What Can We Learn From the Prolific Mr. Asimov?

Asimov knew his circle of competence and knew himself.

One of Asimov’s best methods to keep the work flowing was to have more than one project going at a time. If he got writers’ block or got bored with one project, he simply switched to another project, a tactic which kept him from stopping work to agonize and procrastinate.

If anything besides sheer productivity defined Asimov, it was a thirst for knowledge. He simply never stopped learning, and with that attitude, he grew into a mental giant who was more than once accused of “knowing everything”: Nothing goes to waste, if you’re determined to learn.

“I’m no genius, but I’m smart in spots, and I stay around those spots.” —Thomas Watson, Sr., Founder of IBM

To learn is to broaden, to experience more, to snatch new aspects of life for yourself. To refuse to learn or to be relieved at not having to learn is to commit a form of suicide; in the long run, a more meaningful type of suicide than the mere ending of physical life. Knowledge is not only power; it is happiness, and being taught is the intellectu... See more

"as I went on to discover, each time I wrote a book on some subject outside my immediate field it gave me courage and incentive to do another one that was perhaps even farther outside the narrow range of my training. As I did so, of course, I found that I had to educate myself. When the time came, I read biology, medicine, and geology. I collected ... See more