Tim Ferriss: You’re not Isaac Newton! Give yourself a break for being unproductive right now.

We have 100+ years of data on influenza; we do not have anything approaching that—we don't even have 1 year of good data—on SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). So, until I have more confidence in the conclusions which are swaying all over the place on a weekly basis right now, I am going to assume the absolute worse and act accordingly.

From an evolutionary standpoint, we are who we are... because we have a tendency to overreact. We are under-penalized for overreacting and very, very penalized for under-reacting as a species if we're just looking at natural selection.

If you have practiced thinking about worst-case scenarios, even when the unexpected hits, you will be better equipped to cope and make good decisions under duress.

There comes a point where, I think, if you've been living life in sixth gear, and your two gears, so to speak, are park and sixth... you have trouble navigating life.

If you do things slowly without making mistakes, you can later optimize for speed, but you will very often beat the person who is just throwing technique out the window and trying to crash headfirst through the finish line.