Despite the questionability of this guy's reputation and the outlandishness of some of his claims, this is actually a decent article about time management. I've worked with a lot of people in both academia and startup land who would do well to read this. Here are my thoughts on some of his best points.<p><i>"Every activity has an opportunity cost."</i><p>I'm dumbfounded by the number of entrepreneurs and engineers I run into who don't understand the concept of opportunity cost. If you aren't consciously aware that every month you spend doing X is a month you <i>didn't</i> spend doing Y, then you're going to be very inefficient. A startup is a race against the clock (your diminishing bank account), so inefficiency can mean death.<p><i>"Work all the time you work."</i><p>One of the unofficial mottos of MIT was "work hard, play hard". In other words, when you're working, <i>work</i>, and when you're not, <i>don't</i>. The most miserable students were those who attempted to study while hanging out, watching movies, etc. They'd spend entire days in a half-work half-play state, which of course results in <i>no</i> work getting done, and less-than-satisfactory entertainment as well. I should know -- that was me for a year. There are some pretty good techniques for breaking this habit, but first you have to be consciously aware that you actually have this problem.<p><i>"People who succeed also fail a great deal."</i><p>This is cliche, I know. But it's some of the most misunderstood advice of all time. People only think of it on a macro level, because the examples are always of the form, "Person X failed at starting 3 companies before he created SuperSuccessfulMegaCorp!" But I think it's more important to understand this advice on a micro level. For example, I used to be an incredibly shitty web designer, but now I'd say I'm pretty good at it. What changed?<p>When I first started, I would make a design, it would suck, and I'd say, "I suck." Then I would release my shitty design and move on to something else. Nowadays when I make a design, it still sucks... but instead of releasing it, I start tinkering with it. It continues to suck. I fail for hours and hours. At some point, I usually lose confidence in myself. But I keep working and, on a consistent basis, I always manage to "stumble upon" a great-looking design. So learning to fail is, in essence, learning to be a perfectionist. I think this is a useful skill for any creative profession (writing, coding, designing, etc).