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The Einstein Principle: Accomplish More By Doing Less
- edw519 17y agoWhat a great idea! Attach a famous person's name to your pet theory. And for geeks, who better than Einstein? I can see it now: The Einstein method of parsing strings. The Einstein theory of data minimalization. The Einstein principal of funding your startup. Who could resist? Before you know it they'll be naming everything after Einstein, even bagels.
- eob 17y agoEinstein bagels.. man that brought back memories. Are they still around? EDIT: It's a good article if you take the time to read it. Don't knock the guy just for being good at marketing.
- edw519 17y agoThe content is not bad. Basically, he says to focus on the most important thing and provides antecdotes on how he accomplishes this. This is a recurring theme here at hn: http://paulgraham.com/procrastination.html http://paulgraham.com/procrastination.html http://paulgraham.com/hamming.html http://paulgraham.com/hamming.html I'm not knocking the guy, but I would not agree that this is good marketing. Am I the only one who is becoming immune to sensational titles and tactics? Here's an idea: Just call your work what it is, promote it well, and let it stand on its own merit. But, "The Einstein Principal"? Please.
- ankeshk 17y agoSensationalist? Yes. But who would remember the Newport Principle? Using an Einstein story makes the whole idea more memorable. Borrowing star power is a tool. Like any tool - it can be used for good or bad. In this case, I think its a good use.
- yan 17y agoEinstein's way of marketing. Before Seth Godin, was.. Einstein.
- omouse 17y agoWhat about The Von Neumann Method of Drinking Coffee or the Feynman Principal of Tea? :D
- scotty79 17y agochan anons could probably refactor this into some foul meme
- jodrellblank 17y agoWho better than Einstein? Tesla! http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/11/your_friday_dose_of_woo_a_dead_physicist.php http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/11/your_friday_dose_o...
- signa11 17y agoor theory of patches...?
- arithmetic 17y agoGive this guy a break. Atleast he's trying to be productive. And we can all check back on him during Thanksgiving if the Einstein theory really worked.
- philk 17y agoFocusing on just a few things is a great idea. However, in his case study he doesn't list any outcomes. He describes what he's going to do. I think it would have worked better if he'd implemented it, then posted this in a months time and said "I purged all these tasks, focused on these two projects, and enjoyed $quantifiable_performance_improvement".
- eob 17y agoPHP is only capable of $quantifiable_performance_improvements at the cost of ugly, ugly code :p
- ErrantX 17y agoOn a related note this is my favourite fact about Einstein: In 1905 when he published his 4 extraordinary papers he was still "Mr Einstein". The 5th was his PHD paper.
- jriddycuz 17y agoI just realized I'm distracting myself by reading a blog post on how to focus.