Productivity advice from Sam Altman, Steve Jobs on building wonderful things, and advice for building in public

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: Sam Altman’s advice on productivity

• Optimize your productivity approach — “A small productivity gain, compounded over 50 years, is worth a lot. So it’s worth figuring out how to optimize productivity.“

• What you work on — “I’ve been very fortunate to find work I like so much I’d do it for free, which makes it easy to be really productive.“

• Prioritization — “I am relentless about getting my most important projects done… I try to be ruthless about saying no to stuff, and doing non-critical things in the quickest way possible.“

• Physical factors — “You’ll have to experiment to find out what works best for your body.“

• Rest — “Don’t neglect your family and friends for the sake of productivity—that’s a very stupid tradeoff (and very likely a net productivity loss, because you’ll be less happy). Don’t neglect doing things you love or that clear your head either.“

Source: https://blog.samaltman.com/productivity

2: Steve Jobs on building wonderful things

“There's lots of ways to be, as a person. And some people express their deep appreciation in different ways.

But one of the ways that I believe people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful and put it out there.

And you never meet the people. You never shake their hands. You never hear their story or tell yours.

But somehow, in the act of making something with a great deal of care and love, something's transmitted there. And it's a way of expressing to the rest of our species our deep appreciation. So we need to be true to who we are and remember what's really important to us.“

Source: Make Something Wonderful by Steve Jobs

3: Advice for building in public

Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon offers practical advice and principles on how to share your creative work with the world:

Source: Show Your Work by Austin Kleon

Best of The Week

See you next Monday,

- The Z Fellows Team

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