The Yak Collective’s Writings
2021
January
- Anti-Network Effects · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Conversations Don’t Transform You, Life Does · Pamela Hobart ·
- Overview of Story Synth, my web platform for storytelling games · Randy Lubin ·
- Don’t Look on the Bright Side · Pamela Hobart ·
- Creative burnout: when the creativity tap runs dry · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- The great big sh*t-shovelling machine · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Overcoming learned helplessness · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Have you heard of ‘commissioning’? Here’s why it’s important in all our lives · Benjamin Taylor ·
- The Sneaky Subjunctive · Pamela Hobart ·
- Emotional fitness and leadership with Dr. Emily Anhalt · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- What I learned in Ali Abdaal’s YouTube Course · Paul Millerd ·
- Folk Festivals of the Internet People · Vinay Débrou ·
- Involvement Music · Venkatesh Rao ·
- From note-taking to note-making · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- How can we change the world? Exactly — join us and we’ll see! · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Why can’t I write code inside my browser? · Tom Critchlow ·
- Creating habits: how long does it take to form a habit? · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- There are only seven ways to make savings and improvements in service organisations · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Playing around with the Web Monetization Protocol · Randy Lubin ·
- There are two fundamental outlooks on life · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Are you a naive enthusiast, an oversimplifying populariser, a gooroo, or a curmudgeon? · Benjamin Taylor ·
- How often do things go wrong because of lack of clarity? · Benjamin Taylor ·
- The Campaign Against Consultancy — do you want to join? · Benjamin Taylor ·
- There are five core things which, if you make them your practice, are likely to lead to… · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Local public services in the UK face a ‘perfect’ storm — we need Adaptive Councils · Benjamin Taylor ·
- ‘the chick does not break the egg out of hatred for the shell — it does so out of a desire to walk… · Benjamin Taylor ·
- We’re all trying to make sense of things — in our own way and from where we are · Benjamin Taylor ·
- A practical approach to making decisions in complexity · Benjamin Taylor ·
- ‘How the heck do I make decisions in this chaos?’ · Benjamin Taylor ·
- You should never publish your values or behaviours if you want culture change · Benjamin Taylor ·
- I sabotaged the plan, and it was one of the best things I’ve done · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Who wants to become an organisational Jedi? · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Are you playing the real human game, or are you being seduced by the Dark Side of The Force? · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Are you fit for your job? Are you stretched? · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Organisational Jedi Knights have to confront themselves with love · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Are you trapped in a tractor beam of The Force? · Benjamin Taylor ·
- The Force in organisational life: how dominant/other cultural patterns create system fragility… · Benjamin Taylor ·
- The Dark Side of human responses — The Force in organisation, part VI · Benjamin Taylor ·
- 5 thinking tools to add to your metacognitive toolbox · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- 150+ Things Worth Reading & Listening To From 2020 · Paul Millerd ·
- Selfies in Vaporworlds · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Annual Review 2020 · Pamela Hobart ·
- Alert: Breaking Smart Billing Problem · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Scaling down: on seeking fewer goals, relationships, and experiences · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- That’s a wrap. · Vaughn Tan ·
- The butterfly effect: the impact of deterministic chaos on our lives · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Positive AI Economic Futures Workshop · Randy Lubin ·
- How to use templates in Roam Research [[roam/templates]] · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Don’t Follow Your Passion, Work In The Corporate World First · Paul Millerd ·
- Tick-Tock Talk - 1 · Venkatesh Rao ·
2020
December
- 2020 Recap · Randy Lubin ·
- The Magic of Non-Doing · Paul Millerd ·
- Complete 2020 Roundup · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Amy McMillen – Leaving a Path That Makes Sense (Podcast) · Paul Millerd ·
- Oshan Jarow: The Reality & Possibilities For Work · Paul Millerd ·
- Steph Smith – Carving a 21st Century Career & Life (Podcast) · Paul Millerd ·
- Packy McCormick – Making Newsletters Fun (Podcast) · Paul Millerd ·
- 35th · Pamela Hobart ·
- Darker Things · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Don’t “Clarify” Your Values · Pamela Hobart ·
- Filtered for… margin notes · Tom Critchlow ·
- 2020 year in review: chaos and community · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Activation energy: the chemistry of getting started · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Why Did People Stop Caring About Developing a Meaningful Philosophy of Life in the 1970s? · Paul Millerd ·
- Holiday gift guide for the curious minds · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Meaning in Life is Not Propositional · Pamela Hobart ·
- In the Wake of the Eighties · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Timebox Your Existential Issues · Pamela Hobart ·
- Curiosity and consistency: thoughts on growing a newsletter · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- The Everyday Process of Burnout Recovery · Ben Mosior ·
