[[../_Files/2025-08-20-Merlin-Mann-Wisdom-Project.png]] Screenshot of part of someone’s face, showing one eye
Merlin Mann is the Inbox Zero and 43-Folders guy. His qq trick featured in my early plain text task management days.
These days his favourite side project is Merlin’s Wisdom Project: a collection of the best advice he’s heard and learned from.
It’s only advice for you because it had to be advice for me,
—says Merlin.
Some of my favourites (run through my anti-coarse language filter):
People
- Whenever you’re not sure what to say, either say nothing, or ask a question.
- Stop correcting people by immediately telling them what they “should have said.” You are not helping.
- Sometimes, a person will confess something embarrassing that obviously makes them feel really dumb and vulnerable. That is never the time to say “I told you so,” and it is rarely the best moment to offer advice that they never asked for. Just shut…up and listen.
- The earlier a kid is around books often (and in any way), the earlier and easier their life of reading will go.
- Sometimes, people ask you how you’re doing when they’re especially concerned about how they’re doing.
- Great listeners ask good questions. “And what year was that?” and “Wow, did that feel really weird at the time?” and “Yikes, was that as terrible as it sounds?” are the sorts of things humans ask one another when they’re actively listening to what someone is saying.
- Whenever you meet someone new, ask them what they’re most excited about right now. Everyone interesting is excited about something right now, and they’d probably love to tell you about it.
Things
- If an item is especially precious or valuable to you, never set it down anyplace that you wouldn’t want it to be overnight.
- Every project is a triangle made of time, money, and quality; shortening the length of one side necessarily lengthens one or—more often—both of the other sides.
- Archive any email that’s older than 30 days. If it kills you to archive a given email, immediately turn it into a task, and then archive it.
- If you don’t remember what an app does, you can probably delete it.
- Whenever you need to carry two seemingly identical things (like, drinks or toothbrushes or what have you), always—and only—ever carry the one that’s yours in your right hand. When you pick up the two items, always mutter aloud to yourself, “I’m always right.” Because, now, you are always right.
- Buy supplies before you need them and gadgets after you need them.
- Three is two, two is one, and one is none.
Time
- Your calendar represents a portfolio of promises to your future self. Treat it that way.
- Thus: The only events allowed on a serious person’s calendar are commitments about time, location, and effort that will die if they are not successfully completed on a specific day. Full stop.
- Corollary: If you’re only tentatively committed to a calendar item—especially if the time of the event has not been mutually confirmed—title the event using Spanish-language questions marks. A future event like “
¿Pick apples with Aunt Sue?” successfully blocks out the time while also affording a quickly scannable reminder about events that still need to either be formalized or deleted.
Get wisdom snippets in your Mastodon timeline by following this unofficial account. FYI: some of them contain coarse language.
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