Decisions
How to make better decisions with less noise
Most decisions go wrong long before we make them, buried under other people’s opinions and our own dread. A practical way to clear the signal from the noise.
5 min readA book from Blyton
The Work That Matters
A field guide to clearer thinking and more deliberate work.
A place for useful ideas
Welcome to Blyton
Essays on attention, craft, and the examined life.
Learn moreRecently published
Start with the latest
Start here
Essential essays
A small collection of enduring ideas, the best place to begin.
Reading
The case for slow reading
Reading quickly is easy. Reading well takes time, and the time is the point. On finishing fewer books and keeping more of them.
5 min read
Craft
Why craft outlasts talent
Talent gets attention early. Craft keeps compounding long after the applause has faded, and it is available to almost everyone.
4 min read
Habits
A field guide to deliberate work
Seven small habits for work that is calm, focused, and worth the effort you give it, learned slowly and mostly by getting them wrong first.
4 min read
From the author
The Work That Matters
A field guide to clearer thinking and more deliberate work.
Discover the bookThe archive
Latest essays
How to make better decisions with less noise
Most decisions go wrong long before we make them, buried under other people’s opinions and our own dread. A practical way to clear the signal from the noise.
The case for slow reading
Reading quickly is easy. Reading well takes time, and the time is the point. On finishing fewer books and keeping more of them.
Why craft outlasts talent
Talent gets attention early. Craft keeps compounding long after the applause has faded, and it is available to almost everyone.
A field guide to deliberate work
Seven small habits for work that is calm, focused, and worth the effort you give it, learned slowly and mostly by getting them wrong first.
Notes on keeping a notebook
A notebook is a conversation with your future self. Twenty years of keeping one, and what I have learned about making it answer back.
On finishing things
Starting is a feeling. Finishing is a skill. What I learned about the last ten percent of any project from shipping a book.
The quiet discipline of editing
Good writing is mostly cutting. What I learned from the best editor I ever worked with about what to keep, what to lose, and how to tell the difference.
What a long walk teaches
Three hours on foot, no podcast, no destination. What I noticed in the first forty minutes, and what happened after the noise stopped.
In defence of the boring middle
We tell stories about beginnings and endings. Almost all of the living, and nearly all of the work, happens in the part nobody writes about.