Productivity

We tend to assume that a perfectly efficient system has no slack.

But in order to maintain optimum efficiency, a little bit of slack is important for whenever the unexpected inevitably happens.

The current supply chain issues are a great illustration of this. A system designed to manufacture goods just in time for consumption (in order to reduce storage costs) is really brittle. If a pandemic strikes, or a ship gets stuck in one of the most important canals, there’s no slack to handle the interruption.

This globalized system of interdependent logistics and production companies quickly starts to fall apart.

The same is true for how you spend your time. If you are booked every minute of the day, you have little flexibility to adapt if something unexpected happens. By maintaining some unscheduled time, you free yourself to more easily pursue a sudden opportunity or troubleshoot a surprising challenge.

And so we’re left with a paradox: A system with slack built into it may seem less efficient, but its resilience helps it win in the long run.

The quickest way to transport a petabyte of data (that's 1,000 terabytes) from Boston to LA isn't to upload it to Dropbox and email someone a download link. It's just too much data.

The quickest way is to copy it to a bunch of hard drives, drop them in a physical box, and ship them on a plane.

This is known as sneakernet. Sometimes, the old way of doing things is best.

This a useful heuristic for exploring the solution to any problem. Progress often falls into one of two categories: An old solution to a new problem, as in our sneakernet example, or a new solution to an old problem.

The automobile was a new solution (cars!) to an old problem (getting from point A to point B quickly). But new solutions bring new problems. With cars came air and noise pollution, fatal injuries from crashes, and more.

So in response, we created mufflers, added seatbelts and airbags, and otherwise continued to innovate to minimize the downsides of this new solution.

And so the cycle of progress continues.

A useful question to ask yourself when deciding whether or not to change something: "How hard will it be to reverse this decision if it turns out to be incorrect?"

So many of the decisions we make are easily reversed, and yet it's easy to ignore that the cost of changing them down the road are often small. Because of this, it makes sense to iterate constantly, because incremental progress is extremely powerful.

The Japanese philosophy Kaizen embodies this approach. The idea is simple: Consistent, incremental changes can lead to significant improvements over time.

In the business world, where the concept originates (most famously in Toyota's approach to its production system), Kaizen also emphasizes the role that everyone in the organization's hiearchy plays in its improvement.

When we engage all of the stakeholders affected by a problem in the process of incrementally solving it through trial and error, we embrace our humanity and expand what we're capable of.

As humans, we tend to overestimate what we’re capable of accomplishing in a small amount of time and underestimate what’s possible over a much longer period.

On top of this, seeing our true progress is often challenging. For example, increasing the conversion rate on your ad from 1% to 2% is not a 1% improvement, it’s a 100% improvement.

Moving from a 20 pound weight at the gym to 25 pounds may also seem like a modest increase, but if you can get the same number of reps in, you’re now 25% stronger.

And if you can write just 3 pages a day, you’ll have the draft of an entire book manuscript in two months.

Start small, and don’t stop iterating.

See also: Kaizen

Following up on yesterday's post about strategies vs. tactics, here's a cyclist who stops pedaling to pass the competition:

Tactic: Pedal faster.

Strategy: Stop pedalling entirely and let physics do the work.

See also: Reduce Friction
Via Seth Godin

It's easy to fall into the trap of prioritizing tactics over strategy. A tactic is a tool for getting something that you want, but it's only useful to you if your broader strategy is solid.

If you’re applying for a job, it’s easy to get caught up in the process of editing your resume. But a resume is just a tactic, and your longer term strategy might be to not need a resume at all — to have such a great portfolio of work and such a strong network that opportunities come to you instead.

Or if you're a competitive runner, worrying about which shoes to wear won't help you if you're running in the wrong direction. The person walking barefoot is going to win every time.

Tactics are seductive, though. And there are many people out there who would like to sell you on the idea that they have one easy trick that will get you to where you want to go.

But getting anywhere worth going doesn't happen overnight. It happens when you get your strategy correct and implement it by relentlessly taking incremental steps.

In the words of Steven Wright, "Everything is within walking distance if you have the time."

Having a good sense of direction helps too.