Writing to think clearly

Nine kilos in four months, a history of spite-fuelled weight loss, and why identity beats goals every time.

Lessons in trust, competence, and family.

Three violent films in a week, and the question I couldn’t stop thinking about: what happens when you discover you’re exceptionally good at something — and then have to decide what to do with that knowledge.

The real advantage of being young is that you don’t know what’s supposed to be hard—which sometimes lets you try anyway.

Rambling is a thinking problem disguised as a writing problem. Clarity on the page starts with clarity in your own head.

Not everyone who says they’re depressed is, but the ones who are can barely say anything at all.

Everyone wants to be free of social approval but almost everyone is terrified of what happens when you stop chasing it.

The ones that are, you’ll know because you chose them.

I take the tube to work most mornings and I have a genuine question: where are all the young men?

I'd been so committed to being the safest person in every room that I'd accidentally become the most boring one.

We've been blaming the wrong things for most of what goes wrong with people's health. The thing doing the damage is always underneath the thing we can see.

The first thing I learned about money after graduating is that feelings are a terrible way to measure it.

Three days isn't reckless if you're being honest. Three days is just how long it takes when you're paying attention.

A 13-person startup can build better tools than companies with entire departments dedicated to "customer insights" who somehow still don't know what their customers want.

Don't read this if you love working in the corporate world. I joined a 10 person startup instead of a graduate scheme, and it was the single best decision I've made for my career so far.

You don't think first and write second. You think by writing. That's what bothers me about outsourcing it.

The moment someone tells you your work needs improving, your brain wants to translate that into "you need improving." Those are two completely different sentences.