Creating “zero click” content
Creating “zero click” content As I mentioned a few weeks ago, a growing problem with Google is the number of “zero click” searches on there — searches that don’t lead to another click, because Google answered the question for you. It’s generally a good thing for users, but it’s a bad thing for companies wanting to get more website traffic. In the case of Google, there’s not much you can do. In other cases, though, it might be best to just lean into this trend. Most social media sites quietly ...
Grateful in the macro and the micro
Grateful in the macro and the micro When you ask someone what they’re grateful for, you often get the same kinds of things – health, family, friends, etc. Those are all wonderful things, and we should all be grateful for them, but being grateful for smaller things can sometimes have a bigger impact. In a recent episode of “My First Million”, the hosts (Sam Parr and Shaan Puri) interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk and it was a fascinating conversation. I encourage you to listen/watch the entire thing w...
Shortform for long books
Shortform for long books I’ve been using Blinkist for some book summaries for a few years now, and it’s great! However, I’m noticing a growing problem in the gap between long books and Blinkist, in that the “Blinks” just aren’t long enough to really share the heart of the book. Blinkist and most related platforms are proud of the fact that they give you “15 minute summaries”. Those are a fantastic way to get an overview of a book, but then they leave a bit gap between that 15 minute summary a...
Creating “zero click” content
Creating “zero click” content As I mentioned a few weeks ago, a growing problem with Google is the number of “zero click” searches on there — searches that don’t lead to another click, because Google answered the question for you. It’s generally a good thing for users, but it’s a bad thing for companies wanting to get more website traffic. In the case of Google, there’s not much you can do. In other cases, though, it might be best to just lean into this trend. Most social media sites quietly ...
Grateful in the macro and the micro
Grateful in the macro and the micro When you ask someone what they’re grateful for, you often get the same kinds of things – health, family, friends, etc. Those are all wonderful things, and we should all be grateful for them, but being grateful for smaller things can sometimes have a bigger impact. In a recent episode of “My First Million”, the hosts (Sam Parr and Shaan Puri) interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk and it was a fascinating conversation. I encourage you to listen/watch the entire thing w...
Shortform for long books
Shortform for long books I’ve been using Blinkist for some book summaries for a few years now, and it’s great! However, I’m noticing a growing problem in the gap between long books and Blinkist, in that the “Blinks” just aren’t long enough to really share the heart of the book. Blinkist and most related platforms are proud of the fact that they give you “15 minute summaries”. Those are a fantastic way to get an overview of a book, but then they leave a bit gap between that 15 minute summary a...
Subscribe to Mickey Mellen
Subscribe to Mickey Mellen
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
<100 subscribers
<100 subscribers
I know a lot of people through my personal life and a lot of people through my work life, but there’s an important third group — people that are in both. In the book “Friend of Friend“, author David Burkus calls this “multiplexity”. He explains:
“While we may want to categorize people into just work and personal buckets, real social networks do not seem to operate that way. And that is to our benefit. Research shows that not only does multiplexity help us become more aware of real-life opportunities, but it enhances our performance on the job—and can even enhance the performance of an entire organization.”
I first noticed this a long time ago when trying to sort out my contact list and realized that a lot of people couldn’t be put into a single bucket. Eventually I decided that I just wanted one list of contacts, and to have it sync between my personal and business accounts. I shared this method back in 2017, but these days I essentially just use ContactsPlus to handle it.
With ContactsPlus, anyone in my personal contacts gets synced to my G Suite contacts and vice-versa. They include some other features for cleaning up the contact list, but my main concern is just keeping them synced. As a general rule, I add everyone I meet into my contacts so that if I get an inbound call I almost always know who it is. Space isn’t a concern, so I load it up!
As of now I have around 6,500 contacts in there; I certainly don’t know/remember everyone, but it’s nice to have those old ones in there just in case they reach out. I mean, why not?
I have a similar approach with Obsidian for my notes. Within Obsidian you can create different “vaults” for different purposes, and keep your notes completely separate. Rather than do that, I just keep all of my notes in a single vault, because too many are difficult to categorize. I mentioned this a few years ago when showing the content from one note that contained:
A business-related person
A quote from a book
A quote from Zig Zigler
A reference to a Bible verse
I had tried to keep things in separate vaults, some of those would have been split out. Instead, I can just keep them all in one place and reference around as needed.
Multiplexity can create a mess if you’re not careful, but I think choosing that route in many aspects of life is likely the best way to go.
I know a lot of people through my personal life and a lot of people through my work life, but there’s an important third group — people that are in both. In the book “Friend of Friend“, author David Burkus calls this “multiplexity”. He explains:
“While we may want to categorize people into just work and personal buckets, real social networks do not seem to operate that way. And that is to our benefit. Research shows that not only does multiplexity help us become more aware of real-life opportunities, but it enhances our performance on the job—and can even enhance the performance of an entire organization.”
I first noticed this a long time ago when trying to sort out my contact list and realized that a lot of people couldn’t be put into a single bucket. Eventually I decided that I just wanted one list of contacts, and to have it sync between my personal and business accounts. I shared this method back in 2017, but these days I essentially just use ContactsPlus to handle it.
With ContactsPlus, anyone in my personal contacts gets synced to my G Suite contacts and vice-versa. They include some other features for cleaning up the contact list, but my main concern is just keeping them synced. As a general rule, I add everyone I meet into my contacts so that if I get an inbound call I almost always know who it is. Space isn’t a concern, so I load it up!
As of now I have around 6,500 contacts in there; I certainly don’t know/remember everyone, but it’s nice to have those old ones in there just in case they reach out. I mean, why not?
I have a similar approach with Obsidian for my notes. Within Obsidian you can create different “vaults” for different purposes, and keep your notes completely separate. Rather than do that, I just keep all of my notes in a single vault, because too many are difficult to categorize. I mentioned this a few years ago when showing the content from one note that contained:
A business-related person
A quote from a book
A quote from Zig Zigler
A reference to a Bible verse
I had tried to keep things in separate vaults, some of those would have been split out. Instead, I can just keep them all in one place and reference around as needed.
Multiplexity can create a mess if you’re not careful, but I think choosing that route in many aspects of life is likely the best way to go.
No activity yet