Notes / Subjects

Subject index

Seven subjects, chosen because a change in how you think about each one tends to change what you do within a month. Every note is filed under exactly one of them and carries the date its argument last changed.

What a number says, and who it says it to.

• A price is a claim, not a receiptNote 01 · 651 words · revised 2026-07-28
  Most people build a price upward from what the work costs them. That method feels honest and it quietly conced...

The terms worth spending effort on.

• The four terms that decide a dealNote 02 · 509 words · revised 2026-07-14
  Most negotiating energy goes into the headline number, which is usually the term with the least room in it. Th...

How work reaches you, and how reliably.

• Where the work actually comes fromNote 03 · 524 words · revised 2026-06-30
  Trace your last five pieces of work back to the moment each became likely, rather than to the moment it was si...

Deciding what gets done and what gets refused.

• The work that carries the yearNote 04 · 495 words · revised 2026-08-04
  A full calendar and a productive year are different things, and the gap between them is filled almost entirely...

Timing, not margin, is what runs out.

• Profit is not money in the accountNote 05 · 480 words · revised 2026-07-06
  Businesses with good margins run out of money regularly, and they do it in a sequence that is boringly predict...

Buying help, and knowing when to.

• When doing it yourself gets expensiveNote 06 · 529 words · revised 2026-06-16
  There is a point at which thrift becomes the most expensive habit in the business, and it arrives long before ...

Reading a loss for its real cause.

• Reading a setback for its causeNote 07 · 443 words · revised 2026-08-09
  After something goes wrong, one explanation is always more available than the others, and availability has not...
• The self-made storiesNote 08 · 483 words · revised 2026-05-26
  Accounts of business success are written backwards from the result, which means they are shaped by everything ...