyone can develop.”
Eric is sharing his full ebook with the Readwise community. We invite you to show thanks — if you wish — by following Eric on Twitter, subscribing to his newsletter, and buying a copy of the physical book 🙏
Handpicked RSS feed of the week
Rougher Thoughts by Sarah Tavel
As one of the first employees at Pinterest, Sarah Tavel became expert in all things consumer startups. Now, as general partner at the VC firm Benchmark, she weaves her personal experiences in startups and venture capital into essays about tech trends, company building, and culture. From The Hype Subsidy – Why Early Hype is Dangerous in Consumer Social: “As tempting and sexy as hype may be, I’m a believer in avoiding it as long as possible. This may seem counterintuitive.”