Last week, some girl at school knocked over her juice and killed the power for a whole group of tables. As a funny result, I get to enjoy my friends’ confused looks whenever they enter the library, because they’re startled not to see me in my usual seat. I might as well carve my name into it, because every week, Monday to Friday, from 7 AM to 7 PM, I practice Charlie Munger’s version of assiduity: I sit on my ass and do stuff.
And yet, barring a few mini jobs, I never worked a day in my life until I was 19. You could say I’ve come a long way with productivity — or that I’ve become a workaholic. But I’m neither proud nor ashamed of either of those things. Because what’s changed even more in the past eight years than how I approach productivity is my perspective of what it means.
I’d like to share some of that perspective with you. Hopefully, it’ll help you find the right balance at the right time.
One Hundred And Twenty Pounds
In On Writing, Stephen King tells a great story from his childhood about the time he helped his uncle fix a broken window, using his grandfather’s toolbox:
“We finally reached the window with the broken screen and he set the toolbox down with an audible sigh of relief. When Dave and I tried to lift it from its place on…
