logged
‘Thinky think before grabby grab’
So titled was the irresistibly click-able headline from a Nature News article.
Inside, ‘99 lab lacks’ that will make your scientific work easier.
Several of which I’ve shamelessly swiped to make your work as an online entrepreneur much easier too. Especially, ‘thinky think before you grabby grab’. Which I’ll explain before the end of this read.
But first, some others that caught my attention:
1. Automate stuff.
Their suggestion? The ‘1 Hour a Week Rule’. Where if you spend more than hour a week on a boring task, then automate it. My life changed for the better when I automated publishing these emails to my blog.
2. Keep a list of solved problems.
SOPs in the business world. Step by step documented solutions to problems so you never need to wonder, “how the heck do I do this again?” Plus, you’re one step closer to outsourcing it altogether if you wish.
3. Get some fresh air.
Thriving on low oxygen levels in a poorly ventilated room might train you well for your next Everest summit, but it’s not doing your creative problem solving abilities any favors. Don’t forget to step outside.
4. Learn keyboard shortcuts.
Alt+7 on windows is one of my favorites. Also ctrl+c and ctrl+v. I also like to keep the non-breaking-space character handy as well.
5. Learn what AI can teach you.
To a copywriter, AI research is gold. Unusual and interesting facts about people, places, and ideas can be surfaced in an instant. So long as you know the right kind of questions to ask and have patience to verify what you come up with (because, yeah, sometimes it just makes stuff up).
6. Build your own lab equipment.
I don’t work inside a lab, but I do work inside Notion, Threads, GHL and Wordpress enough to have custom coded solutions to impossible problems that saved myself thousands of dollars and hours of precious time. Get familiar with your tools, then amplify them with AI generated code.
7. Never wrestle with pigs.
A George Bernard Shaw quote that ends in, “you both get dirty and the pig likes it.” Words of wisdom for dealing with the inevitable trollmanship you’ll encounter online.
8. Protect your time.
Apparently, the chief scientific officer at Brainstorm Therapeutics recommends Todoist and Google Calendar. But I use Notion and Google Calendar. I always know everywhere I’ve been and how I’d most like to spend my time each day. Total game changer.
9. Hoard (a little).
For a chemist, this means keeping some of your most essential lab supplies tucked away at your bench. For a knowledge worker like myself, I hoard ideas. I’ve various systems in place to make storing and recalling interesting information almost effortless.
10. Think ‘headline’ when talking to a journalist.
I recommend always thinking in headlines.
11. Move around to spark creativity.
All work is creative problem solving. And for me, starting each day with movement and punctuating heavily in between is a sure fire solution to keep focused and on fire without feeling exhausted at the end of every day (my girlfriend constantly wonders how I always have so much energy at the end of the day).
12. Social events don’t have to be boozy.
Surprise, surprise. I haven’t had a drink in more than 10 years and I couldn’t be happier about it.
13. Turn your lectures into podcasts.
None of us are doing lectures per se, but we are often educating, and it pays to repurpose everything you create.
14. Create templates.
The easiest way to create short form content is to create and swipe proven templates. I’ve created plenty of purely original content straight from the dome that became wildly popular to the point where other people started using it as a template. And that’s fine. But we can’t all be genius 24 hours a day. So I say, especially when it comes to social media, feel free to swipe and deploy proven formulas.
15. And last but no least, ‘thinky think before grabby grab’.
The article in question cites, “a chemist who’s been burnt before.” With the underlying premise that, “hot things can look cold”. Which is a pretty funny joke if you ask me. But it immediately made me think of how people copy other people’s marketing without really knowing whether or not it works. Or more importantly, what makes it truly profitable on the backend. So I suppose in business, the opposite might be true too.
Maybe cold things can look hot on the outside too?
Always “thinky think before grabby grab.”
While we’re on the subject of labs, my content creation lab has been a matter of some interest lately. I don’t talk about it much, but it does make creating and tracking viral content a breeze, and after demonstrating it to some of the biggest and fastest growing creators on the platform, the response I always get is, “Wow, you made this?”
A few big creators on the platform of note have even been using for the better part of a year as their content creation system at this point.
If you’re interested, write back, if there’s enough interest I may make it available to the public again.
That’s it for today.
Talk soon,
Kevin Hood