Mastering your tools makes room for your genius.

The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he a [View online]( [Coach Tony]( Coach Tony [@tonystubblebine]( The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague. ~ Edsger Dijkstra This is true for any field. To do your best work, keep the complexity of your work within the “limited size” of your skull. - - - - - #1. Mastery and genius. There’s a lesson I learned while watching Christian Siriano win a season of Project Runway. That’s a fashion design reality TV competition. He was a lot better at the craft. He worked faster, and never had disasters with the construction of his garments. This was very much at odds with his competitors, who seemed to spend the majority of their brainpower on simply completing a garment. You can’t be a genius if you are overwhelmed with the basics. People overlook this. They think genius is innate. But a lot of times, it’s just about making room for whatever innate creativity is in you. We usually don’t make enough room. - - - - - #2. A treasure trove of Obsidian links. Along with the new wave of powerful note-taking apps, there is also a lot of writing about techniques to harness this power. Here’s one treasure trove: [Obsidian: Master Index of Resources (My Work and Others’)]( by [Ellane W]( - - - - - #3. Turn on keyboard shortcuts in Gmail. One important form of mastering your tools is learning keyboard shortcuts. In Gmail, these aren’t on by default, so you have to first turn them on. Then you have access to things like: - “#”: deletes any messages you have selected - “!”: marks as spam any message you have selected Read more: [Use These Key-Commands To Whip Through Gmail]( by [Clive Thompson]( - - - - - Tips or feedback? [Send me a response on Twitter.]( Don’t miss out on the other issues by Coach Tony [Become a member for $5 per month]( Did you enjoy this issue? [Yes]( [No]( [Coach Tony]( Coach Tony [@tonystubblebine]( Tips, inspirations, and knowledge on productivity, happiness, health, and making an impact on our world. Official email of the Better Humans publication on Medium. (@bttrhumans) You can manage your subscription [here](. In order to unsubscribe, click [here](. If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe [here](. Created with [Revue by Twitter](.