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This is silly. You do the routine stuff so that when the "10x" opportunities come, you are fit to execute on them. It's like saying pro athletes shouldn't spend

This is silly. You do the routine stuff so that when the "10x" opportunities come, you are fit to execute on them. It's like saying pro athletes shouldn't spend all that boring time in the gym - just score some points! Maybe the author is trying to point out that it's easy to think that the routine stuff is the ultimate point, which is fair, but I fear (young) people will read this and think (as I used to) that all they have to do is go with the flow and be naturally brilliant.

snarf21 2y ago
Well said. It is much of the "the harder you work, the luckier you get". But with most things, blind execution won't work. Reflection and introspection are needed to shape your ever evolving journey. Do whatever works for you, just do so intentionally!
llamaimperative 2y ago
This characteristic is pervasive in this author's writing, in my opinion. I can't tell if he's willfully missing the obvious underlying truth in order to get contrarian hype clicks or if he really just doesn't notice things like what you're pointing out.
jimbokun 2y ago
If your routine has you spending your time on low impact activities, the "10x opportunities" are unlikely to come at all.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  “Build a routine of useless things” - no one ever “I don’t believe small changes can build to big ones” - lots of people The latter is the much more likely error. Apparently or proximally low-impact routines like exercise, meditation, journaling, reading, etc. are frequently advocated specifically because they are extremely high impact but do not look like they are. Inversely, permanently improv-jazzing through life and frenetically jumping from “high impact activity” to “high impact activity” feels productive, but if you succeed at this you are almost certain to burn yourself out before it really matters. And much more likely is that there really aren’t that many high impact things you can be doing, so what it actually looks like is either 1) waiting for something high impact enough to justify action, which never just comes to you, or 2) shifting your priorities to start treating highly available low-impact things as if they are high impact. In the event you do have a series of high-impact things to do in rapid succession, you’re going to be totally dependent on your routines to sustain that work, so you had better hope you built them prior.

snarf21 2y ago

Well said. It is much of the "the harder you work, the luckier you get". But with most things, blind execution won't work. Reflection and introspection are needed to shape your ever evolving journey. Do whatever works for you, just do so intentionally!

llamaimperative 2y ago

This characteristic is pervasive in this author's writing, in my opinion. I can't tell if he's willfully missing the obvious underlying truth in order to get contrarian hype clicks or if he really just doesn't notice things like what you're pointing out.

jimbokun 2y ago

If your routine has you spending your time on low impact activities, the "10x opportunities" are unlikely to come at all.

llamaimperative 2y ago
“Build a routine of useless things” - no one ever “I don’t believe small changes can build to big ones” - lots of people The latter is the much more likely error. Apparently or proximally low-impact routines like exercise, meditation, journaling, reading, etc. are frequently advocated specifically because they are extremely high impact but do not look like they are. Inversely, permanently improv-jazzing through life and frenetically jumping from “high impact activity” to “high impact activity” feels productive, but if you succeed at this you are almost certain to burn yourself out before it really matters. And much more likely is that there really aren’t that many high impact things you can be doing, so what it actually looks like is either 1) waiting for something high impact enough to justify action, which never just comes to you, or 2) shifting your priorities to start treating highly available low-impact things as if they are high impact. In the event you do have a series of high-impact things to do in rapid succession, you’re going to be totally dependent on your routines to sustain that work, so you had better hope you built them prior.