An influential thing I read once was about doing a small amount of progress toward known goals. It was a comment on Reddit, summed up as “no zero days”: aiming for no days where zero progress is made toward goals. Having no goals sounds hard, having too many goals, seeing goals everywhere—also hard. Today I’m…

I’m a builder’s son. My father was a Northern California ski bum in the 70’s. There was a building boom going on. Construction jobs were easy to get, and they suited his lifestyle. Later, the construction industry got much more professionalized and licensed. A generation of lucky tradesmen got to keep licenses that were much…