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The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

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Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#121

Post by ghaff »

armoredkitten wrote: post #64
cweill wrote: post #27

I'm taking a course on how to build and grow a YouTube channel. The main advice they give is "just commit to making a video once a week, every week, for 2 years, and you're life will change." It's a tautology, no guarantees on how well your channel will do, but it's such a simple idea, and nice motivator to build momentum and keep going.

Tom Scott's 3-part series (on YouTube) a few years back on "How to be popular on the Internet"[0] has similar advice. There are higher-cost and lower-cost ideas, but given the amount of randomness inherent to getting popular, quantity tends to be the more important factor. He of course says it much better than I can. [0] URL of first part here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0AMaW4XRCI

It can also be really hard to judge quality (or at least popularity) a priori. I write for various publications that track traffic. Invariably I'll have posts I think are unique and interesting, which I really like. And they get middling views.

So it often makes sense to not tilt too far into finely-crafting a low volume of work. Then I'll slap something together a "5 things people get wrong when doing $X." It's not bad but it's pretty cookie cutter. And it will blow up.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#122

Post by nemo44x »

kjerzyk wrote: post #84
spideymans wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Knowledge usually works like this. When I first got into home cooking a few years ago, the learning process was painfully slow. It must've taken several attempts spread across a week just to learn how to make basic scrambled eggs the "proper" way. Now after a few years of experience, every ingredient I learn to work with seemingly unlocks a dozen more dishes that I can easily assemble. The rate of learning accel…

Would you mind sharing what you used to learn cooking? My main struggle is recipe books that teach you the recipe rather than cooking. But I'd love to learn HOW to cook, not WHAT to cook.

The book "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" is fairly modern still but also considered a classic by many. The entire goal of the book is to break cooking down to these aspects.

Another person in this thread mentioned the Master Classes with Gordon Ramsey and Thomas Keller and I can concur that both of those are really great in teaching technique that is reusable across just about anything you cook.

Cooking is pretty easy once you get enough of it under your belt and are confident with different techniques. It's also quite liberating as many things go with each other and it isn't a mystery if something will work. You can begin to target "profiles" you want your food to take on.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#123

Post by niklasd »

asquabventured wrote: post #103
kjerzyk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind sharing what you used to learn cooking? My main struggle is recipe books that teach you the recipe rather than cooking. But I'd love to learn HOW to cook, not WHAT to cook.

The food lab by j Kenji Lopez alt is another cooking book (with lots of recipes) that really helps you understand why and what you are doing rather than just telling you a process to follow. Highly recommend anything Kenji does (previously he was the main force behind seriouseats.com) and also does a lot of first person point of view cooking videos on YouTube where he explains why he is doing things while he is doing…

Second that! He has a very scientific approach, sampling various ways (cooking dishes in six different ways, comparing them), which makes it far easier to understand why something is done that way.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#124

Post by brm »

Everyone always writes these and yet I've seen very few ever talk about how to decide what's worth showing up for or how to get a working hypothesis of an animating principle for your own existence. It'd be remarkably useful to have a working framework for how to figure out what to want, especially targeted at smart people with top level talents in several areas.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#125

Post by azinman2 »

kjerzyk wrote: post #84
spideymans wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Knowledge usually works like this. When I first got into home cooking a few years ago, the learning process was painfully slow. It must've taken several attempts spread across a week just to learn how to make basic scrambled eggs the "proper" way. Now after a few years of experience, every ingredient I learn to work with seemingly unlocks a dozen more dishes that I can easily assemble. The rate of learning accel…

Would you mind sharing what you used to learn cooking? My main struggle is recipe books that teach you the recipe rather than cooking. But I'd love to learn HOW to cook, not WHAT to cook.

I learned a lot by watching way too much food network. After a while your brain starts picking up on the design patterns.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#126

Post by _hao »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #94

I feel like this notion is complete trash if you want to be anything but mediocre. In IT, I constantly have to work OT and take on challenging projects to advance and improve. This has NOTHING in common with showing up and closing tickets, which I can easily do with existing knowledge. Same with the gym - I constantly have to change up the routine, adjust to injuries, think about diet, etc. That's not even talking ab…

I'd say the manner in which you use the time is as important as the habit itself. It's not "practice makes perfect", but "perfect practice makes perfect" etc.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#127

Post by nemo44x »

dominotw wrote: post #107
Multiplayer wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend Masterclass to get into cooking. The Gordon Ramsey and Thomas Keller videos jumpstarted me into serious cooking last year. 10/10 would recommend.

is it worth the price. seems a overpriced for the content.

Those courses are in my opinion.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#128

Post by neural_thing »

deeviant wrote: post #79

This type of sentiment generally makes me feel that literally nobody understands why business work or don't. I remember pitching the idea of a fantasy financial league to a friend who is a teacher, as a way of teaching kids about the stock market and finance. His reply instantly gelled with me and let me know they actually understood much more than I about both teaching and finance: He said it will teach exactly the…

Is it necessarily the wrong lesson?

Stanley Druckenmiller: my risk management strategy is to put all of my eggs into one basket and watch it very closely.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#129

Post by Damogran6 »

spideymans wrote: post #69
munificent wrote: post #40

I've written two books over the past decade as well as learning some other skills and hobbies and this is absolutely the most vital lesson I've learned. There is an incredible power in simply pouring a little time into something every day over a long period of time. It feels like a superpower when you see it start compounding. The Grand Canyon was created by little drops of water bouncing off rocks for millenia. Cons…

Yup. Knowledge usually works like this. When I first got into home cooking a few years ago, the learning process was painfully slow. It must've taken several attempts spread across a week just to learn how to make basic scrambled eggs the "proper" way. Now after a few years of experience, every ingredient I learn to work with seemingly unlocks a dozen more dishes that I can easily assemble. The rate of learning accel…

The number of domains of knowledge that are effectively infinite are compounding...this thought tends to make me hyperventilate if I think about it too much.

It was very important to me to be smart so that people looked positively at me, now that I'm getting older, I'm having a hard time letting that go as I know more and more about less and less.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#130

Post by neural_thing »

neural_thing wrote: post #128
deeviant wrote: post #79

This type of sentiment generally makes me feel that literally nobody understands why business work or don't. I remember pitching the idea of a fantasy financial league to a friend who is a teacher, as a way of teaching kids about the stock market and finance. His reply instantly gelled with me and let me know they actually understood much more than I about both teaching and finance: He said it will teach exactly the…

Is it necessarily the wrong lesson? Stanley Druckenmiller: my risk management strategy is to put all of my eggs into one basket and watch it very closely.

For those who don't know: Druck compounded capital at over 30% for 30 years. Never had a down year.
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