When I find someone’s work that I admire, I immediately try to find the place where they store their collection or archive. My goal is simple. If this piece they created is so good, how much more do they have?

One of the things I find myself doing all the time is working with a bunch of distractions. This could be as large as being near someone who is noisy and as small as fiddling with my choice of music every few minutes. The possibilities for distraction are practically infinite.

This phrase sounds like a failure. If you tell someone that what you did was “good enough”, the reaction might be that you didn’t try very much. We can be hard on ourselves for only doing something that is passable instead of great.

When I was an undergraduate, my instinct with every class was to give all that I had. I would put in massive efforts, making sure that I could honestly say that I did my best in everything. This strategy worked well for my academics, but the problem was that it neglected the need for rest, or modulation.