Arts professor announced grading scheme: A+ for one perfect clay cup at the end of the term or A+ for 100 clay cups of any quality. What will you do?
It is the eternal question of "Quality" Vs. "Quantity".
At the end of the term, counterintuitively all the best quality clay cups were produced by the quantity group.
The quantity group rolled up their sleeves and immediately started producing clay cups, each cup was better than the previous. Iterating and learning inevitably led to high quality 100th cup.
Meanwhile, the quality group spent all the time waiting for inspiration, thinking and debating about perfection. In the end, there was nothing to show.
I have learnt some great lessons from this story, lets dig deeper.
Quantity - There is no point in doing unless one understands the difference between Iteration and repetition. Iteration results in marginally better outcome than the previous one whilst repetition is doing the same thing over and over. Step back and "Think" before you start doing stuff.
Quality - Thinking does not produce any result unless you are willing to roll up your sleeves and test your thinking by doing. As the old saying goes - "one cannot learn to swim by reading a book or thinking about it". Perfect is the enemy of good.
One cannot exist without the other and there is no perfect formula - Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos can flex between thinking and doing as the situation warrants. Thomas Edison was the master of iterative thinking - "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work".
Truth be told, I was waiting for the perfect moment for a long time thinking about writing. I soon realised there is no such thing as a perfect moment - the goal is to iterate and improve every time.
Note:
The grading scheme is a real story - it was Professor Jerry Uelsmann's creative photography course grading scheme at University of Florida. This study is quoted in many books.
Going back to first principles - metaphorically speaking Homo Sapiens are probably clay cup no.30 with infinite more evolutionary iterations to follow...
so, what are you waiting for?
You can read my writings at view all blogs.