Woven Pixels

Rubber meet Road

I value people who commit to the task at hand.

I'm talking about the plumber, electrician or carpenter who is so focused on their work that they don't hear a car crash outside. The car crash matters, but not to them, not in that moment.

Or the musician, surprised by the rising sun disturbing a session meant to end at 9:00 PM.

Or sleeping coders whose riddles dance and resolve in their dreams. Who jump out of bed and to the keyboard to see if it will really work.

Great talent or skill isn't required to possess this focus. Commitment to the job at hand is all that is required.

Find the thing that makes you feel committed, then work at it.

A lot.

Tire Pressure

This is a direct lift from Seth Godin's The Dip. Highly recommended.

Have you ever had to blow up a pool toy with your own breathe? If you have, you will have noticed two things:

1. The first thousand or so blows are useless. At no point during the first thousand blows does the piece of plastic resemble something that would be fun in a pool.

2. The last fifteen blows are terrific, each one making the toy bigger and more fun to use in the water.

Imagine your current passion or project as that pool toy. What happens if you quit after seven hundred and fifty blows?

After seven hundred and fifty blows you have nothing to show for your effort. That sucks.

However, the last fifteen blows leverage all of the previous effort.

The obvious lesson here, some variation on "don't give up", misses the point.

More important for your personal joy is choosing projects carefully. Try to figure out how long and how hard you are going to have to blow before you have a toy that floats.

If you don't have the resources or time to get through those first thousand plus blows, pick a different project.

Here is another riff on this theme, targeting the power of persistence over technique, and the power of exponential growth curves.