“If more information was the answer then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs” – Derek Sivers
What better way to start than to discuss one of my recent favorite quotes by Sivers. As some of you may know, I’ve been on paid leave between jobs for a handful of months. And while to some that sounds like the perfect vacation, to have endless time in the world, I’ve realized time and time again the truths behind analysis paralysis and decision fatigue.
Especially in today’s age where information is wholly accessible, and visibility over social media is perceptibly high, I constantly feel a pressure of “should I be doing more” and “why haven’t I started XYZ hobby I’ve been meaning to”. One motion I go through when this happens is going down the YouTube rabbit hole or to subscribe to the Nth learning platform my newsfeed ad hit me with.
“Oh I should learn to get better at chess. Let me spend the next 3 hours lying in my sofa watching the entirety of GothamChess’ channel and wake up every morning playing 2 hours of blitz from my bed before getting up”.
Hyperbole aside, this example is clearly ineffective at actually improving anything. And while mastery is a deeper topic to unpack some other time, a big part of bridging the gap between where we are today and these world-class competitors is deliberate practice. Despite living in a world that cherishes “optimization” towards a goal (e.g. maximizing ELO in chess), the solution to “deliberateness” isn’t maximizing the number of hours you spend over a board or the number of chess lessons you digest. But rather learning how to take one step forward at a time, and even if it feels like you sometimes take two steps back, learning to identify what “marginal” improvement is (which is in itself an important part of moving along the mastery curve) and slowly chipping away at the problem is truly the only sustainable way forward. And for chess, that meant instead of playing blitz, playing longer-term games. And instead of infinitely spamming the “new game” button, restricting my endless time to just 2-3 games a day and truly analyzing and marking down specific takeaways from each one.
Even outside of concrete games like chess, I’ve found this concept applicable to becoming a better investor, how to improve your social circle, and even learning to better process your emotions. More on all these later.
What do you think? Have you applied marginal improvements in other disciplines? Do you disagree entirely with this framework? Send me a message!
Random Musings 