Category

Productivity

Category

The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials. – Lin Yutang

The Pareto Principle (also known as the 80/20 rule, law of the vital few), named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto who noted that 80% of consequences comes from 20% of the causes (the “vital few). Pareto made the observation at the University of Lausanne in 1896. In his first work Cours d’économie politique, he showed that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. The top 20% of the population had 80% of the wealth in Italy.

The Pareto Principle, states that 20 percent of the things you do account for 80 percent of the value of what you accomplish. This means that 80 percent of what you do is worth 20 percent or less of the value of what you accomplish.

The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.- Mortimer J. Adler

It is often said that when the learner is ready, the teacher arrives. I have found this to be very true, I have been on a deliberate journey of personal self-development since 2004.

I started with books such As a man Thinketh, Think and Grow Rich, The Enemy called average, Psycho-Cybernetics 2000, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience., Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Awakening the giant within to name but a few.

What I have come to realize from reading at least 500+ books and listening to 100+ Audiobooks is that when you are not ready for a concept it would fly over your head but with repeated exposure and repetition, you eventually get it and begin to act. Learning is said to be a change in behaviour, you have not really learnt anything if you don’t act.

Knowing is not enoughwe must apply. Willing is not enoughwe must do. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In their Coursera Course, Learning How to Learn, Barb Oakley and Terry Sejnowski, shares the research work of Jeffrey D. Karpicke on the Illusion of Incompetence:

  • Seeing information in front of you such as reading a book. Doesn’t mean you know it
  • Seeing or hearing someone come to a conclusion does not mean you know how to get to that conclusion or explain their argument
  • Searching for something on google gives the illusion that the information is in your brain
  • Spending lots of time with a material doesn’t mean you know it

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge. —Daniel J. Boorstin

I first got to know about the Slow Media Manifesto after reading “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport. The Slow Media Manifesto argues that in an age in which the digital attention economy is shoveling more and more clickbait toward us and fragmenting our focus into emotionally charged shards, the right response is to become more mindful in our media consumption:

Early in 2010, a trio of Germans (Benedikt Köhler, Sabria David and Jörg Blumtritt) with backgrounds in sociology, technology, and market research posted online a document titled “Das Slow Media Manifest.” The English translation reads: “The Slow Media Manifesto.

Slow Media is a movement focusing on the pace of media production and consumption in the digital age. It advocates for alternative ways of making and using media that are more intentional, more enjoyable, longer lasting, better researched/written/designed, more ethical, and of higher quality overall.

Slow Media developed in response to complex media formats and instant communication methods characteristic of digital culture, in which “high volumes of information are updated in real-time and are perpetually at your fingertips.