I’m like 70% through @catehall’s wonderful book You Can Just Do...
Cedric Chin@ejames_c
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Nov 08, 2026
~1 min read
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I’m like 70% through @catehall’s wonderful book You Can Just Do Things, and at first my reaction was “oh, it’s one of those books where if I want to fully internalise it I’ll need 6 months to put all the ideas to practice …”
And then I hit Chapter 10 and went “ok one year”
And then I hit Chapter 10 and went “ok one year”
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To be clear: there is a class of self help book where you read it and you absolutely know you need to slow down.
My reading switches to “read one chapter, practice, move on to next chapter only when I’m sure I’ve internalised it”
My reading switches to “read one chapter, practice, move on to next chapter only when I’m sure I’ve internalised it”
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And so I took 8 months to finish Andy Grove’s legendary High Output Management, for instance, transforming my management practice in the process.
I took 5 months to finish Eric Nehrlich’s You Have A Choice.
And so I groaned when I opened Hall’s book because it was good.
I took 5 months to finish Eric Nehrlich’s You Have A Choice.
And so I groaned when I opened Hall’s book because it was good.
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And then I hit Chapter 10, and it GOT WORSE.
Because in Chapter 10 Hall points out that you should start with the ideas with the biggest ugh fields, because those are going to be the ones that hold you back the most.
(She also inverts the entire premise of the book, which lol)
Because in Chapter 10 Hall points out that you should start with the ideas with the biggest ugh fields, because those are going to be the ones that hold you back the most.
(She also inverts the entire premise of the book, which lol)
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(Also isn’t that passage above such a Sascha Chapin passage? Chapin’s sashachapin.substack.com/p/should-you-b… is extremely psychoactive disturbing material for people like me)
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Anyway this adds like an additional few months to attempting to put Hall’s ideas to practice because it takes a bit of time, in my experience, to get over the ugh fields.
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Current plan: finish reading the book, leaving notes for my future self, and then circle back to the most ‘ugh’ inducing chapters.