Tag: amit gupta (page 1 of 1)

September 28, 2015 / 0 Comments

On Living Wisely: How Do You Spend Your Time?

You told me to take the chance and learn the ways of love.” – DeBarge, All This Love

What does it mean to live a good life? What about a productive life? How about a happy life? How might I think about these ideas if the answers conflict with one another? – Richard J. Light, How to Live Wisely (New York Times)

I’ve come back to this article a few times since dropping it in my Pocket in early August and while these questions are rarely far from top of mind for me, they’ve taken on greater urgency since leaving Portland after XOXO. There, the question is, perhaps, more specific-What does it mean to make good things?—but as Amit Gupta’s talk conveyed, these questions may, ultimately, be one in the same.

The first exercise referenced in Richard J. Light’s essay is:

Make a list of how you want to spend your time. What matters to you? Then make a list of how you actually spent your time, on average, each day over the past week and match the two lists.

Stream of Consciousness Answer:

I want to make good shit every day. I want to spend time coming up with creative ideas and then executing on them. I want to talk about what’s good and why. I want to spend time figuring out why certain things get seen, read, watched and others don’t. I want to work on big ideas. I want to delight and surprise. I want to be clever. I want to waste less time. I want to read more for pleasure. I want to Tumblr. I want to help more people more often. I want to workout. I want to spend time with those I love.

How do I normally spend my time?

  • I dilly-dally on the internet in the mornings.
  • I spend two hours of the day commuting usually listening to podcasts and dilly-dallying on the internet.
  • I spend a lot of time looking at why things are or aren’t working.
  • I spend a lot of time in or preparing for meetings answering other people’s questions
  • I watch a lot of TV.
  • I workout.
  • I twitter.
  • I…

I don’t know. Well, what I do know is I don’t spend enough time being creative and making stuff. I don’t spend enough time talking about what’s good or working on big ideas. I don’t give enough of my time to others in need. At least that’s how it feels.

I want a more accurate view of this, though. This week I’m going to SnapChat my days and document what the hell I’m actually doing.


You can follow me there if you don’t already. And bug me if my story seems a little thin. I haven’t done much SnapChat making so I tend to forget and/or get shy.

Does your every day look like how you envision? 

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September 15, 2015 / 0 Comments

XOXO Fest 2015: Quotes and Queries

“Was it worth your fam or worth all a the fame? Exchange your personal relationships for personal gains.”—Wale, The Glass Egg


“My desire to do it the way it is being done is.” – Heather Armstrong (Dooce)

What do you give up of yourself to make money (on the internet but, really, in any gig)?

Is it worth the trade?

“[W]hat we want to do is make a place where things that we couldn’t have imagined can grow.” – Alex Blumberg (Gimlet Media)

“It’s about culture clash on equal terms. Your adventure being someone else’s disaster.” – Spike Trotman (Iron Circus)

“We are not taking anything from you, because it was never yours to begin with.” – Spike Trotman (Iron Circus)

“Let’s all just take a minute and acknowledge that to a certain extent we are all just posturing when we come together in public to discuss our achievements.So don’t be too hard on yourself if you’re currently being too hard on yourself. And don’t pat yourself on the back either, if you’re super concerned with stacking up accolades. Death is coming for all of us.” – Mallory Ortberg (The Toast)

“We know a couple stories of mostly dudes who are promoted as being these brilliant founders and treated as if they worked alone. And that ain’t how the internet was made. What is best on the internet is what drives us to love technology, to be creative in these ways has very little to do with what makes start-ups really wealthy.” – Anil Dash (Your Internet Dad)

“Don’t be a snowflake in someone’s avalanche.” – Zoë Quinn (Quinnspiracy)

“Design is a value statement. What we build and how we build it says a great deal about what we value and who we are. What we make easy speaks to what we value and what we make difficult speaks to what we reject.” – Eric Meyer (Meyerweb)

Am I conscious of injecting my values of my work? Does my work reflect who I think I am?

“What would you regret? What are three things you’d regret?” – Amit Gupta (@superamit)

You used to be like Pusha T but you’re 40 now and have regrets. What are you going to do about that?

Find my answers and change my life.

Don’t believe me? Just watch.