A solid work ethic drives someone to show up, even when they’d rather not. If there’s work on their desk, they’ll take it on.
Discipline, on the other hand, is the ability to say ‘no’ to free up focus and resources for the work that’s worth saying ‘yes’ to.
If you memorize the steps, you have a direct, simple and fast path to obtain the result.
Until the world changes.
Even the tiniest shift in the system will render your memorization useless.
On the other hand, if you understand the concept, you’ll be able to produce the steps whenever you need them.
Teachers and organizations benefit from both, but they’re not the same.
Engagement is the delight we have when we lean into the process. Engagement happens when social media is optimized for maximum focus, and it also can be seen in a student who’s in sync with a teacher who cares.
Enrollment is a commitment to change. Enrollment in the process means we’re willing to push through the difficult parts because the outcome is part of our goal.
Obviously, they overlap, quite a bit. And one of the best ways to get one is to have the other.
True transformation requires enrollment, even if it doesn’t always promise engagement.
It’s hard to build a house without a hammer.
The hammer has been around for a long time, and thanks to its intuitive design, a user can get 70% of the benefit after less than ten minutes of instruction. People who depend on hammers for their livelihood are probably at over 95% efficiency.
In the last decade, we’ve outfitted billions of people with tools that didn’t exist until recently. And because of market pressure, the design of these tools is very different.
They generally deliver a fraction of their potential productivity when used casually.
We’ve adopted the mindset of Too Busy To Learn. As a result, we prefer tools that give us quick results, not the ones that are worth learning. This ignores the truth of a great modern professional’s tool: it’s complicated for a reason.
Some tools, like Discord, are optimized for informal poking and casual use. As a result, more nuanced and sophisticated (and powerful) tools like Discourse are harder to sell to new users.
Surfing doesn’t have many participants, because it takes a long time to get good enough at surfing to have fun. Pickleball, on the other hand, rewards casual first-timers.
That’s fine for a hobby, but when we spend our days hassling with our tools, it’s a problem.
As a result of this cycle of Too Busy To Learn, we end up spending our days using software incorrectly and creating frustration. We blame the tools instead of learning to use them.
Don’t hold the hammer at the wrong end. And insist on software that’s worth the time it takes to learn.
Most important, once you find software that’s worth the time to learn, learn it.
Efficiency + Convenience.
Not everything is industrialized. A backyard garden, a freelance editor, even a chef with a hands-on restaurant. These folks are building a practice and producing value, but they haven’t embraced industrialization.
That happens when management steps in, productizes, routinizes and optimizes.
Industrialization produces huge gains in productivity, but it’s also a bit brittle and takes some of the humanity away from the work.
Efficiency first.
And then, convenience. Making it convenient to sub in new parts or new workers. Making it convenient to work with vendors and customers. Any color you want, as long as its black.
Industrialism produces its own rewards, but at the cost of flexibility and side effects.
If three people are coming over for dinner, does that stress you out?
What if it’s 17?
If you’re giving a talk explaining your strategy to four people, does it feel like a high-risk event? What if it’s 54?
How many more people are required before it flips to stressful? Because the last person is just one person.
If you’re performing in an auditorium, there are still only thirty people you can see from the stage.
N + 1 is just 1 more.
You can’t.
That’s because toddlers don’t understand what an argument is and aren’t interesting in having one.
Toddlers (which includes defensive bureaucrats, bullies, flat earthers, folks committed to a specific agenda and radio talk show hosts) may indicate that they’d like to have an argument, but they’re actually engaging in connection, noise, play acting or a chance to earn status. It can be fun to be in opposition, to harangue or even to use power to change someone’s position.
An argument, though, is an exchange of ideas that ought to surface insight and lead to a conclusion.
If you’re regularly having arguments with well-informed people of goodwill, you will probably ‘lose’ half of them–changing your mind based on what you’ve learned. If you’re not changing your mind, it’s likely you’re not actually having an argument (or you’re hanging out with the wrong people.) While it can be fun to change someone else’s position, it’s also a gift to learn enough to change ours.
The toddler puts on a show of having an argument, but they are holding a tantrum in reserve. If they ‘win’ the argument, no tantrum is needed. If they lose, they can tell themselves that they tried but the other person deserved the tantrum because they didn’t listen.
“Tell me about other strongly-held positions you’ve changed as the result of a discussion like this one…” is a direct way to start a conversation about the argument you’re proposing to have. “What sort of information would make it likely you could see this in a different way?”
It probably doesn’t pay to argue over things we have chosen to believe as part of our identity.
In a hurried world with infinite content, it’s worth considering that you’re no longer paid by the word when you write, in fact, you should pay for every extra word you use.
Be as brief as is useful.
It can take seven years to get a PhD.
And a month to write a useful business plan or a year to write a book.
And yet, when AI shows up, our mistake is thinking that if we can’t find useful brilliance in one simple prompt, it’s broken.
Imagine what you could discover and create if you spent an hour focusing on just one piece of output. I’m seeing illustrations, narratives and research that celebrate the hundreds of hours that went into each of them–it feels like years of focused work.
If all that’s needed is the push of a button, we can find someone cheaper than you to push it.
Let’s get rid of science class in school.
Instead, beginning in kindergarten, we could devote a class to curiosity and explanation.
A class that persistently and consistently teaches kids to ask why and to answer how.
The unacceptable single-word answers are “because” and “magic.”
Curiosity is a skill, and it can be taught.
