Subscribe to Love Mondays newsletter updates via email »
LM: #370: The 1/10 trade
When you get close to finishing a project, there are two ways you can use your energy.
You can either try to make the current project better, or you can call it done and move on to the next thing.
In my experience, once you reach the point you’re considering it might already be done, there’s a lopsided trade staring you in the face: The same energy it would take to make the current thing 1% better could be used to make the next thing 10% better.
WANT TO WRITE A BOOK?
Download your FREE copy of How to Write a Book »
(for a limited time)
That’s not to say that you can use that energy to go start-to-finish on the next thing, and it will be 10% better. It’s just automatically by doing the next thing, you’ll be able to do it better. And that 1% improvement on the current thing would be more exhausting.
That isn’t to say, either, that because it’s a lopsided trade-off that automatically means you should move on to the next thing. You have real sunk costs in the current thing, and making it better can unlock outsized gains. In this algorithmically-driven world, making something 1% better can increase your payoff 100x.
That of course assumes that with all that extra effort, you’re actually making it better. So when in doubt, move on to the next thing.
Aphorism: “There are few things wherein we can give a sincere judgment, by reason that there are few wherein we have not, in some sort, a private interest.” —Montaigne
Cool: Subtitlecat creates AI-generated subtitles for any show or movie.
Best,
David
P.S. Why the curious peak late.
P.P.S. Help Mind Management reach 1,000 Amazon ratings? Click on a star rating.