- Weak Ties & Strong Intros · Tom Critchlow ·
- Selective ignorance: cultivating intentional knowledge in a chaotic world · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Second-Best Solutions · Pamela Hobart ·
- The difference between efficacy, effectiveness and efficiency · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- An Ode To Travel and What It Means (Video) · Paul Millerd ·
- Involvement Capitalism · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Meaning Making Machines (Jennifer Carlston) · Ben Mosior ·
- The benefits of laziness: why being a lazy person can be good for you · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- How workers became career-driven performers · Paul Millerd ·
- JavaScript plugins for Roam Research [[roam/js]] · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- High-leverage activities: how to identify your energy multipliers · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
November
- A Letter to Arnold · Tom Critchlow ·
- Textual maps and the future of text · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Productivity and permaculture with Marie Poulin · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Inductive versus deductive reasoning: how to make stronger arguments · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- The ultimate guide to becoming a digital nomad or remote worker · Paul Millerd ·
- How to upload and play audio files in Roam Research · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Lethologica: what happens when a word is on the tip of the tongue · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Memory bias: how selective recall can impact your memories · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Stupid Problems, Stupid Solutions · Pamela Hobart ·
- Exaggeration: why we make a mountain out of a molehill · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Altered states of consciousness: the elusiveness of the mind · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- 6 Years on the Road · Tom Critchlow ·
- Maslow’s Imaginary Pyramid: Who really invented the pyramid? · Paul Millerd ·
- Interview: Building an anti-regret machine with Tyler Bryden · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Questioning Therapy’s Perpetual Present · Pamela Hobart ·
- How to take notes while reading a book · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Personal values: how knowing yourself can guide your actions · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Interview: Using books to navigate life with Juvoni Beckford · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
October
- Painfully Tiny Goals · Pamela Hobart ·
- Building an antilibrary: the power of unread books · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Anticipatory Awareness and the Election · Ben Mosior ·
- #52: A year and change · Vaughn Tan ·
- Hindsight bias: the knew-it-all-along phenomenon · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Essential Digital Nomad Electronic, Sleep, Fitness & Travel Gear (October 2020) · Paul Millerd ·
- Aspiration, Meaning, & The Traps of Ambition (A Book Review of Agnes Callard’s Aspiration) · Paul Millerd ·
- Interview: Collective intelligence with Alexandra Elbakyan · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- The state of personal knowledge management · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- #51: The sensible approach · Vaughn Tan ·
- The hermeneutic circle: a key to critical reading · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Jumping to conclusions: the inference-observation confusion · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Principles vs Context: It’s Not About Choice · Ben Mosior ·
- Is Productivity an Ethical Issue? · Pamela Hobart ·
- Hitting Pause · Venkatesh Rao ·
- A letter to the future from some little time after 2020 · Benjamin Taylor ·
- #50: Leaving money on the table · Vaughn Tan ·
- Connected Papers: a visual tool for academic research · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Hustle Traps: Ten Guaranteed Paths To Burnout For The Self-Employed Creator · Paul Millerd ·
- Survivorship bias: when failure gets forgotten · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Time is not a measure of productivity · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Notes on Textual Capital · Venkatesh Rao ·
- How to De-Instrumentalize Time · Pamela Hobart ·
- How to practice nuanced thinking · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- #49: The work of uncertainty · Vaughn Tan ·
- Most organisations are zombies. · Benjamin Taylor ·
- The collective brain: where does innovation come from? · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- The best CSS themes for Roam Research · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Tunnelhead · Venkatesh Rao ·
September
- #48: How to design remote work · Vaughn Tan ·
- Semantic traps: why vague words are risky · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- How to build diagrams in Roam Research · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- The Existential Sandwich · Pamela Hobart ·
- The power of flexible consistency · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Mid-2020 Update · Randy Lubin ·
- Fifth-Generation Management · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Negativity bias: how negative experiences cloud our judgement · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- #47: Industrial unpredictability · Vaughn Tan ·
- Networked thinking: a quiet cognitive revolution · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- The Economic Power of Real-time Chat Spaces · Tom Critchlow ·
- Control Failure – 2 · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Nothing is “Beyond” Self-Improvement · Pamela Hobart ·
