# Paul Graham - How to Do Great Work (Highlights)  ## Metadata **Review**:: [readwise.io](https://readwise.io/bookreview/30287124) **Source**:: #from/readwise #from/reader **Zettel**:: #zettel/fleeting **Status**:: #x **Authors**:: [[Paul Graham]] **Full Title**:: How to Do Great Work **Category**:: #articles #readwise/articles **Category Icon**:: 📰 **URL**:: [paulgraham.com](http://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html) **Host**:: [[paulgraham.com]] **Highlighted**:: [[2023-07-23]] **Created**:: [[2023-07-24]] ## Highlights - The first step is to decide what to work on. The work you choose needs to have three qualities: it has to be something you have a natural aptitude for, that you have a deep interest in, and that offers scope to do great work. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h5rnzwap675jf2se88xt6h3s)) ^566312284 - The way to figure out what to work on is by working. If you're not sure what to work on, guess. But pick something and get going. You'll probably guess wrong some of the time, but that's fine. It's good to know about multiple things; some of the biggest discoveries come from noticing connections between different fields. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h5rp14ttx9nam6w2g3k6c5q9)) ^566312343 - Develop a habit of working on your own projects. Don't let "work" mean something other people tell you to do. If you do manage to do great work one day, it will probably be on a project of your own. It may be within some bigger project, but you'll be driving your part of it. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h5rp1k6y3pdgvc5nxtsb663y)) ^566312359 - Once you've found something you're excessively interested in, the next step is to learn enough about it to get you to one of the frontiers of knowledge. Knowledge expands fractally, and from a distance its edges look smooth, but once you learn enough to get close to one, they turn out to be full of gaps. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h5rp2hjcmgfz7yptnmq2b48p)) ^566312380 - Four steps: choose a field, learn enough to get to the frontier, notice gaps, explore promising ones. This is how practically everyone who's done great work has done it, from painters to physicists. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h5rp45hec9qc8mawaa09vzxv)) ^566312602 #keypoint - The three most powerful motives are curiosity, delight, and the desire to do something impressive. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h5rp63vsadqers3frfqx50sj)) ^566312790 - So you need to make yourself a big target for luck, and the way to do that is to be curious. Try lots of things, meet lots of people, read lots of books, ask lots of questions. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h607p06yqsfx05mxgwmq57d1)) ^567776660 - So you need to give different types of work a chance to show you what they're like. But a field should become *increasingly* interesting as you learn more about it. If it doesn't, it's probably not for you. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h607pphnn7p7mcee79hbzkc3)) ^567776689 - One sign that you're suited for some kind of work is when you like even the parts that other people find tedious or frightening. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h607r3ncng1nc8r1vyt9y61c)) ^567777362 - But fields aren't people; you don't owe them any loyalty. If in the course of working on one thing you discover another that's more exciting, don't be afraid to switch. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h607rb38ewhgksh20v7g7311)) ^567777389 - If you're making something for people, make sure it's something they actually want. The best way to do this is to make something you yourself want. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h607rzagyk4ps3qvazes2z9s)) ^567777435 - Obviously the most exciting story to write will be the one you want to read. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h607t7vdkfrwc4h3g24kt93r)) ^567777521 - In most cases the recipe for doing great work is simply: work hard on excitingly ambitious projects, and something good will come of it. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h607vnvvrn3wj7m9n49kt84n)) ^567777683 - I think for most people who want to do great work, the right strategy is not to plan too much. At each stage do whatever seems most interesting and gives you the best options for the future. I call this approach "staying upwind." This is how most people who've done great work seem to have done it. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h607wqs9repmzte2ss5sbrkm)) ^567777762 - Ideally those hours will be contiguous. To the extent you can, try to arrange your life so you have big blocks of time to work in. You'll shy away from hard tasks if you know you might be interrupted. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h607ymmcw2n67trkp6mp240p)) ^567777897 - It will probably be harder to start working than to keep working. You'll often have to trick yourself to get over that initial threshold. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h60801dvvqnqtb9v4b83jss9)) ^567777983 - Try to finish what you start, though, even if it turns out to be more work than you expected. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h6081kjg3s787rqdb9qryfsz)) ^567778053 - The way to beat it is to stop occasionally and ask yourself: Am I working on what I most want to work on?" ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h60839ey8rvyze7js6yn8ym0)) ^567778109 - People who do great things don't get a lot done every day. They get something done, rather than nothing. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h6084zj6zjf5dgsswvczr0a3)) ^567778199 - Everyone knows to avoid distractions at work, but it's also important to avoid them in the other half of the cycle. When you let your mind wander, it wanders to whatever you care about most at that moment. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h6087yqvjvs3ajkc53xca1wq)) ^567778313 - And that *is* what you're aiming for, because if you don't try to be the best, you won't even be good. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h6088mxacny9hzb3fgbzjzep)) ^567778405 - Style is doing things in a distinctive way without trying to. Trying to is affectation. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h608b6739fcwqbhp2nhy1d25)) ^567778629 - One way to avoid intellectual dishonesty is to maintain a slight positive pressure in the opposite direction. Be aggressively willing to admit that you're mistaken. Once you've admitted you were mistaken about something, you're free. