http://mattikolu.com the blog of Matti Kolu Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:55:11 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en From the first chapter in Benjamin Franklin's autobiography: A question was once, somehow or other, started between Collins and me, of the propriety of educating the female sex in learning, and their abilities for study. He was of opinion that it was improper, and that they were naturally unequal to ... http://mattikolu.com/benjamin-franklin-writing/185/ a lot of Mann this week This is a great speech Merlin Mann held at MaxFunCon. He discusses creativity, the importance of learning how to start, being okay with sucking and tolerating ambiguity. from The Sound of Young America Also, Merlin Mann was recently on The marketplace of ideas with Colin Marshall. If ... http://mattikolu.com/two-podcasts-with-merlin-mann/180/ In his book on Telling Lies for Fun & Profit -- a book on writing fiction (and not a book on becoming a lawyer!) - Lawrence Block describes something he calls creative procrastination. Block introduces the subject -- as so many other authors have done after him -- by ... http://mattikolu.com/creative-procrastination/167/ Sometimes it might feel like you're the only one procrastinating, that you're the only one who doesn't start working in time. A look at the procrastination research shows that most people procrastinate to a degree and that procrastination is a major problem for a large part of the population. academic procrastination For ... http://mattikolu.com/prevalence-procrastination/162/ I try hard to identify my most dangerous patterns of thought, but since the most dangerous ones are by definition those difficult to detect or apt to masquerade as beneficial, progress is slow. By "dangerous", I generally mean the ones that excuse mediocrity. Procrastination's thousand guises provide ready, accessible examples: ... http://mattikolu.com/colin-marshall-if-only/152/ My  cross-country  trip had  been  based  on an assumption and a gamble. The  assumption was that  the borrower was going to stop payment  on  the  $15,000 check;  the  gamble was  that  he would make the mistake  of procrastinating and  not take care  of the matter until  the  bank opened  the ... http://mattikolu.com/procrastination-in-literature/136/ Have you noticed how much easier it is to write a short comment on a blog than to write an article? The small text area and the button labeled "Preview" removes a lot of the pressure from writing. The subject is  clear and delimited - you know what you want to ... http://mattikolu.com/framing-writing/116/ short intro I'm a 23 year old guy. My parents are Finnish, but I'm grown up in Sweden and currently living in the vicinity of Stockholm. I've begun a lot of college courses, but haven't finished many. I have a eerily tendency to drop out after a while and my CV ... http://mattikolu.com/first/1/