Stead Halstead > Stead's Quotes

“The Principle of Least Resistance: In a business setting, without clear feedback on the impact of various behaviors to the bottom line, we will tend toward behaviors that are easiest in the moment.”
― Cal Newport, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

“Work is not just about getting things done; it’s a collection of messy human personalities trying to figure out how to successfully collaborate.”
― Cal Newport, A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload

“As Johnson explained to me, it takes time to figure out how best to structure the crazy inputs and interaction that surround most work processes. He’s diligent in making sure that everyone keeps prioritizing this. “You need time away from inputs to figure out how best to systematize those inputs,” he explained.”
― Cal Newport, A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload

“The Protocol Principle Designing rules that optimize when and how coordination occurs in the workplace is a pain in the short term but can result in significantly more productive operation in the long term.”
― Cal Newport, A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload

“Compelling careers often have complex origins that reject the simple idea that all you have to do is follow your passion.”
― Cal Newport, So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love

“I’ve become convinced that what you need instead is a full-fledged philosophy of technology use, rooted in your deep values, that provides clear answers to the questions of what tools you should use and how you should use them and, equally important, enables you to confidently ignore everything else.”
― Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

“am greedy for change, and I bear it well; this is my temperament. Yet, in that moment, the loss felt unbearable. How could there be any history at all; how could humans, in any form, go on; without any birds in the sky?”
― Robin Sloan, Moonbound

“Erecting barriers against the existential is not new—before YouTube we had (and still have) mindless television and heavy drinking to help avoid deeper questions—but the advanced technologies of the twenty-first-century attention economy are particularly effective at this task.”
― Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

“Death is the reward of an undisciplined life; your foolish decisions trap you in a dead end.”
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Message Devotional Bible: Featuring Notes and Reflections from Eugene H. Peterson

“Or perhaps you’ve tethered your self-esteem to the most crazy-making standard of all, ‘realizing your potential’ – which means you’ll never get to rest, because how can you ever be sure there’s not a little more potential left to realize?”
― Oliver Burkeman, Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts

“The structures of the modern world implicitly promise that we can operate as leaders, even as Christian leaders, without thought or need for God. Instead of our foundation being in Christ and His kingdom’s way of influence, we rest on the cultural foundation set by the modern world of what it is to lead. We measure leadership with earthly definitions of success and power. A secular autopilot version of Christian leadership takes hold, where we lead like practical atheists, with God as an afterthought.”
― Mark Sayers, A Non-Anxious Presence: How a Changing and Complex World will Create a Remnant of Renewed Christian Leaders