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h608ds5y3yjvhc3mpe8s87qq)) ^567778758 - There may be some jobs where it's an advantage to be cynical and pessimistic, but if you want to do great work it's an advantage to be optimistic, even though that means you'll risk looking like a fool sometimes. There's an old tradition of doing the opposite. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h608j7xe56230b0k92eyk1mk)) ^567779250 - Have the confidence to cut. Don't keep something that doesn't fit just because you're proud of it, or because it cost you a lot of effort. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h608m81r5ksy53w8gbntjs6m)) ^567779538 - Talking or writing about the things you're interested in is a good way to generate new ideas. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h608r3c0avkt2vdfvy16sr1x)) ^567779661 - It also helps to travel in topic space. You'll have more new ideas if you explore lots of different topics, partly because it gives the angle grinder more surface area to work on, and partly because analogies are an especially fruitful source of new ideas. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h608rgxe8md8ezmksx24pdmd)) ^567779673 - Don't divide your attention *evenly* between many topics though, or you'll spread yourself too thin. You want to distribute it according to something more like a power law. [[17](http://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html?s=09#f17n)] Be professionally curious about a few topics and idly curious about many more. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h608s0ynhqj9jycabh3g83m7)) ^567779694 - When an idea seems simultaneously novel and obvious, it's probably a good one. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h608tg6q6b2b08t0av0w3c61)) ^567779743 - To find new ideas you have to seize on signs of breakage instead of looking away. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h608wdmfv54ay3m3xyfg0bvn)) ^567779811 - The other thing you need is a willingness to break rules. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h608wq6ed1fzdaf41tkqq5h8)) ^567779818 - There are two ways to be comfortable breaking rules: to enjoy breaking them, and to be indifferent to them. I call these two cases being aggressively and passively independent-minded. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h608yk0qz5aq9qb2q9q567hk)) ^567780041 - The other way to break rules is not to care about them, or perhaps even to know they exist. This is why novices and outsiders often make new discoveries; their ignorance of a field's assumptions acts as a source of temporary passive independent-mindedness. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h608zffet1snnxcgwb4knbn2)) ^567780121 - One way to do that is to ask what would be good ideas for *someone else* to explore. Then your subconscious won't shoot them down to protect you. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h6090yw5dwxwfp8rqdc53whw)) ^567780190 - People show much more originality in solving problems than in deciding which problems to solve. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h6093e4ap101yjd9eavaspck)) ^567780310 - One of the most interesting kinds of unfashionable problem is the problem that people think has been fully explored, but hasn't. Great work often takes something that already exists and shows its latent potential. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h6094zct2d4x0222e9eycajm)) ^567782083 - So try asking yourself: if you were going to take a break from "serious" work to work on something just because it would be really interesting, what would you do? The answer is probably more important than it seems. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h60967wky45v482kngrbhvwp)) ^567783208 - People think big ideas are answers, but often the real insight was in the question. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h60974p2qq1e3c8bt8tqb8gt)) ^567783734 - Questions don't just lead to answers, but also to more questions. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h609a56m7b09x7390pgbtmdy)) ^567786139 - Big things start small. The initial versions of big things were often just experiments, or side projects, or talks, which then grew into something bigger. So start lots of small things. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h609bke6edfvexntv5csh99b)) ^567787053 - How do you get from starting small to doing something great? By making successive versions. Great things are almost always made in successive versions. You start with something small and evolve it, and the final version is both cleverer and more ambitious than anything you could have planned. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h609d74xyt2tfs3zhg02fysd)) ^567787897 - If you're not failing occasionally, you're probably being too conservative. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h609gj2q85bj6xhe6kht9p2h)) ^567788927 - The young have no idea how rich they are in time. The best way to turn this time to advantage is to use it in slightly frivolous ways: to learn about something you don't need to know about, just out of curiosity, or to try building something just because it would be cool, or to become freakishly good at something. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h609jkvg5tx5492w1eys5yxw)) ^567791476 - So when you're learning about something for the first time, pay attention to things that seem wrong or missing. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h609nby5seh41xqhtd1t9yz9)) ^567792232 #c1 - When you've gotten further into the subject, come back and check if they're still there. If they're still viable in the light of your present knowledge, they probably represent an undiscovered idea. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h609ns7fa95wgjkqa3mhvgwy)) ^567792602 #c2 - In real life you have to figure out what the problems are, and you often don't know if they're soluble at all. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h609sawta9zm0skfvjpnkca7)) ^567796551 - Oddly enough, the very novelty of the most novel ideas sometimes makes them seem at first to be more derivative than they are. New discoveries often have to be conceived initially as variations of existing things, *even by their discoverers*, because there isn't yet the conceptual vocabulary to express them. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h609x1mnbsrt3y5y97wsh2ge)) ^567799921 - One of the most powerful kinds of copying is to copy something from one field into another. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h609ykp4aksem6392059en9n)) ^567800139 - Negative examples can be as inspiring as positive ones. In fact you can sometimes learn more from things done badly than from things done well; sometimes it only becomes clear what's needed when it's missing. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h609z0nsdw643jgj2nx38fq8)) ^567800174