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How to Do Great Work

paulgraham.com · 11,947 words · saved by 51 readers

July 2023 If you collected lists of techniques for doing great work in a lot of different fields, what would the intersection look like? I decided to find out by making it. Partly my goal was to create a guide that could be used by someone working in any field. But I was also curious about the shape of the intersection. And one thing this exercise shows is that it does have a definite shape; it's not just a point labelled "work hard." The following recipe assumes you're very ambitious. 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. In practice you don't have to worry much about the third criterion. Ambitious people are if anything already too conservative about it. So all you need to do is find something you have an aptitude for and great interest in. [1] That sounds straightforward, but it's

How to Do Great Work --> July 2023 If you collected lists of techniques for doing great work in a lot of different fields, what would the intersection look like? I decided to find out by making it. Partly my goal was to create a guide that could be used by someone working in any field. But I was also curious about the shape of the intersection. And one thing this exercise shows is that it does have a definite shape; it's not just a point labelled "work hard." The following recipe assumes you're very ambitious. The first step is to decide what to work on. The work you choose needs to have three

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