est. 1968 Whole EarthWired · Cool Tools · Recomendoprice: 0¢

A Catalog of -

EXCELLENT ADVICE
FOR LIVING

three hundred and ninety-four pieces of workable, earth-first, use-it-today advice from Kevin Kelly - founding editor of Wired, keeper of Cool Tools, patron saint of the optimistic listicle.

68

2020

bits

→

99

2021

bits

→

103

2022

bits

→

394

2023

Excellent Advice for Living

Three hundred and ninety-four bits, two hundred and forty-one documentaries, then twenty-seven working rooms. Open the catalog right below - draw a bit, search a phrase, or unfold the whole wall - then draw a film, and open the working rooms when you want the interactive sections that take Kelly's load-bearing ideas and turn them into apparatus you can use.

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I. The Full Catalog - three hundred and ninety-four bits

The whole of Excellent Advice for Living (Viking, 2023), plus the three prior advice editions (68 → 99 → 103 → 394). Drawable one at a time, searchable by phrase, or unfoldable as a wall.

BIT № 001of 394

Don’t worry how or where you begin. As long as you keep moving, your success will arrive far from where you start.

↻ another bit⎘ copy

394 bits

+ unfold the full 394-bit catalog

set at the Whole Earth Software Review · 3¢ per bit · read at your own risk · reprinted by the reader without permission

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II. True Films - the documentaries

A second, quieter list Kelly has kept since 2003: documentaries that capture reality more vividly than fiction does. The whole list follows - draw one at random, or browse by subject.

TRUE FILMS · KEVIN KELLY · truefilms.com

241 Documentaries

The complete True Films archive: every documentary Kevin Kelly has recommended on truefilms.com since 2003. Search, filter, or hit the big ÷ DRAW button to pick a random one. (Or press R .)

201285 minCulture

Kumare

dir. Vikram Gandhi

This film is a useful and serious extended prank. An Indian-American kid from New Jersey returned from a guru quest in India convinced gurus were only ordinary people with the job title of “guru.” The documentary begins when he decides to become a fake guru to prove that people only project guru-ness onto ordinary people like himself. He takes the name Kumare, adds a fantasy backstory, plus a made-up religion with made-up rituals and invented yoga moves. Over the span of four months he gathers a room-full of true believers in Arizona (filming the whole time), and teaches th…

truefilms.com →·wikipedia

÷ DRAW ANOTHER

241 of 241

↓ browse all 241 films

Source: truefilms.com - Kevin Kelly’s ongoing documentary list, scraped April 2026; posters and stills are the ones each film’s page there shows.

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The working rooms below take twenty-seven of the bits Kelly returns to most across the books and talks. Each gets its own working room: a slider, a sort, a flip, a wizard, a card-trade, a dial. The advice is there; so is the apparatus to live it.

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◆Open the working rooms27 Kelly bits made into apparatus · state saved locallyOPEN▸

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XXX. 1,000 True Fans - the working economy of attention

The single most-shared essay Kelly has written, dated 4 March 2008. The arithmetic of a sustainable creative life: you don't need a million casual listeners - you need a thousand who really care, each paying you the equivalent of one day's wage a year.

- 1,000 TRUE FANS · 2008 -

A Modest Living, Calculated

To make a livable income, you do not need to be famous. You need a thousand fans who will give you about $100 a year. Drag the per-fan number to test other shapes of the economy.

PER FAN · PER YEAR : $100

PER FAN$100per year, on average

FANS NEEDED1,000to clear $100k

REVENUE @ 1,000$100kat the canonical 1,000-fan target

The math is unromantic. The point is not that you should sell anything - it is that you do not need a million strangers to make a life.

The slider is Kelly's original insight made tactile. Fewer fans, more devotion, equals a working living. The internet's gift to makers, in plain numbers.

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XXXI. The Star Selections - eighteen bits, by theme

A reading of eighteen of Kelly's most-resonant bits, grouped by what they're about - TIME · WORK · MONEY · PEOPLE · MIND · MAKING. Click any card for the gloss.

CURATED · 18 OF 394 · THE GREATEST HITS

THE STAR
SELECTIONS

The bits that have travelled farthest from the source - quoted on group chats, taped to fridge doors, repeated at weddings. Filter by theme; click a card to flip it over and read the gloss.

∞EVERY BIT18◷TIME3⟁WORK3⊚MONEY3∰PEOPLE3✿MIND3★MAKING3

1. ◷№ 01TIME

   Bad things can happen fast but almost all good things happen slowly.

   GLOSS -Kelly’s thesis statement. The compounding rule, applied to character.
   + gloss
2. ⏚№ 02TIME

   About 99% of the time the right time is right now.

