Ideas

The Ideas section holds longer essays. They are slower than the wiki guides and less prescriptive than the practices. The aim is to think aloud carefully about something useful, then leave the reader with a clearer way of seeing the topic.

A few editorial decisions shape this section.

• The essays do not pretend to be neutral. They are opinionated within the limits of evidence, and they say where the opinion comes from.
• They prefer one strong example over a list of weak ones.
• They are not built to rank for a single keyword. They are built to be read by a person.
• They link out to related guides and book notes where useful, but they can be read alone.

Current essays

A small set of essays anchor the section.

Intuition, trust your gut

Probably the most-read essay on the site. It treats intuition as pattern recognition rather than magic, and it draws a careful line between the situations where gut feeling is reliable and the situations where it tends to mislead. The essay pairs well with the Habits guide and with AI Superpowers for the related question of where human judgement still adds value in a decision.

How to boost productivity in work and life

A productivity essay written for people who are tired of productivity essays. The argument is that energy, prioritisation, attention, and a small number of repeatable systems do most of the work. Anything beyond that tends to be optimisation theatre. It pairs with the Work ethic guide and with the Habits page.

Perseverance, you can and you will

A piece on steady effort that does not slip into motivational language. It looks at the specific practices that keep someone going through the dull middle of a long project, and at the patterns that quietly cause people to stop. It pairs with The Education of a Value Investor and with Start Where You Are.

What an essay on this site does and does not do

What the essays try to do:

• name the question carefully before answering it
• separate cases where general advice works from cases where it falls apart
• give one or two concrete examples that illustrate the argument
• state a position
• end with something the reader can use

What the essays deliberately avoid:

• moralising about the reader's life
• borrowed certainty from research that does not actually support the claim
• list-style padding
• closing on a generic flourish

How essays connect to the rest of the library

Essays sit between the wiki guides and the book notes.

• A wiki guide is structured for someone solving a problem. An essay is structured for someone trying to think more clearly about a theme.
• A book note is anchored to a single source. An essay can draw on several without making the entire piece about citation.
• A practice page is for the moment of action. An essay is for the moment before, when the framing of the question is still wobbly.

If you find yourself reading several essays in a row and then nothing else, it is usually worth pairing the next one with a practice page. Reading without writing eventually flattens.

Suggested reading order

If you are new to the section, Intuition, trust your gut is the most accessible entry. After that:

• For a working week that feels overloaded, read How to boost productivity in work and life.
• For a long project that has lost its momentum, read Perseverance, you can and you will.
• For a clearer sense of what to do next in a career, return to the Purpose guide and use the matching purpose worksheet.

Future essays

New essays will be added slowly. The bar is whether the piece adds something specific that the existing wiki and book notes do not already cover. If it can be folded into an existing page, it will be folded in. If it needs its own room, it will get one.

If a topic comes up repeatedly that you would like to see covered, the contact page explains how to suggest it.