Quantity leads to quality

TJL #95

Welcome new readers!

Today Jan Learned (TJL) is a newsletter where I share interesting tidbits from the self-help books that I read.

To get these delivered straight to your email, subscribe here!

---

This is a story about how quantity leads to quality.

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

Brilliant.

By learning from their mistakes and iterating on their designs the quantity group was able to produce far higher quality work than those in the quality group.

I actually experienced this myself. A while ago I made a video about a hackathon that I participated in. The first version was really bad, yet I showed it to some people and got some feedback on it. Then I incorporated that feedback and made another version. I did this several times and in the end the video that I put on YouTube looked nothing like the first version.

I’m not claiming the video is any good, but it sure was a heck of a lot better than the previous three versions!

Your first work is going to suck. And that’s fine! Create! Make! Ship! Then listen to the feedback you get and do it all over again. Do it. Redo it. Do it again. Quantity leads to quality.

Previous TJLs

Read my previous TJLs by following on the links down below:

• TJL #1: How to conduct a weekly review

• TJL #2: How to set up a StackNavigator in React-native

• TJL #3: Money is not wealth

• TJL #4: You get rich by owning things

• TJL #5: How to not be overwhelmed

• TJL #6: How to remember the difference between margin and padding

• TJL #7: According to Jeff Bezos there are two types of failure

• TJL #8: A stupid coding mistake

• TJL #9: Akrasia

• TJL #10: How to set goals like Google

• TJL #11: How to write great copy for your startup product

• TJL #12: How to change font in React

• TJL #13: Civilisation advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them

• TJL #14: The Motivation-Skill Dichotomy

• TJL #15: No plan is also a plan

• TJL #16: How to understand difficult code

• TJL #17: How to write self-help books

• TJL #18: The power of precommitment

• TJL #19: Reflections on my first remote project (part 1)

• TJL #20: Reflections on my first remote project (part 2)

• TJL #21: Three small things

• TJL #22: Building Wedje (part 1)

• TJL #23: Building Wedje (part 2)

• TJL #24: Obscurity is good

• TJL #25: Zettelkasten method

• TJL #26: Use a checkbox (Daily Productivity #1)

• TJL #27: Be aware of the spotlight effect (Daily productivity #2)

• TJL #28: Start with the upper-left hand brick (Daily Productivity #3)

• TJL #29: It doesn’t matter where you take it from, what matters is where you take it to (Daily productivity #4)

• TJL #30: Start with writing your README (Daily productivity #5)

• TJL #31: Work with an outline (Daily productivity #6)

• TJL #32: Use active recall (Daily productivity #7)

• TJL #33: Use quadrants (Daily productivity #8)

• TJL #34: How to get started (Daily productivity #9)

• TJL #35: Use the Pomodoro technique (Daily productivity #10)

• TJL #36: How to handle your negative feelings (Daily productivity #11)

• TJL #37: Imagine the work, not the reward (Daily productivity #12)

• TJL #38: Separate your writing from editing (Daily productivity #13)

• TJL #39: Make it visual (Daily productivity #14)

• TJL #40: Make it pleasurable (Daily productivity #15)

• TJL #41: Don't be ashamed to ask for help (Daily productivity #16)

• TJL #42: Block all distractions (Daily productivity #17)

• TJL #43: Don't expect perfection (Daily productivity #18)

• TJL #44: Sweep up every day (Daily productivity #19)

• TJL #45: Make fewer decisions (Daily productivity #20)

• TJL #46: Copy the greats (Daily productivity #21)

• TJL #47: Play some office music (Daily productivity #22)

• TJL #48: Focus on interests, not positions (Daily productivity #23)

• TJL #49: Eat your own dogfood (Daily productivity #24)

• TJL #50: Delete all your code (Daily productivity #25)

• TJL #51: Keep a (dis)traction list (Daily productivity #26)

• TJL #52: Don't be scared to fail (Daily productivity #27)

• TJL #53: Don't underline (Daily productivity #28)

• TJL #54: Change your font to Comic Sans (Daily productivity #29)

• TJL #55: Be more coachable (Daily productivity #30)

• TJL #56: Batch your tasks (Daily productivity #31)

• TJL #57: Stop forgetting things (Daily productivity #32)

• TJL #58: Manage your time proactively (Daily productivity #33)

• TJL #59: Limit what you save (Daily productivity #34)

• TJL #60: Think of future you (Daily productivity #35)

• TJL #61: Build momentum (Daily productivity #36)

• TJL #62: Make flashcards as you go (Daily productivity #37)

• TJL #63: Never give up (Daily productivity #38)

• TJL #64: Motivate yourself with these two questions (Daily productivity #39)

• TJL #65: Ask validating questions (Daily productivity #40)

• TJL #66: You can do it (Daily productivity #41)

• TJL #67: Set aside time to think (Daily productivity #42)

• TJL #68: Take a walk (Daily productivity #43)

• TJL #69: Some things are up to us and some are not up to us (Daily productivity #44)

• TJL #70: Life is like picking shells on the beach (Daily productivity #45)

• TJL #71: Internalise your desires (Daily productivity #46)

• TJL #72: Watch your step (Daily productivity #47)

• TJL #73: Don't say, be (Daily productivity #48)

• TJL #74: Serenity prayer (Daily productivity #49)

• TJL #75: Solve the right problem (Daily productivity #50)

• TJL #76: Tell yourself this in the morning (Daily productivity #51)

• TJL #77: Even Marcus Aurelius struggled with distraction (Daily productivity #52)

• TJL #78: It’s Not As Unfortunate As It Seems (Daily productivity #53)

• TJL #79: Everything is just an impression (Daily productivity #54)

• TJL #80: It’s Not As Unfortunate As It Seems (Daily productivity #55)

• TJL #81: Talk about your problems (Daily productivity #56)

• TJL #82: Everything is change (Daily productivity #57)

• TJL #83: There is no harm in change (Daily productivity #58)

• TJL #84: How to think about your possessions (Daily productivity #59)

• TJL #85: The View From Above

• TJL #86: Nothing is original

• TJL #87: Don't get upset. Do the right thing

• TJL #88: Fig Trees, Intentions, and Elephants

• TJL #89: Write work instructions for yourself

• TJL #90: The obstacle is the way

• TJL #91: Spec your work

• TJL #92: Yeet the cucumber

• TJL #93: Simple is better than complex (how the Russians outsmarted the Americans)

• TJL #94: Our attention span is shortening