David Epstein

I feel like

Because I'm conscious that it may sound like sometimes I'm contradicting, at least the title of the book sounds like I'm contradicting range, my previous book, which is about broad experiences.

But it actually felt like a natural next question to me where it's, okay, you get this broad tool set.

At some point, you have to focus this into something, into achievement, hopefully into meaning and satisfaction.

And I've kind of found that in a lot of really talented or hardworking people,

they may over-index on optionality, like keeping their options open all the time because they can.

Maybe they're very talented or they're very hardworking or lucky or whatever it is.

But sometimes I think that can actually really backfire if people start making decisions, if keeping your options open becomes an end unto itself.

And so I think I've seen some very talented peers and friends endlessly keep their options open in a way that actually doesn't help them

reach better satisfaction.

I'm not sure I'm articulating that well.

Makes you think a lot harder about what your decisions if you're doing it in ink.

I mean, again, that was like part of General Magic's big problem was deciding what not to do.

But I think about that all the time in things like our information diet, right?

Like people are overwhelmed, right?

there's so many things that seem interesting.

There's so much information coming at you.

And I think it's a constant question of, I'm curious, I want to learn things, but how can I stay sane?

And I mentioned, I described this in one genetics lab in the book where they take Post-it notes and put them on the wall and each one representing one of their current commitments or projects.

And the first thing that happens is once they put them on the wall, so making all their current commitments visual, is they realize that,