Mark Koester

Time management is a zero-sum game. Every hour invested in one area is an hour divested from something else.

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The books I read each year often unfold like maps and trails—shaped by the places I visit, the questions I’m wrestling with, and the stories that find me along the way.

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Why doesn’t your brain get overwhelmed when you’re at a noisy party? How is it that so many competing signals resolve into one coherent world rather than a cacophony of competing interactions and interpretations?

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Creativity is often seen as an unstructured, free-flowing process. But what if we could track it like a data scientist—measuring time, effort, and connections between ideas?

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“A designer shapes the situation, the situation talks back, and the designer reflects on the back-talk.”

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What do you make time for?

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Book reading feels like an act of cognitive rebellion in an American society driven by social media and pointess fear-based news. By reading books you are actively engaging the magical act of imagining, world creating and perspective-taking.

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Nick Chater’s Mind Is Flat challenges several core common-sense notions and beliefs about the nature of our minds and even who we are as cognitive beings. Specifically, the book argues against the idea of a deep subconscious (like an inner...

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Ever wonder what happens when a software engineer and a jazz trumpeter team up in a Venice Beach music studio?

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Was AI Included?

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Who truly “creates” when we use AI in our art and work?

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There is no wrong way to make music. In fact, there are probably an infinite number of right ways to make music.

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Star Dust and Dreams is my fourth album release. I feel overjoyed to have the energy and creative chance to make more music, and, of course, to share my art for listening pleasure.

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How do our actions become our creations? Which of our creative inputs will add up and eventually translate into our creative outcomes? What does it take to be creatively productive?

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Have you ever wondered what your conversations with AI reveal about you? In seeking a solution to a work task, accelerating your learning or just having fun, perhaps our ChatGPT conversations might reveal insights about our behavior, thoughts, aspirations, and...

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If you dedicate just 30 minutes a day to book reading for a year, you can easily finish between 30 and 40 books in a year.

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I love the first day of the year (January 1) for a rather unusual reason. The thing I’m most excited about with each new year is the gift of getting to analyze all of my tracking data and data exhaust...

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“As an idea, authenticity is superficially simple yet definitively elusive” (p 66)

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From self-help gurus to pop psychologists, one message seems clear and nearly ubiquitous: “Be true to yourself.” Today the pursuit of authenticity has woven itself into the fabric of our culture and is championed by influential figures like Oprah Winfrey,...

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Is authenticity merely a veiled form of narcissism? Can we truly be authentic individuals when our focus is solely on self-fulfillment?

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