- Podcasts with Offline Rocks & Hundreds of Ways · Tom Critchlow ·
- How to think better · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- #46: Removing buildup · Vaughn Tan ·
- The science of deliberate practice · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- How to set up your own digital garden · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Further thoughts about GoodReads & the web books ecosystem · Tom Critchlow ·
- A Bad Prequel · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Lockdown in NYC made me want to kill myself, so I had to leave · Pamela Hobart ·
- The two sides of stress: distress and eustress · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- #45: Civilization is weightless · Vaughn Tan ·
- The only numbers that matter · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Pressure and procrastination · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- This is part 11 of my series on The Force in organisational life. The rest can be accessed here: · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Irreducible complexity: The Force in organisational life · Benjamin Taylor ·
- ‘wolves change rivers’ links · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Not 100# to your point, but this is a good nuanced take on ‘30-50 wild hogs’ and failures of… · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Post-Covid Circularity · Venkatesh Rao ·
- #44: The long view · Vaughn Tan ·
August
- Spaceship You: How To Understand Who You Are as a Remote Worker · Paul Millerd ·
- No newsletter this week · Venkatesh Rao ·
- The Force in organisational life — the story so far · Benjamin Taylor ·
- The empathy gap: why we underestimate the influence of emotions · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- #43: A new market of ideas · Vaughn Tan ·
- Structured distraction: how to make the most of your breaks at work · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Idea evaluation: the other side of the creativity coin · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- The State of (Business) Play · Venkatesh Rao ·
- From productivity porn to mindful productivity · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- The planning fallacy: why we underestimate how long a task will take · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- #42: Room for discovery · Vaughn Tan ·
- How to choose the right note-taking app · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Filtered for… inquiry vs insight · Tom Critchlow ·
- The Contrary Consultant · Tom Critchlow ·
- Control Failure – 1 · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Systematic inventive thinking: the power of thinking inside the box · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- #41: Surrendering control · Vaughn Tan ·
- The mindful productivity guide to intermittent fasting · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- - Here’s the complete set of articles on The Force in organisational life, so far. · Benjamin Taylor ·
- What makes a good “hire me” page? · Tom Critchlow ·
- Constructive criticism: how to give and receive feedback · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- The Descent of the Public · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Pre-mortem: how to anticipate failure with prospective hindsight · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Generating an alumni network for indies · Tom Critchlow ·
- #40: Trials and tribulations · Vaughn Tan ·
- Organisational Jedi Knights have to confront themselves with love · Benjamin Taylor ·
- How to take a replenishing vacation (or staycation) · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- The rational benefits of emotions · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
July
- Operating in Time - 2 · Venkatesh Rao ·
- re: More experiments with video calls, and what slides are for · Tom Critchlow ·
- #39: Remove the plow and hive · Vaughn Tan ·
- Ten Heuristics for Bad Times · Ben Mosior ·
- Thinking Out Loud: Year One · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Updates to Quotebacks · Tom Critchlow ·
- How to evaluate the validity and reliability of your mental models · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Debora, please see the twitter thread started by Sonja Blignaut posting this: https://twitter.com/so · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Some notes on Thinking in Public · Tom Critchlow ·
- The Indie Consulting Business Model Canvas V0.1 · Tom Critchlow ·
- #38: Agathonicity · Vaughn Tan ·
- GPT-3 and the future of human productivity · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Temporal discounting: the battle between present and future self · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- The best advice on working remotely your boss doesn’t want you to see · Paul Millerd ·
- Operating in Time · Venkatesh Rao ·
- From closed mind to open mind · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Opening up in Open Spaces · Tom Critchlow ·
- Come for the Network, Pay for the Tool · Toby Shorin ·
- #37: Open space · Vaughn Tan ·
- The Dunning–Kruger effect: you don’t know what you don’t know · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Investing into the unknown with Lawrence Yeo · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- re: garden of forking memes · Toby Shorin ·
- The Next Experiments in Elitism · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Managing risk with the NASA Risk Matrix · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- #36: Ready for the unexpected · Vaughn Tan ·
- The Force in organisational life and becoming a Jedi — The Beginning · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Setting up a Discord Room for my Blog · Tom Critchlow ·
- Fail like a scientist · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Internet Writer Workflows · Shreeda Segan ·