   GLOSS -A rule for procrastinators. If you are waiting, you are losing.
   + gloss
3. ◍№ 03TIME

   If your goal does not have a schedule, it is a dream.

   GLOSS -Schedules are the difference between intention and decision.
   + gloss
4. ⟁№ 04WORK

   Don’t ever work for someone you don’t want to become.

   GLOSS -Bosses imprint. Choose carefully - you are buying a future self.
   + gloss
5. ✦№ 05WORK

   A good sign that you are doing the kind of work you should be doing is that you enjoy the tedious parts that other people find tortuous.

   GLOSS -The market’s vocational test. Find the boredom others can’t bear.
   + gloss
6. ◊№ 06WORK

   The greatest breakthroughs are missed because they look like really hard work.

   GLOSS -Hard work hides in plain sight; the diamond looks like coal until you carry it home.
   + gloss
7. ⊚№ 07MONEY

   All the greatest prizes in life - wealth, relationships, knowledge - come from the magic of compounding by amplifying small steady gains. All you need for abundance is to keep adding 1% more than you subtract on a regular basis.

   GLOSS -The Kelly formula for everything: net +1%, daily.
   + gloss
8. ✕№ 08MONEY

   Be frugal in all things except in your passions. Select a few interests that you gleefully splurge on. In fact, be all-around thrifty so that you can splurge on your passions.

   GLOSS -Asymmetric spending. Be cheap so you can be lavish where it counts.
   + gloss
9. ✺№ 09MONEY

   To succeed, get other people to pay you; to become wealthy, help other people to succeed.

   GLOSS -The two-step ladder. Service first, then leverage.
   + gloss
10. ∰№ 10PEOPLE

    If you are more fortunate than others, build a longer table rather than a taller fence.

    GLOSS -The Kelly position on inequality: enlarge the room, don’t fortify it.
    + gloss
11. ◐№ 11PEOPLE

    Cultivate 12 people who love you, because they are worth more than 12 million people who like you.

    GLOSS -Twelve over twelve million. The honest economy of attention.
    + gloss
12. ⊛№ 12PEOPLE

    To combat an adversary become their friend.

    GLOSS -Lincoln’s technique. The cheapest way to dissolve an enemy.
    + gloss
13. ✿№ 13MIND

    To be remarkable, read books.

    GLOSS -Five words. The whole library, in five.
    + gloss
14. ◈№ 14MIND

    When you are right, you are learning nothing.

    GLOSS -Being correct is the end of curiosity. Seek out being wrong.
    + gloss
15. ◉№ 15MIND

    You can reduce the annoyance of someone’s stupid belief by increasing your understanding of why they believe it.

    GLOSS -Empathy as a sedative for outrage. Understanding is cheaper than anger.
    + gloss
16. ★№ 16MAKING

    This is the best time ever to make something. None of the greatest, coolest creations 20 years from now have been invented yet. You are not late.

    GLOSS -Kelly’s reassurance to every aspiring maker. You are not late. You are early.
    + gloss
17. ☼№ 17MAKING

    Many fail to finish, but many more fail to start. The hardest work in any work is to start. You can’t finish until you start, so get good at starting.

    GLOSS -Starting is a separate skill. Practise it like a craft.
    + gloss
18. ◆№ 18MAKING

    Take one simple thing - almost anything - but take it extremely seriously as if it is the only thing in the world. By taking it seriously you’ll light up the sky.

    GLOSS -The fanatic’s discount. Attention concentrates value.
    + gloss

These are the bits from the full catalog at the top of the page that have travelled farthest from the source - quoted on group chats, taped to fridge doors, repeated at weddings.

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XXXII. Five Axioms - the Enso

Below the surface aphorisms sits a quieter philosophy: five propositions Kelly returns to across the books. The trellis the advice grew up.

- A QUIET CENTRE · 静 ·

Enso · 圓相

A single brushstroke, painted in one breath, that closes the circle without quite closing it. The gap is the point.

1. I.Optimism is a stance, not a forecast.樂觀是姿勢
2. II.Bad things can happen fast, but almost all good things happen slowly.善緩
3. III.The right answer to a hard question is usually a different, easier question.善問
4. IV.Pay close attention to what you are paying close attention to.專注
5. V.No is the entirety of the cost. Yes is a future negotiation.辭
6. VI.Buy used books; collect first editions of friendships.友誼
7. VII.You become what you repeatedly do, but more importantly what you repeatedly notice.觀察
8. VIII.Save money. Save time. Save attention. The rest will save itself.節
9. IX.A good tool is the residue of a good question.工具

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XXXIII. The Inevitable - twelve forces

Twelve verbs (not nouns) Kelly believes will shape the next thirty years. Not predictions of products - predictions of the underlying motion.

