COVID-19: Simple Advice for a New Kind of Long Tail

We are drowning in advice about how to cope with the current pandemic.  It's well-meaning, and much of it is helpful.

But we’re all different. One person might be searching for a new podcast to pass the time while another might not have access to the Internet.  One friend might need advice on how to turn her living room into a home office, another on how to cope with two young children in a 1,100 square-foot apartment.  One might be looking for a new investment strategy, another worried about paying this month’s rent.

Amidst all these good intentions, I tried to find in my reading this weekend a few simple truths.

1. The virus writes the rules.

“There is a saying among epidemiologists, Alex De Wall of the Boston Review writes: “If you’ve seen one pandemic, you’ve seen one pandemic.”

In other words, we barely know what’s going to happen this week, much less six months from now.  Seasonality and duration of immunity are both unknowns.  Our willingness to practice social distancing is another.  We don't know why the virus kills some and spares others.

Maybe you were infected last October and have been asymptomatic and feeling fine ever since.

Seen one pandemic--seen one pandemic.

The reason, explained Margaret Chan, WHO director at the time of SARS, is that “the virus writes the rules.”

2. Prepare for a long process.

How To Read a Business Book: Simple Rules

Sandy Santin--entrepreneur, founder of Sensitech, and
the guy who hired me in 1995--shows how to shelter in place
in style!  (Want to join in?  Click here!)

Before thinking about books, think about time.  

If you are a 30-year-old male in America, you can expect to live on average to about 78.[1]  Let’s round that up for good behavior and assume you’ll be around another 50 years, 40 of which you’ll work and the last 10 of which you’ll sip tequila on a beach.  (Ladies, you get more--both time and tequila.)

On average, assume you’ll read one book a month while you’re working and two per month once you retire.  That means you’ll get to choose 720 books to read in your remaining time on earth.

Every year in America there are 11,000 business books published, a stack equivalent to a 99-story building.[2] Assume that pace was constant for the last 20 years and will hold for the rest of your life.  That’s a supply of 770,000 current business books measured against your 720 choices—a one-percent option that only holds if you never read a non-fiction book outside the business niche or one written before 2000.

Or, God forbid, a work of fiction.

If you want to get the most out of your precious choices, here is a simple list for how to tackle a business book: