Best practices are rarely the best — they're mostly just cargo cult common practices.
And as more people adopt them, the more mediocre they become.
The best is usually what most people aren't willing to do.
Best practices are rarely the best — they're mostly just cargo cult common practices. And as more people adopt them, the more mediocre they become. The best is usually what most people aren't willing to do.
So in this post I’m going to reject the commonly accepted wisdom and look at why specializing is hard, why it fails and what an alternative path looks like. The answer lies in developing strong opinions and a distinctive vibe.
tomcritchlow.com • Rejecting Specialization
Sixian and added
“If you never copy best practices, you’ll have to repeat all the mistakes yourself.
If you only copy best practices, you’ll always be one step behind the leaders.”
If you only copy best practices, you’ll always be one step behind the leaders.”
James Clear • 3-2-1: On copying best practices, being underestimated, and the difficulty of change | James Clear
In performance cultures, people often become attached to best practices. The risk is that once we’ve declared a routine the best, it becomes frozen in time. We preach about its virtues and stop questioning its vices, no longer curious about where it’s imperfect and where it could improve.
Adam Grant • Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know
every best practice should come with a reminder to reconsider.
Jason Fried • It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work
Unless you’ve actually done the work, you’re in no position to encode it as a best practice.
Jason Fried • It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work
Success requires shamelessness. So too does failure. Doing something different means you might underperform, but it also means you might change the game entirely. If you do what everyone else does, you’ll get the same results that everyone else gets.[*] Best practices aren’t always the best. By definition, they’re average.
Shane Parrish • Clear Thinking
Once you have many people doing something, you have lots of competition and little differentiation. You, generally, never want to be part of a popular trend… So I think trends are often things to avoid. What I prefer over trends is a sense of mission. That you are working on a unique problem that people are not solving elsewhere.
David Perell • Peter Thiel’s Religion
There are some kinds of work that you can't do well without thinking differently from your peers.
bad time • How to Think for Yourself
Ajinkya Wadhwa and added