#300 - Another 100 ✅

Hey friend! I started Stuff in a ten-week gap after being laid off, looking for somewhere to put the anxiety of not working. At issue #100 I compiled the first Stuff 100. At #200 I did the next.

My third 100 arrives from a different place. Forty years in the workplace behind me, a fresh redundancy, and this time I'm not job hunting. I'm building something of my own.

Thank you for being on this journey with me.

This is Stuff, I'm still Matt, and normality returns next week.

1. The journey is only 1% finished. The most important Meta meme.
2. Your job was never your identity. It was a costume. Have a proper look at who's underneath.
3. You already know enough, now it’s time to start.
4. When the external structure disappears, you find out what you were actually made of.
5. Nobody is coming to hand you permission. Write your own.
6. Finding a way to have fun, whilst you are doing the best work of your life is a grail worth fighting for. 
7. People think it looks like one thing, but it can also be very different.
8. Your attention is the most valuable thing you own. Stop giving it away for free.
9. Buying dinner for friends is an honour.
10. A good coach doesn't give you the map. They help you notice you were holding it.
11. Redundancy is a redirection, not a verdict.
12. Building a system to avoid the work is still avoiding the work. Guilty. as charged
13. The best question beats the best answer. I relearn this every week.
14. Silence in a conversation is not a gap to fill. It's where the thinking happens.
15. You don't need an opinion on everything. Try "I don't know yet."
16. Enough is a decision, not an amount.
17. Give the feedback. Direct, respectful, honest. Learn how to do it well.
18. Book the thing. The trip, the table, the tickets. Anticipation is half the joy.
19. A tool you built yourself teaches you twice. Once making it, once using it.
20. Busy is not the same as useful.
21. Prestige is a lagging indicator.
22. The story you tell yourself becomes the life you live. Tell a better one.
23. Own your platform. Rented land can always be taken back.
24. Three hundred weeks of showing up beats one week of brilliance.
25. Ask ‘what would make this easy?’ before ‘how do I grind through this?’ Here’s my lesson.
26. Delete the word 'very'. Find the stronger word hiding underneath. Do the same with ‘really’.
27. If you work with friends, it will never feel like work.
28. Confidence is just evidence you've collected about yourself. Go and collect some.
29. The compound interest of small creative acts is absurd. Keep depositing.
30. You can now make software by describing what you want. We live in strange and wonderful times.
31. Nobody remembers the issue you skipped. They remember that you kept going.
32. You are closer to being a beginner again than you think. It’s where the fun bit is.
33. The second half of a career can be the better half if you design it. Thanks Coach.
34. Grief and excitement can share the same day. Let them sit at your table.
35. Rest is not a reward for finished work. It is part of the work.
36. Carry the camera. The best one is the one in your hand.
37. The muscle you build by finishing is worth more than the thing you finished.
38. Deadlines are the kindest thing you can give a project.
39. Ship it slightly embarrassed. Perfect never posts.
40. Money buys options, not meaning. Spend it on the first, build the second.
41. The tool is not the point. The output is the point. Don't fall in love with the scaffolding.
42. Cut the first paragraph. It was only your warm-up.
43. Build the thing you wish existed. Someone else needs it too.
44. Productivity is often procrastination wearing a suit.
45. Your worth is not measured in output. You are not a machine with a heartbeat.
46. The calendar you keep for yourself matters more than the one other people fill.
47. When one chapter ends, resist the urge to start the next one immediately. Take a beat.
48. You will not remember the emails. You will remember the walks.
49. Say the kind thing out loud. The unspoken compliment helps no one.
50. A sabbatical you didn't choose can still be a gift you accept.
51. Reach out first. The awkwardness lasts seconds, the connection lasts years.
52. Everyone you envy is fighting something you can't see.
53. Reinvention has no age limits. Ask me how I know.
54. Compare yourself to who you were last year, never to a stranger's highlight reel.
55. Do the thing that scares you slightly.
56. Working for yourself means the floor and the ceiling both disappear. Terrifying, and glorious.
57. You are allowed to change your mind. It's a sign of thinking, not weakness.
58. Drink the water. Most of your bad afternoons are dehydration in disguise.
59. Strong opinions, loosely held. Especially the loosely held part.
60. Taking the photograph is ten percent. Printing it, framing it, living with it, that's the other ninety.
61. Curiosity is an antidote to contempt.
62. The title on your badge is the least interesting thing about you.
63. Listen to understand, not to reply. Still working on this after 57 years.
64. Ask one more question than feels comfortable. The gold is usually in the follow-up.
65. Names matter. Learn them, use them, say them right.
66. A limitation is a creative gift. Learn the theory of constraints.
67. Generosity compounds. Give the introduction, share the contact, open the door.
68. The fastest way to learn something is to promise to explain it to someone next week.
69. Write to think, not just to publish. The clarity is the reward.
70. When you catch yourself setting things up for the fourth time, you're hiding.
71. Consistency is a superpower disguised as boredom.
72. Boring writing is usually frightened writing. Say the true thing.
73. One reader who feels seen beats a thousand who scrolled past.
74. Turn off the notifications. All of them.
75. Boredom is where the ideas come to find you. Stop medicating it.
76. Sit in a café with someone you love and watch the world go by.
77. The moment you stop needing more is the moment you become wealthy.
78. Learn the names of the trees on your street. It changes how you walk it.
79. A shared meal is worth three meetings.
80. Be the reason someone feels welcome.
81. Career growth doesn't always come from doing more.  Know what to ignore.
82. Nobody owes you their attention. Earn it every single time.
83. Sleep is the cheapest performance enhancer, and you keep skipping it.
84. Keep saying yes to the boat trip, the balcony, the detour. Yes, still a theme.
85. Leave earlier. Arrive calm. It's a gift to everyone, including you.
86. Under-promise on your time and over-deliver on your presence.
87. Learn to solve problems. Find a simple technique that works.More.
88. The person in front of you deserves more than the phone in your pocket.
89. Money spent on the people you love is never wasted.
90. Keep a list of the things that went right. Read it on the bad days.
91. You have survived every worst day so far. The record is unbeaten.
92. This feeling is weather, not climate. It will move on.
93. When in doubt, choose the braver version of yourself.
94. Most of what we call ambition, is just performance for people we don’t like.
95. Do it now. 'Later' is where good intentions go to die.
96. Fear and excitement are the same physiology. Relabel it.
97. You are the author, not the character. Start Writing Now.
98. The skills that won you the old job rarely win the new game. Stay a student.
99. “Sometimes you don’t survive whole. You just survive in part, but the grandeur of life is that attempt.” Toni Morrison.
100. Begin again. This is issue 300, and I'm still only getting started.
     ⠀

The first Stuff 100 are here, and the second 100 are here.

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