we’re often so anxious to Do Something that we Do Too Much, which then makes it harder for us to Do Anything, which makes us anxious…
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2026mar8: why isn’t this idea more intuitive and adopted? I think maybe it’s because Doing Too Much satisfies some other goal, to feel self-satisfied, macho, etc. And why do we do THAT? It’s a kind of cargo-culting, psychological safety seeking?
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this one is a bit counterintuitive: if you’re starting a youtube channel or a blog or something, i believe you shouldn’t put toooo much effort into your first post, because it’ll rarely do as “well” as you might hope. this isn’t even really about you or your work… it’s just sort of the nature of new projects. i’ve seen a surprising number of cases where people get very excited about starting a new project with high production value and then it gets like 100 views / 3 comments, and then they kinda get disheartened and quiet quit.
there are exceptions to this; if you really know what you’re doing then feel free to ignore me and do whatever you think is right, obviously. but if you’re uncertain, it’s better to ship stuff that you didn’t have to suffer to make. ime this is also true of fitness for beginners.
to be updated. (funnily, me not writing more yet, is an example of me doing less)
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couple of days after writing the above post, i had a bolt of clarity about how to deal with my essays, which i’ve been struggling with for years. i basically keep trying to do too much. the difficult thing in this case was figuring out a configuration that I could be okay with, comfortable in, that felt right to present to my readers: