Every Wednesday I share five things I've liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. If you get a chance, try to catch Edgar Wright's latest film Baby Driver while it's still in the cinemas. One of the best films I've seen in ages, plus the soundtrack is incredible!
    
2. A Dizzying View of a Bicycle Graveyard in China.
    
3. If, like me, you're prone to procrastination, this simple exercise might give you a kick start.
    
4. This is a really great interview: Debbie Millman talks to the composer Nico Muhly for her podcast Design Matters. She's a fantastic interviewer and Nico is an equally fantastic interviewee.
    
5.  This week's music recommendation is Split by Rauelsson. If you like it, check out his album Vora.

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

Dreaming of Summer #2

Every Wednesday I share five things I liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. A two-part conversation between Adam Buxton and Brian Eno. I'm a big fan of Adam Buxton's podcast and was delighted to hear him interview one of my heroes!
    
2. If you are trying to learn anything, read this.
    
3. For April Fools Day, Reddit launched a little experiment. It gave its users a blank canvas and the option to place a coloured pixel anywhere on it every few minutes. The result of the experiment is pretty cool...
    
4. A fascinating three-part series from Vox on the techniques and technology the BBC uses to make the Planet Earth series look so good. — Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
    
5. This week's musical recommendation is Pyrrhic by Julianna Barwick. The song comes from her excellent album Nepenthe.

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next Five Things delivered straight to your inbox. You can check out previous Five Things posts here. 

Dreaming of 15°C

Every Wednesday I share five things I liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. Good news seems to be something of a rarity these days but last week's announcement that astronomers have discovered a record seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a single star is a nice break from that! If all goes to hell here on Earth (and someone can find a suitable spacecraft capable of making the 39 light-year journey) perhaps we can all just move there? — Star's seven Earth-sized worlds set record
    
2. Do you know good music? This quiz will let you know. I thought I'd done pretty well getting 234 (the average score is 158 apparently) but that was before several friends managed to get over 240!
    
3. If you've been paying attention to previous Five Things posts, you've probably worked out that I listen to a lot of podcasts. My latest recommendation is this excellent interview with Naval Ravikant (the CEO and co-founder of AngelList). He's a fascinating and incredibly smart guy. It's a long listen but, in my humble opinion, a worthy use of your time.
    
4. These are the coolest business cards I've ever seen... and "cool" isn't a word I often use to describe something as *yawn* as business cards! Drew Tetz uses the phenakistoscope animation technique to create the illusion of a moving image. The magic happens when his cards are played on a turntable under a bright light and viewed through a camera. It's pretty clever. Here's an article explaining how it works and how, if you are feeling creative, you can make your own.
    
5. This week's musical recommendation is Kettering by The Antlers. It's a pretty intense, haunting song. The transition at 2:39 is fantastic.

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, sign up to receive future posts or check out my previous Five Things posts.

Martham Ferry Boatyard

Every Wednesday I share five things I liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. We all have those days when we struggle to get out of bed in the morning. The Roman emperor and Stoic philsopher Marcus Aurelius has some words of motivation for you.
    
2. Katy Ann Gilmore might just be my new favourite artist — Where Math and Nature Meet Art
    
3. A fun, animated video by The School of Life on Ludwig Wittgenstein and how to avoid some of the muddles we get into with words.
    
4. Musician Ólafur Arnalds on five things he learnt in his twenties. I particularly relate to his thoughts on live performance, which I embellished on in a blog post titled "The Beauty of Live Performance".
    
5. You might have heard of the acronym "FOMO" (the Fear Of Missing Out). It's a problem for many people that's exacerbated by our constant exposure to everyone else's "perfect lives" via social media. There might be a solution, JOMO, the Joy Of Missing Out. The excellent Note to Self podcast did an episode on this that they rebroadcast last week.

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, sign up to receive future posts or check out my previous Five Things posts.

Photo by Chuttersnap

If the title of this post attracted your attention, I recommend checking out this episode of the Freakonomics podcast of the same name. 

My biggest takeaway from listening to the episode was this quote from Bob Fisher on the importance of deliberate practice:

Instead of just practicing, you are focused; you’re engaged; it’s like a rubber band. You are constantly stretching the rubber band, and you don’t want to stretch it to the point that it breaks, but you want it to have continual pressure. In other words, you want to try and do things that you are not able to do at the present time.

If you want to get good at anything it takes a lot of focused practice. Practice that is directed on things just beyond your current level of ability. Start with one thing you want to improve at, and find a way of breaking it down into smaller, easier pieces. 

Here's Bob Fisher again:

People who continue to get better never allow themselves to go on automatic pilot; they’re continually breaking down the element they are trying to do and working on pieces and then putting it back together.

So whatever you're planning on improving at in 2017, bear this in mind.

Listen: "How to Become Great at Just About Anything" by Freakonomics Radio