The Board Before the Move Most goal setting advice starts with the move. Write the goal. Break it into steps. Set a deadline. Find an accountability partner. But before any move in chess, there is the board. The pieces, the squares, the threats, the open files. A move that looks brilliant on an empty board…
I used to think my evenings were formless. After dinner, the dishes, a vague intention to read — I’d somehow arrive at 10:47 PM sitting in the same dent on the couch, phone warm in my hand, having watched three episodes of something I couldn’t name the next morning. I’d wake up tired and mildly…
Game theory sounds like a boardroom tool. Spreadsheets. Cold calculations. But I keep finding it in the quiet corners of my apartment—in the way I arrange my books, in the rhythm of my morning coffee, in the pause before I say yes to a commitment I don’t want. This is the intersection I want to…
Six months ago I started logging my decisions. Not the outcomes — those are easy enough to track after the fact. I mean the decisions themselves: what I chose, when, and under what pressure. The project began as a flat ledger. Date, decision, rationale, result. Clean columns. Easy to scan. It was useless. Not because…
I keep a small, beat-up notebook on my kitchen counter. Not for recipes or to-do lists—it’s where I draw problems. A circle for a conversation that keeps looping. A branching line for a decision I’ve been dodging. This habit came from years of arranging tiny apartments, then from studying the quiet logic of a chessboard.…
Thinking time isn’t a gap between meetings. It’s a scheduled block with no agenda, no output requirement, and no interruption. In chess, a player’s clock isn’t just for moving pieces—it’s for sitting with a position until the pattern reveals itself. Your calendar needs the same. This article is for anyone who designs their days around…