How to Do Great Work
Paul Graham's long-form argument that great work is not a method but a disposition — and that curiosity is the one variable you can actually trust.
There's a kind of excited curiosity that's both the engine and the rudder of great work.
When an idea seems simultaneously novel and obvious, it's probably a good one.
Originality isn't a process, but a habit of mind. Original thinkers throw off new ideas about whatever they focus on, like an angle grinder throwing off sparks. They can't help it.
Per-project procrastination camouflages itself as work — you're not sitting around doing nothing, you're industriously working on something else, so the alarm never sounds.
A good new idea has to seem bad to most people, or someone would have already explored it.