- After Westphalia: Introduction · Venkatesh Rao ·
- 50 lessons I learned from writing 50 newsletters · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Inner child and inner critic: a battle for creativity · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Quotebacks for Firefox is here! · Tom Critchlow ·
- #35: Patterning, herding, programming · Vaughn Tan ·
- Quote the web with Quotebacks · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
June
- Creative challenges with Alyssa X · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Indoors in Time · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Can Calendly Unbundle NYC? · Tom Critchlow ·
- Creating calm: how to manage stress · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- #34: The difficulties of not-knowing · Vaughn Tan ·
- From inspiration to idea sex: how to generate ideas on demand · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Navigating Power & Status · Tom Critchlow ·
- The power of the weekly review · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Big Moods, Little Moods · Venkatesh Rao ·
- The art and science of mind wandering · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- #33: Preference uncertainty · Vaughn Tan ·
- Browser extensions for Roam Research · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- From mental map to mental atlas · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- I just turned on “paid” subscriptions… · Shreeda Segan ·
- A New Old Pattern Language · Shreeda Segan ·
- Towards a Blogger Peer Review · Toby Shorin ·
- Farcaster Mansions · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Only Requisite Agility can save us now · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Introduction to Experimenting Generalism · Vinay Débrou ·
- As we may die · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- #32: Missing the point · Vaughn Tan ·
- disaster! · Tom Critchlow ·
- Exploring ScrollToTextFragment · Tom Critchlow ·
- Sorry, change of office hours! · Pamela Hobart ·
- Introducing: Quotebacks · Tom Critchlow ·
- Questions for Smart People #11 · Pamela Hobart ·
- Into the Weirding – Part 2 · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Roam themes: how to style Roam Research with custom CSS · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Do you work on your happiness? · Pamela Hobart ·
- #31: Alternative sociality · Vaughn Tan ·
- Mental wealth: managing you mental health budget · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
May
- Questions for Smart People #10 · Pamela Hobart ·
- From Story to Setting · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Productive cognitive load: make the most of your working memory · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Managing Millennials & Other Misinformation On Generations at Work · Paul Millerd ·
- Thinking in maps: from the Lascaux caves to modern knowledge graphs · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Sparring & Tenure for Indie Consultants · Tom Critchlow ·
- #30: Fear of failure · Vaughn Tan ·
- Filtered for… writing inside organizations · Tom Critchlow ·
- Integrating Chaos: Building Resilient Organizations with Chaos Theory · Paul Millerd ·
- How to build a support group · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Questions for Smart People #9 · Pamela Hobart ·
- Questions About The Future Of Work · Paul Millerd ·
- Into the Weirding – Part 1 · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Collectors to Creators Meetup Notes · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Filtered for… the design of virtual spaces · Tom Critchlow ·
- Have you figured out how you make choices? · Pamela Hobart ·
- The anatomy of a perfect educational article · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- #29: Ambient uncertainty, Part 3 · Vaughn Tan ·
- The Goldilocks Principle of Stress and Anxiety · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Filtered for… Play · Tom Critchlow ·
- Matt Mullenweg’s & Automattic’s Five Levels Of Remote Work · Paul Millerd ·
- A Good Looking Tiddly Theme for Digital Gardens · Tom Critchlow ·
- Mindful productivity and neuroscience · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Questions for Smart People #8 · Pamela Hobart ·
- A little gift · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Connectedness and complex systems with Dr John L. Collins · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- What’s your worldview? + office hours right now · Pamela Hobart ·
- #28: Ambient uncertainty, Part 2 · Vaughn Tan ·
- Dr John L. Collins Biography · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- How to take smart notes · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- First Annual Report · Pamela Hobart ·
- Who am I, and what do I want? @antlerboy reflects · Benjamin Taylor ·
- Writing as a thinking tool · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Questions for Smart People #7 · Pamela Hobart ·
- The Medieval Future of Management · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Reinvent: From getting ahead to coming alive in May · Paul Millerd ·
- Learning to let go · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- Should you make a “unique” contribution to the world? · Pamela Hobart ·
- #27: Ambient uncertainty, Part 1 · Vaughn Tan ·
- Confirmation bias: believing what you see, seeing what you believe · Anne-Laure Le Cunff ·
- The Challenges of Remote Consulting · Tom Critchlow ·
- Hamsternomics: Are We All Just Happy Hamsters? · Paul Millerd ·
- Complex Problems vs Small Teams of Indie-Professionals · Vinay Débrou ·
- Questions for Smart People #6 · Pamela Hobart ·
- Reimagining Publics · Venkatesh Rao ·
- Why you need spoopy consulting and how to do it · Benjamin Taylor ·
April