🔗 How to do great work

Paul Graham on his blog articulates elements of great work and what it looks like:

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…

Though it sounds more responsible to begin by studying everything that’s been done before, you’ll learn faster and have more fun by trying stuff. And you’ll understand previous work better when you do look at it. So err on the side of starting. Which is easier when starting means starting small…

Use the advantages of youth when you have them, and the advantages of age once you have those. The advantages of youth are energy, time, optimism, and freedom. The advantages of age are knowledge, efficiency, money, and power. With effort you can acquire some of the latter when young and keep some of the former when old…

Curiosity is the best guide. Your curiosity never lies, and it knows more than you do about what’s worth paying attention to.

There is a lot of wisdom in this essay for anyone with sufficient ambition. Like Paul, I have seen optimism, curiosity, and compound effort act as a catalyst for meaningful change and a force for good.

I invite us all collectively to start something new. Don’t worry too much about whether this activity appears trivial or imperfect.

Our future is waiting for someone just like you.