I saw Paul Graham write this week that "Cities inhale and exhale each generation. People move to cities in their 20s in search of colleagues and mates, move back out to raise their kids, and then when their kids are in their 20s, they return."
I don't like it being presented in such a single-minded way, but there is, of course, a lot of truth to this remark, particularly for North American cities. It's basically the "dumbbell" housing demand profile that we in the industry often talk about.
Whether you believe this is an innate housing preference, a deeply-rooted cultural bias, a fundamental truth about the optimal way to raise children, or the result of poor land-use decisions, it is a common housing outcome and, in some cities, the de facto housing outcome. But again, it is not universally the case.
This is a semi-regular topic on this blog, but I've been thinking about it more now that Bianca and I are about to graduate to being urban parents. In fact, now that it has become known, we've started getting some questions: "So, do you think you will move to a house?" (We live in an apartment condominium.) And sometimes it's not even a question; it's a flat-out assumption: "Once you move to a house..."
I wasn't aware that this was a prerequisite. Little do they know that I spend my free time fantasizing about apartment renovations in Paris, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro.
I'm sure that our thinking will evolve over time, but to a meaningful extent, I would classify us as being typologically agnostic, and instead resolute on a particular kind of urban context. What matters most to us is that we remain in a city where we can walk or bike to things, where a car is not an absolute necessity, and where exciting and cultured things take place from time to time.
I'm not sure what definition of "city" Paul had in mind when he was talking about people leaving it. Did he mean downtowns? Are the inner suburbs within a city an acceptable geography? I don't know, but I can confidently say that leaving the city is the last thing on our minds right now.
Maybe that will change. Or maybe it won't.
Back in 2016, I wrote a post called "Manager vs. maker," where I cited an essay by Paul Graham that talks about these two modes of working. To quickly summarize, the manager's schedule is for bosses. It's a calendar broken down into units of an hour that gets filled with lots of calls and meetings. Things are said, and then the manager moves on to the next appointment.
Makers, on the other hand, can't operate in units of an hour. If you write, program, design buildings, create financial models, or do anything that requires uninterrupted focus, sporadic meetings are the most effective way to neutralize any sort of productivity. You need solid blocks of time. I was reminded of this post today because, as I said back in 2016, I like making things.
But it's even more than that. Deep work, reading, and strategic thought are, in my opinion, how you win. And to do these things you also need solid blocks of time. You need mental space. And the 12 minutes you have before your next call, isn't it. So I'm reviving my old post, and Graham's old essay from 2009, as a reminder to myself to be more ruthless about saying no and guarding my calendar.
Don’t your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don’t. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off.
Don't kill off ambitious projects. Block time for them.
Sahil Bloom tweeted this out a few days ago:
And it really resonated with me. I'm sure it does with a lot of you as well. I'm guilty of feeling this guilt. Because by definition, if you have a strong desire to do or to achieve something, then you're going to want to spend a lot time working toward it. And any time
I saw Paul Graham write this week that "Cities inhale and exhale each generation. People move to cities in their 20s in search of colleagues and mates, move back out to raise their kids, and then when their kids are in their 20s, they return."
I don't like it being presented in such a single-minded way, but there is, of course, a lot of truth to this remark, particularly for North American cities. It's basically the "dumbbell" housing demand profile that we in the industry often talk about.
Whether you believe this is an innate housing preference, a deeply-rooted cultural bias, a fundamental truth about the optimal way to raise children, or the result of poor land-use decisions, it is a common housing outcome and, in some cities, the de facto housing outcome. But again, it is not universally the case.
This is a semi-regular topic on this blog, but I've been thinking about it more now that Bianca and I are about to graduate to being urban parents. In fact, now that it has become known, we've started getting some questions: "So, do you think you will move to a house?" (We live in an apartment condominium.) And sometimes it's not even a question; it's a flat-out assumption: "Once you move to a house..."
I wasn't aware that this was a prerequisite. Little do they know that I spend my free time fantasizing about apartment renovations in Paris, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro.
I'm sure that our thinking will evolve over time, but to a meaningful extent, I would classify us as being typologically agnostic, and instead resolute on a particular kind of urban context. What matters most to us is that we remain in a city where we can walk or bike to things, where a car is not an absolute necessity, and where exciting and cultured things take place from time to time.
I'm not sure what definition of "city" Paul had in mind when he was talking about people leaving it. Did he mean downtowns? Are the inner suburbs within a city an acceptable geography? I don't know, but I can confidently say that leaving the city is the last thing on our minds right now.
Maybe that will change. Or maybe it won't.
Back in 2016, I wrote a post called "Manager vs. maker," where I cited an essay by Paul Graham that talks about these two modes of working. To quickly summarize, the manager's schedule is for bosses. It's a calendar broken down into units of an hour that gets filled with lots of calls and meetings. Things are said, and then the manager moves on to the next appointment.
Makers, on the other hand, can't operate in units of an hour. If you write, program, design buildings, create financial models, or do anything that requires uninterrupted focus, sporadic meetings are the most effective way to neutralize any sort of productivity. You need solid blocks of time. I was reminded of this post today because, as I said back in 2016, I like making things.
But it's even more than that. Deep work, reading, and strategic thought are, in my opinion, how you win. And to do these things you also need solid blocks of time. You need mental space. And the 12 minutes you have before your next call, isn't it. So I'm reviving my old post, and Graham's old essay from 2009, as a reminder to myself to be more ruthless about saying no and guarding my calendar.
Don’t your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don’t. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off.
Don't kill off ambitious projects. Block time for them.
Sahil Bloom tweeted this out a few days ago:
And it really resonated with me. I'm sure it does with a lot of you as well. I'm guilty of feeling this guilt. Because by definition, if you have a strong desire to do or to achieve something, then you're going to want to spend a lot time working toward it. And any time
But it's easy to let time melt away when you're in this headspace and I'm trying to be better at not letting this happen. For one thing, there are diminishing returns to work. We all need free time and rest. It makes us better at everything else we do in life.
It's also really easy to fill our lives with unnecessary bullshit. The same thing happens in our homes when we're not paying attention: we end up collecting unnecessary stuff. So as Paul Graham argues in this 2016 essay called "Life Is Short", it's important to "relentlessly prune bullshit." Focus on the things that matter, and don't wait.
When you're ambitious, I think it's easy to become focused on the future. I've been told I do this too much. Achieving something usually requires hard work and determination, and that likely means it won't happen today; it'll happen at some point in the future. So it can be easy to discount the present. But nobody knows how much healthy future we all have.
These are all things that I'm trying to be better at and so I'm writing them down here as a reminder. How do you manage your work-life balance?
Cover photo by Christopher Gower on Unsplash
But it's easy to let time melt away when you're in this headspace and I'm trying to be better at not letting this happen. For one thing, there are diminishing returns to work. We all need free time and rest. It makes us better at everything else we do in life.
It's also really easy to fill our lives with unnecessary bullshit. The same thing happens in our homes when we're not paying attention: we end up collecting unnecessary stuff. So as Paul Graham argues in this 2016 essay called "Life Is Short", it's important to "relentlessly prune bullshit." Focus on the things that matter, and don't wait.
When you're ambitious, I think it's easy to become focused on the future. I've been told I do this too much. Achieving something usually requires hard work and determination, and that likely means it won't happen today; it'll happen at some point in the future. So it can be easy to discount the present. But nobody knows how much healthy future we all have.
These are all things that I'm trying to be better at and so I'm writing them down here as a reminder. How do you manage your work-life balance?
Cover photo by Christopher Gower on Unsplash
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