Hey Reader,

Wow, how is it almost June? I hope everyone had a great week and we've got a fun essay on how a thoughtful cold email can be an engine of serendipity (with real-world examples).

We're also thrilled to open enrollment for the 7th cohort of Supercharge Your Productivity. During this live 4-week course, you'll learn how to stop spinning your wheels (doing low-value work) and double-down on your life's biggest priorities.

More importantly, in the ethos of RadReads, the course combines deep systems thinking with bigger existential questions (like When will I know that I have enough?).

Enroll today and you'll get lifetime access to The Fulfilling Path to Financial Independence and The GTD PowerPack (a combined $498 of extra value). Over 400 students from 50+ countries have completed the course over the past two years representing some of these iconic companies and institutions.

Enroll today

And if you're still on the fence, we've got the last day of the free 5-day $10K Bootcamp. On Sunday at Noon EDT (tomorrow) we'll conduct a free Weekly Review Workshop. Click here to sign up (and access all the replays).

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How a cold email became $10K Work

People love options.

A second year analyst has the option of going to Business School.

A single person keeps their dating options open by staying in the gray zone.

And a savvy trader purchases a stock option on a grossly undervalued company - effectively leveraging their investment.

Today we'll look at two different types of options: a cold email and a simple Loom video.

We'll see two real-world examples of how these small acts of care and kindness (~15 minutes) opened up endless possibilities of revenue, job opportunities, collaboration and friendship.

And we'll show you how you can add these tools to your portfolio of $10K Work.

Keep reading (2 Mins)

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Here are this week's top reads:

// one

Multi-tasking and our greatest fear

5 minutes | More to That
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"The desire to multi-task is rooted in the fear of death." Yikes. That (along with the Lawrence Yeo byline) — will always get me to click. Once again, Yeo marries the existential and productivity (sound familar?) with gems like: "If we weren’t aware of our own mortality, would we have had the desire to measure time?"

→ Read the post​

// two

When the 80/20 rule fails: the downside of being effective

4 minutes | James Clear
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The 80/20 Rule (or Pareto Principle) states that in any domain, a small percentage (20%) of efforts are responsible for a large percentage (80%) of results. (It's a great proxy for identifying leverage.) This approach has many benefits — most notably, that you can maximize output, while minimizing effort — but it also has its limitations. James Clear argues that there’s one major downside to this approach: it optimizes for the past rather than the future. Learning something new, when compared to what you already know, will rarely be the “most effective” in the moment, but does that mean we shouldn't push ourselves towards new endeavors?

→ Read the post​

// three

How to get remote right: An interview with Robert Pozen from MIT

9 minutes | Reset Work Newsletter
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This issue of the Reset Work newsletter, contains excerpts from an interview with Robert Pozen (just scroll a few paragraphs). Pozen is the author of “Remote, Inc” teaching us how to thrive in the era of Remote Work. Some key takeaways? You’re effectively your own small business owner in charge of your own time, hours worked does not equal productivity, micro-managing is a bad use of time, and implicit expectations need to be made explicit. (The last point really highlights the need for user manuals, as the next story indicates.)
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→ Read the conversation​

// four

Did You Get My Slack/Email/Text?

5 minutes | Harvard Business Review
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In the old days of working in-person, communication norms were unwritten, but we knew them by observing our colleagues. With hybrid, we’re in desperate need to create new rules for communicating. Unclear digital communication leads to employees wasting an average of 4 hours a week, which has a huge impact on our economy (like, $188 billion dollars big). This post shares a template you can use to set guidelines for your own team about communication norms, and offers guiding questions like “what’s been the most collaborative experience you’ve had in each of these channels?” and “what norms do we want to set up for each channel?” (We're going to be asking these questions here at RadReads HQ.)

→ Read the article​

// five

Why is creator economy exploding now?

3 minutes | Twitter
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In this tweet-storm, Anne Lee Skates from Andresen Horowitz explains the explosion of the “creator economy” through the story of @APompliano aka “the bitcoin guy.” Regardless of your views on crypto (or Pomp), he's built a brand synonymous with cryptocurrency and entrepreneurship, which in turn powers angel investing, product launches, and even merch. Three changes in the last decade made Pomp and other solopreneurs (like myself) possible: decoupling of healthcare benefits from full-time employment (in part, due to Obamacare — I agree), rise of low/no-code platforms, and the ability to work and network from anywhere.
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→ Read the tweetstorm​

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Below the fold

ICYMI

• ​James Stuber's honest review of Supercharge Your Productivity (YouTube): One of our alums filmed an (unaffiliated) review of our course highlighting both pros and cons.
• ​Notion API and Zapier: A 10-step guide to creating your first Zap.

LAST WEEK'S MOST READ
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• ​The ladders of wealth creation (Nathan Barry, 780 clicks)
• ​The 7 Types of Meetings That Should Always Be Async (Doist, 645 clicks)

And finally, the Slack logo is ducks?!?!?! (You can't unsee this!)

With gratitude,
Khe
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PS Enroll in Supercharge Your Productivity today and get $498 of bonuses including the GTD PowerPack and the Fulfilling Path to Financial Independence.
PPS Did someone rad forward this to you? Subscribe here.
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