- THE INEVITABLE · TWELVE VERBS -

Twelve Currents Already Underway

From The Inevitable (Viking, 2016). Click a verb to read Kelly’s gloss. The verbs run. The page does not.

成BECOMING智COGNIFYING流FLOWING屏SCREENING通ACCESSING分SHARING濾FILTERING混REMIXING應INTERACTING紀TRACKING問QUESTIONING始BEGINNING

成

BECOMING

Nothing is finished. Everything is upgrading. The new normal is constant flux. Comfort with perpetual newbie-hood is the central skill.

- after Kevin Kelly, The Inevitable (2016)

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XXXIV. The Technium - a working timeline

Kelly's word for technology-as-living-system: the seventh kingdom, descended from biology but distinct. A scrollable timeline of how it emerged.

- THE TECHNIUM · A SEVENTH KINGDOM -

3,000,000 BCE → 2026

Drag through tool-count over time. Logarithmic. The Technium is not separate from biology - it is biology’s newest kingdom, extending itself faster than the previous six.

1700· mechanical ·

Steam

Newcomen. Watt. The first technology that trades coal for time.

cumulative tool-types16,000

Bad things can happen fast. Almost all good things happen slowly - and then, by the time we notice them, they have been here for centuries.

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XXXV. Cool Tools - the daily reviewing habit

Kelly has run Cool Tools since 2003 - small useful things, recommended one at a time. A rotating display of the canon.

- COOL TOOLS · PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION -

A Catalog, Reviewed

Cool Tools is a 25-year-old recommendation engine. The editorial rule: each tool is reviewed by someone who actually owns it and uses it.

◀▶

MULTI-TOOL$110

Leatherman Wave+

reviewed 2002, still in service

“A small toolbox in your pocket. Will outlive you.”

Pliers, two knife blades, file, saw, four screwdrivers, scissors, can opener, ruler, bottle opener, wire stripper. Lifetime warranty enforced. The quietest argument against ever buying a single-purpose blade.

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Colophon

Kevin Kelly has spent fifty years writing lists. First as editor of the Whole Earth Catalog’s late descendants, then as co-founder of Wired, then at Cool Tools, and for the last decade as a kind of public grandfather dispensing birthday advice to himself.

He has lived for years in Asia - mostly Japan, Vietnam, China - and the influence shows. The pages of advice read like a Western mind that has spent a lot of time around tea ceremonies and woodblock prints. The optimism is real but never breathless; behind every line is a man who has watched many small things outlive many large ones.

The interactive sections on this page operationalise twenty-seven of Kelly's recurring bits:

• The 1% Rule - the compound-interest claim that runs through every advice edition and underwrites his long-game optimism.
• The Three Baskets - bit № 80, on the three abilities (persist, quit, ask).
• Pronoia - bit № 278, lifted partly from Brian Eno, made into a daily interpretive habit.
• Rehearse the Worst - bit № 209, Kelly's operational version of Stoic premeditation.
• The Five-Year Mirror - bit № 202, on the regret you save by starting today.
• The Tuition Log - bits № 73 and № 255, on mistakes as paid education.
• The Apology - bit № 227, the three R's (regret, responsibility, remedy) in order.
• The Trouble Pile - bit № 203, the gratitude-through-comparison game.
• The Dose Dial - bit № 182, on every love its proper amount.
• The Two-Minute Timer - bit № 176, the small-task rule with a live countdown.
• ...And Then What? - bit № 239, chain-thinking through the consequences.
• The Twelve - bit № 37, the cultivated roster of twelve who love you.
• The Bad-Idea Bag - bit № 281, listing what cannot work to find the seed of what can.
• The Day Menu - bit № 89, on doing the right small thing for the kind of day it is.
• Who Should I Become? - bit № 120, identity-first reframe of any decision.
• The 25-Year Lens - bit № 184, decisions evaluated in the voice of your future self.
• The Fifth Idea - bit № 148, forced ideation past the obvious four.
• Devil's Advocate - bit № 248, the steelman test for an opinion worth holding.
• The Option Opener - bit № 279, choosing the option that opens more options.
• Yes or No? - bit № 191, calibrator for could-fail yeses and easy nos.
• The Ignore List - bit № 107, the explicit second list most people never write.
• Would You Show It? - bit № 108, the hidden-action audit.
• The Worry Ledger - bit № 223, time-delayed receipts against anxiety.
• The Rubber Duck - bit № 138, guided elaboration to surface the answer.
• The Trust Ledger - bit № 250, drops (+1) and buckets (−10).
• Vs Yesterday-You - bit № 260, daily self-comparison check-in.
• The 365 Multiplier - bit № 162, today's hours times a year.

The complete corpus - 394 bits drawn from Excellent Advice for Living (Viking 2023) and the three prior advice editions - sits at the top of the page in the Full Catalog, searchable and unfoldable.