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Influencer StackWhat the influencers actually use.

Shane Parrish

Writer · Farnam Street and The Knowledge Project

He founded Farnam Street, a site about thinking and decision-making. Alongside it he hosts The Knowledge Project and writes the Brain Food newsletter, which goes out on Sundays, and he wrote Clear Thinking and The Great Mental Models series. Years at an intelligence agency came first, before the writing became the job. The routine underneath it is plain. Mornings for hard work, twenty-five pages of reading a day, and a standing rule to exercise whether he feels like it or not.

Entries
25
Does
17
Recommends
8
Discusses
0

The gear and products they use

All 4 products in this stack

Protocols

12 entries

Repeatable, mostly free routines with a defined trigger and dose.

  • YogaDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

    Books a yoga class at lunch rather than training in the morning, which stays reserved for deep work.

    Source: My Morning Routine interview
    Backed by 8 of 54 stacks
  • Deep work blocksDoes itFREE, no cost

    Gives himself 60 to 90 minutes of uninterrupted work first thing, breaks for coffee and breakfast, then runs a second block of the same length. Mornings are when he says he concentrates best.

    Source: My Morning Routine interview
    Backed by 6 of 54 stacks
  • Time blockingDoes itFREE, no cost

    Plans the next day before bed, picking out the two or three projects that matter most and writing the schedule around them. Scheduling is what keeps him deciding where the hours go.

    Source: My Morning Routine interview
    Backed by 6 of 54 stacks
  • Low-cost index fund investingDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

    Buys into an index fund alongside everything else he does, and describes it as a fail-safe kept separate from his private deals. He also says he hides money from himself so he never starts assuming he is smarter than he is.

    Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #695 transcript
    Backed by 3 of 54 stacks
  • Hard thinking before lunchDoes itFREE, no cost

    Keeps the morning for deep work and difficult problems, and pushes phone calls into the afternoon. Focus peaks earlier in the day for most people, he says, before distractions and worn-down willpower arrive.

    Source: My Morning Routine interview
    Backed by 2 of 54 stacks
  • Automatic rulesDoes itFREE, no cost

    He credits Daniel Kahneman, who told him he keeps personal rules because people do not argue with rules. His own include stopping drinking at nine when he is out after a talk. The daily training rule exists, he says, because he hates working out.

    Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #695 transcript
    Backed by 1 of 54 stacks
  • Blank sheet methodDoes itFREE, no cost

    It took him years to develop, he says, and he still runs it: what he already knows goes on the page first, new material goes on in another color, and the sheets end up in a binder he rereads. He made one while reading Jeff Immelt before interviewing him.

    Source: fs.blog: from passive reading to active learning
    Backed by 1 of 54 stacks
  • Decision journalDoes itFREE, no cost

    Before a consequential call he writes down the situation, the alternatives he rejected, what he expects and how confident he is, then reads it back once the outcome is known. He published the template his team uses, with a real decision of his own filled in on it.

    Source: fs.blog: decision journal, template and example
    Backed by 1 of 54 stacks
  • Environment designRecommendsFREE, no cost

    Positioning does the work that willpower usually gets credit for, in his account of the book, and the environment you pick is part of it. Good preparation is what puts you there before the moment arrives.

    Source: The Knowledge Project #177: A Glimpse into Clear Thinking
    Backed by 7 of 54 stacks
  • Circle of competenceRecommendsFREE, no cost

    Size of the circle matters far less than knowing where its edge is, in his framing: step over it and your advantage passes to other people. Deep skill in one area, he notes, often comes with real weakness elsewhere.

    Source: fs.blog: circle of competence
    Backed by 3 of 54 stacks
  • InversionRecommendsFREE, no cost

    Thinking a problem backward is less likely to cause harm than adding another intervention, he argues, which is why he calls it the avoiding stupidity filter. He traces the idea to Jacobi by way of Munger.

    Source: fs.blog: inversion and the power of avoiding stupidity
    Backed by 1 of 54 stacks
  • Second-order thinkingRecommendsFREE, no cost

    The prompt he gives is one question, and then what, asked across ten minutes, ten months and ten years. First-order thinking is the failure he points at: it takes whatever settles the immediate problem and leaves the consequences to turn up later.

    Source: fs.blog: second-order thinking
    Backed by 1 of 54 stacks

Habits

9 entries

Daily practices held long enough to become default behavior.

  • Daily readingDoes itFREE, no cost

    Twenty-five pages a day is his literal rule, and he says that once he commits to the minimum he almost always goes past it. He worked out that the pace clears roughly ten thousand pages a year, which is how the doorstoppers finally get read.

    Source: fs.blog: just twenty-five pages a day
    Backed by 24 of 54 stacks
  • Daily meditationDoes itFREE, no cost

    Meditation sits in his evening, not his morning. It settles his mind after a busy day and helps him sleep, he says.

    Source: My Morning Routine interview
    Backed by 20 of 54 stacks
  • Daily walkingDoes itFREE, no cost

    Takes long walks in the afternoon while making phone calls, which is how movement gets into a day handed over to work.

    Source: My Morning Routine interview
    Backed by 17 of 54 stacks
  • Daily minimum workoutDoes itFREE, no cost

    Kept losing an internal negotiation about training three times a week, so he changed the rule to every day and gave himself permission to shrink the session instead. The negotiation in his head became what to fit in rather than whether to go. A five-mile walk counts.

    Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #695 transcript
    Backed by 6 of 54 stacks
  • Phone-free first hourDoes itFREE, no cost

    Tries to leave the phone alone in the morning, on the grounds that anything genuinely urgent will reach him another way. Email waits until late morning or afternoon.

    Source: My Morning Routine interview
    Backed by 6 of 54 stacks
  • AntilibraryDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

    Built what he calls his antilibrary and keeps adding to it, reckoning he has read about a quarter of what is on the shelves. He wants to own a book rather than borrow it, so he can write in it.

    Source: fs.blog: just twenty-five pages a day
    Backed by 1 of 54 stacks
  • No alarm clockDoes itFREE, no cost

    Has not used an alarm clock in years, except when he has an early flight to catch. He wakes somewhere around six.

    Source: My Morning Routine interview
    Backed by 1 of 54 stacks
  • Quitting the newsDoes itFREE, no cost

    Reading things that have lasted had one result he calls surprising: he stopped reading the news. He tells readers to read old books and skip most new ones, since news is by definition the part that will not last.

    Source: fs.blog: strategies to retain everything you read
    Backed by 1 of 54 stacks
  • Daily writingRecommendsFREE, no cost

    Told his teenage son that writing your thoughts out is one of the ways you learn to think for yourself, after the boy asked to hand the essay to AI instead. Writing, he argues, is the process by which you discover you do not understand something.

    Source: fs.blog: writing to think
    Backed by 8 of 54 stacks

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Stack notes are paraphrased. Anything in quotation marks is a short excerpt copied from the transcript it links to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.