Marc Andreessen’s productivity habits, Elon Musk on first principles thinking, and a memo on writing by David Ogilvy

Welcome back to the Z Fellows newsletter! Every Monday we share 3 ideas - to help you build companies, ship products, and create your life's work.

1: Marc Andreessen’s productivity habits

• “Don’t keep a schedule.”

• “Refuse to commit to meetings, appointments, or activities at any set time in any future day. As a result, you can always work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time.”

• “The best way to make sure that you are never asked to do something again is to royally screw it up the first time you are asked to do it.”

• “You should never fight the tendency to procrastinate—instead, you should use it to your advantage in order to get other things done.”

• “Do email exactly twice a day—once first thing in the morning, and once at the end of the workday.”

• “Only agree to new commitments when both your head and your heart say yes.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​“

Source: Guide to Personal Productivity by Marc Andreessen

2: Elon Musk on first principles thinking

“I think people’s thinking process is too bound by convention or analogy to prior experiences. It’s rare that people try to think of something on a first principles basis.

They’ll say, “We’ll do that because it’s always been done that way.” Or they’ll not do it because “Well, nobody’s ever done that, so it must not be good. But that’s just a ridiculous way to think.

You have to build up the reasoning from the ground up—“from the first principles” is the phrase that’s used in physics.

You look at the fundamentals and construct your reasoning from that, and then you see if you have a conclusion that works or doesn’t work, and it may or may not be different from what people have done in the past.”

Source: The Cook and The Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce

3: A memo on writing by David Ogilvy

David Ogilvy is known as the "Father of Advertising" and was one of the most influential figures in modern advertising history:

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See you next Monday,

- The Z Fellows Team

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