if ___, you’re wasting your time
Allocating energy and other resources effectively.
(3 min read)
Have you ever wished you knew how to skate by, doing the bare minimum?
The concept of the Minimum Effective Dose is something I wish I learned long ago.
Instead, growing up as the oldest of 5 kids (and also the oldest of many cousins on one side of the family and nearly the oldest out of many cousins on the other), I worked my ass off.
Typical for first-borns, I think.
I cared so much about excelling in school and in sports.
My mom even shared her observation with me once:
You’re firing on all cylinders, always striving.
Your brother [the middle child] has a totally different strategy.
He figures out what’s necessary.
He does that and nothing more.I heard her.
But I didn’t really get it.
Let’s explore the lesson I wish I’d learned:
🟢 Tim Ferriss:
The minimum effective dose (MED) is defined simply: the smallest dose that will produce a desired outcome. [...]
Anything beyond the MED is wasteful.
To boil water, the MED is 212°F (100°C) at standard air pressure. Boiled is boiled.
Higher temperatures will not make it “more boiled.”
Higher temperatures just consume more resources that could be used for something else more productive.
🟢 Peter Drucker:
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
🟢 Bruce Lee:
It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.
🟢 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:
Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add but when there is nothing left to take away.
🟢 Tony Robbins:
Complexity is the enemy of execution.
🟢 Albert Einstein:
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
🟢 Vilfredo Pareto:
80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.
🟢 Robert Heinlein:
Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy [people] trying to find easier ways to do something.
🟢 Clarence Bleicher:
I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.
In other words, a lot of my striving was a complete waste.
Waste. What a gut-punch of a concept.
Where can you apply the Minimum Effective Dose?
weight-lifting and other exercising
reading
(language learning is a great example!)
cooking
My meal prep time is measured in seconds. Additional minutes or hours don’t enhance the taste / my satisfaction enough to be worthwhile for me.
decorating / gardening
Do my walls need to be covered in photos for my house to feel like a home? Nope.
managing
E.g. what is the “critical path” in a project
communicating
reviewing / error-checking
showering
You won’t be cleaner by continuing longer. (Although maybe you enjoy showers for other reasons.)
meditating / resting / sleeping
traveling*
and packing!
[and much more…]
*About traveling:
These days, I hate doing unnecessary work.
Probably that’s part of the reason I’m a software engineer.
Automating tasks in a scalable way is really appealing.
I want to achieve leverage.
Efficiency frees us from chores.
We can play and explore.
But keep in mind your own quirks
The term “Minimum Effective Dose” sounds so clinical and austere.
There’s a risk that people hear the term and think that there is some universal right answer.
E.g. “How many workouts should you do per week?”
Well, of course it will depend on your goals.
But there are other considerations beyond goals, too.
For example, I’ve learned about myself that:
streaks and habits and rhythms really matter to me, and:
if the rhythm doesn’t feel right to me, I slip.
My fitness routine comes to mind.
Let’s pretend that studies showed that the “Minimum Effective Dose” was to do 3 fitness sessions per week.
I’ve noticed that a Mon/Wed/Fri cadence doesn’t work for me because the 2 days off for the weekend then make the next Monday so much harder to resume.
Weirdly, I do better if I require myself to do 7/7 days of a routine (even if I don’t like it!) than if I give myself intermittent breaks.
So the MED is something that is personal to you and context-dependent.
What’s appropriate will depend.
When to abandon the Minimum Effective Dose and go all-in
The MED doesn’t apply to all scenarios.
There will be some cases where you want to go all-in.
Because the rewards someone gets for being outstanding far surpass the rewards for being adequate or even excellent.
The Olympics reminds us this every 4 years.
1st place gets the fame and endorsements and opportunities, while 2nd and 3rd place barely get mentioned, and 4th+ place get completely ignored, even if they were 99.9% as excellent as 1st.
Maybe it makes sense for MED to be your default mode, and in special situations you will deliberately strive for outstanding.
Your relationship with your partner or other loved ones would be a great candidate.
What are some areas where you’ve noticed less is more (because of diminishing marginal returns)?
And where have you decided that all-out commitment feels right?
🕙 Recent posts:
🟢 how to convince anyone of anything
🟢 Quick tip that increased my IQ and made me more compassionate
👀 Caught my eye this week:
Things That Don’t Make Sense to Engineers
This is hysterical. He nailed it!
Every night for 15 years, I’ve had these thoughts about pillows.
3m5s video:
The Trouble with Optionality
by Mihir A. Desai in the Harvard Crimson
[…]
This emphasis on creating optionality can backfire in surprising ways. Instead of enabling young people to take on risks and make choices, acquiring options becomes habitual.
You can never create enough option value—and the longer you spend acquiring options, the harder it is to stop.
The Yale undergraduate goes to work at McKinsey for two years, then comes to Harvard Business School, then graduates and goes to work Goldman Sachs and leaves after several years to work at Blackstone. Optionality abounds!
This individual has merely acquired stamps of approval and has acquired safety net upon safety net.
These safety nets don’t end up enabling big risk-taking—individuals just become habitual acquirers of safety nets.
The comfort of a high-paying job at a prestigious firm surrounded by smart people is simply too much to give up.
When that happens, the dreams that those options were meant to enable slowly recede into the background.
For a few, those destinations are in fact their dreams come true—but for every one of those, there are ten entrepreneurs, artists, and restaurateurs that get trapped in those institutions.
Of course, this is not a pitiable outcome.
And in fact, maybe those serial options acquirers are simply masking a deep risk aversion that underlay their affinity for optionality.
Even if not explicitly stated, optionality was always the end rather than a means to an end.
In fairness, these optionality-obsessed professionals often wind up happier than the other type I’ve become accustomed to seeing in my office: the lottery ticket buyers.
These individuals are just one payday away from securing the resources they need to begin their work toward their true ambition, be it political, civic, or familial.
They believe that one Silicon Valley startup or one stint at a hedge fund will allow them to begin their true journey.
While the serial option and lottery ticket buyers seem like different creatures, they are, in fact, close cousins.
Both types postpone their dreams and undertake choices that they think will enable their dreams.
But they fail to understand that all of these intervening choices will change them fundamentally—and they are, in fact, the sum total of those choices.
The shortest distance between two points is reliably a straight line.
If your dreams are apparent to you, pursue them.
Creating optionality and buying lottery tickets are not way stations on the road to pursuing your dreamy outcomes.
They are dangerous diversions that will change you.
[…]
Thanks to James B. for sharing this article.
