Yakir's Blog

Rough Polish Ideas Daily

Your Time is Gold

I often wonder how the most successful people seem to achieve more in 24 hours than others do in a week? It seems that they treat their time differently than most people.

Understand that time is the ultimate non-renewable resource. It’s precious, perishable, and once spent, impossible to get back. The fundamental mindset shift happens when you stop seeing time as something to fill and start seeing it as your most valuable asset. I’m not talking about hustling 24/7. I mean that you must be ruthlessly selective about what deserves your attention.

The turning point in my own journey wasn’t when I could finally “afford” to delegate, it was when I realized I couldn’t afford not to. Many entrepreneurs think: “One day when I’m successful, I’ll hire help.” Millionaires flip this thinking: “I’ll hire help so I can become successful.” They don’t view people as expenses but as investments with returns. This isn’t about offloading work you don’t want to do. It’s about identifying what only you can do, then finding people who can do everything else better than you could.

Ask yourself: “What am I doing that someone else could do better?” Then take the scarier step: “What would happen if I invested in that person instead of holding onto tasks out of fear or habit?” The most valuable work you can do is focusing on the strategic work that moves your vision forward in ways nobody else can.

What’s one task you’re holding onto that you know, deep down, someone else should be doing?

Have A Bias Towards Action

Success comes from taking action. Often times waiting for perfect instructions or the fear of failure can lead to inaction. Fundamentally, it must be internalized that the key is to start, then to make adjustments along the way, and most importantly learn from mistakes.

The converse of this is to do nothing by default, awaiting a reason to act, which doesn’t sound like a good way to live. It means no learning, no growth, no habit of creation. The fear of wasting your time and resources can itself turn into a waste of your time and resources due to inaction.

Action leads to progress, even if it’s imperfect. The mindset should be: “I either win or I learn.” (And learning is a future win, in any case.) Don’t wait for perfection, start now. Action is the very bridge between ideas and results.

What are you waiting to get started on?

Learn It Like You Have to Teach It

My default mindset for learning is to study the topic with the intention of teaching it. When I read a book, I don’t just absorb the information; I think about how I’d explain it to someone else. This framing forces me to engage with a deeper curiosity of the perspectives and atomized concepts in the subject matter. Importantly, it helps me to organize my thoughts clearly.

In this case, teaching isn’t just about sharing knowledge; it’s about solidifying your own understanding. By preparing to teach, I uncover gaps in my knowledge, refine my perspectives, and gain confidence in the material. Just because I’m the student, doesn’t mean I’m not also the teacher.

I often rant out loud to an AI about some idea or project and I ask it to find inconsistencies, logical fallacies, and just generally provide me with feedback. (This in itself is a skill to learn to teach; asking AI better questions.) Sometimes it can be a bit like playing ping pong with a wall, but if you practice it does still sharpen mental agility and often times you get a fascinating curve ball that will pique your curiosity still further.

What’s something you’ve learned recently and could you now teach it?

An Atomized List of Me

I made a comprehensive list of my personal attributes; the good, the bad, and the technical. As I look at it on the screen, I notice I have some emotional attachments to these self-perceptions. Recognizing this allows me to set those emotions aside, which is crucial because I want to approach my attributes like mathematical functions, a more left-brain approach.

Skill mapping is a simple yet powerful way to start listing your attributes. I rate my skills on a 0–10 scale and use a spreadsheet to organize this process. The spreadsheet contains a few essential columns: one for the category (such as programming or communication skills), another for the specific skill, a third for my self-rating, and a fourth for a brief description providing context for the number. Without that explanation, a “7” could mean anything. Recording these details helps me understand my evolving self-perception as I review the spreadsheet each month and consider which skills to invest in next.

Grouping attributes is an excellent method for determining what type of business to start or what grand art installation to create. This exercise is both humbling and enlightening, revealing hidden gaps and acknowledging opportunities for growth. Whether in business, life, or any pursuit of excellence, understanding your true abilities is a core competency.

Be brutally honest and update your assessments regularly. (I do it monthly.)

I Love to Learn at Warp Speed

Heraclitus famously said, “The only constant is change,” and in today’s world, those words sing with a thrilling intensity. We’re on a technological rocket ride, hurtling through an era of unprecedented acceleration. Every generation faces its disruptions, but the sheer velocity of change now is overwhelming. Think about Marshall McLuhan’s idea that media isn’t simply a tool, but an extension of ourselves, rewiring the very way we think and perceive. The printing press, the telegraph, the radio – each was a seismic shift, but allowed time for assimilation. Now, consider the digital revolution, the explosion of artificial intelligence, pulling us through a fundamental reshaping of reality itself.

I find it exhilarating, though disorienting. Who wouldn’t feel a twinge of vertigo as the ground shifts beneath our feet? But there’s a liberating freedom in surrendering to this whirlwind. It’s a crucible for intellectual evolution, a constant challenge and the necessary tooling to expand our minds, refine our perspectives, and sharpen our wits. With AI poised to become the ultimate tutor, the pace of learning itself is accelerating in (what feels to me like) an exponential function.

I recall a scene from an old Star Trek movie where a woman from the past steps into the future and watches a room of nine-year-olds tackling complex astrophysics, one child answering with such precise clarity that it leaves her utterly astonished. That moment of unexpected and nonchalant brilliance of a child, I think, offers an accurate if optimistic portrayal of how AI is reshaping our world.

We might not fully grasp where this journey ultimately leads, but the very act of navigating it, of being swept along by this relentless tide of progress, is a profoundly enriching experience. Don’t just watch the wave; ride it! Let it carry you to uncharted territories of thought and possibility. A bit hyperbolic, but true nonetheless.

What is one cornerstone of your world that is now changing rapidly? And how can you ride the wave, instead of fighting it?

I Already Have Everything I Need to Succeed

Constraints. They’re the sandpaper of innovation, rough and unforgiving, but they polish your thinking to a sharp edge. I used to see limitations as obstacles, walls to be knocked down. Now, I see them as boundaries that force me to be more creative, more resourceful, more focused. Strip away the excess, the distractions, the comfortable assumptions, and what remains is pure, distilled ingenuity.

The Wrong Decision is Better Than No Decision

When you’re stuck in analysis paralysis, endlessly weighing options but never taking action, even the wrong decision is better than no decision at all. Indecision keeps you stuck, while a decision (even a flawed one) gives you data to learn from and adapt.

Navigating a maze, standing still gets you nowhere, but taking a step, even in the wrong direction, helps you see the layout and adjust your path. The same applies to general decision-making. Every choice, good or bad, provides feedback. Did it work? Why or why not? What can you do differently next time? This iterative process is how you refine your judgment and build confidence. It’s how you gain real world experience and data to make better decisions.

Don’t let fear of being wrong hold you back. Make the call, observe the outcome, and use that information, unapologetically, to improve. Your ability to roll with the punches and iterate is what keeps them coming back for more.

What’s one decision you’ve been putting off that you can act on today?