Speed matters

The obvious benefit to working quickly is that you’ll finish more stuff per unit time. But there’s more to it than that. If you work quickly, the cost of doing something new will seem lower in your mind. So you’ll be inclined to do more.

The converse is true, too. If every time you write a blog post it takes you six months, and you’re sitting around your apartment on a Sunday afternoon thinking of stuff to do, you’re probably not going to think of starting a blog post, because it’ll feel too expensive.

What’s worse, because you blog slowly, you’re liable to continue blogging slowly—simply because the only way to learn to do something fast is by doing it lots of times.

This is true of any to-do list that gets worked off too slowly. A malaise creeps into it. You keep adding items that you never cross off. If that happens enough, you might one day stop putting stuff onto the list.

When I face a seemingly trivial task, I have two options: tackle it promptly or dismiss it. In managing my to-do lists, I use two distinct categories.

The first contains updates and tasks accumulated throughout the day, a list that I discard as the page nears its capacity. When starting a new page, I transfer any remaining unfinished tasks from the previous list.

The second type of list is dedicated to long-term objectives as well as ideas for future undertakings. Occasionally, I read through these lists, though no immediate action is required.

A fundamental principle governs the first category: any addition demands action; otherwise, it has no place on the list.

The prescription must be that if there’s something you want to do a lot of and get good at—like write, or fix bugs—you should try to do it faster.

I find this motto quite appealing: strive to complete tasks swiftly in order to cultivate a sense of productivity.