Hi Reader,

This week, I share an article on first team principles, along with some notes and quotes on the importance of paying attention to where you invest your attention.

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What I'm writing

​First team principles — Management is not just about managing direct reports or driving your own department’s outcomes—it’s about aligning with peers to move the entire business forward. This is the essence of first team principles.

What I'm learning

Noise is random information you must clean up to understand what actually matters. Too much information can lead to neuroticism and overreaction as you mistake noise for signal. The more data you get, the less you know what’s happening. Source: Farnam Street [Article]

Deciding what to pay attention to is hard. It’s more about what you choose to ignore than what you focus on. Information falls on a spectrum between expiring and permanent. News and earnings reports have expiration dates. Principles and frameworks are timeless. Attention is best invested in building knowledge around permanent information. Source: Morgan Housel [Article]

To improve your judgment, learn the language of judgment. By learning a richer and more precise language to discuss decision-making, you can improve your ability to identify and understand judgment errors and limit the damage they can cause. Just like a doctor needs to learn the language of medicine to practice it, a deeper understanding of decision-making requires a deeper vocabulary. Source: Daniel Kahneman [Book]

Are you too busy to walk in nature, journal, and read? If so, you’re lying to yourself. And we’re all guilty of this. Look at how you’re spending your day. What are you consuming that you can eliminate, reduce, or replace with nature, journaling, and reading? Source: Neil Pasricha [Podcast]

What I'm thinking about

“Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.” —José Ortega y Gasset

"Your life is purchased by where you spend your attention." —James Clear

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-Rick Lindquist
​@ricklindquist​

P.S. One of the best parts of this newsletter is bouncing ideas with subscribers. Let me know what you think. I read every reply.