A realization I’ve had lately: practically anything that’s great in the world is that way only through constant attention and care—e.g. great products, yards, marriages, companies, friendships. If left alone, practically everything defaults toward mediocrity at best or ruin at worst. “Constant attention and care” always requires time and this is a large part of the challenge—it is costly and limited. Nobody can do this with everything and the bigger the thing is, the more bandwidth it requires. It’s a struggle.
However, on the positive side, a state of constant attention and care compounds over time. So the length of time doing this ends up being extremely meaningful. Consider many years of a fertile environment for a product, yard, marriage, company, or friendship. It grows into something that is especially hard to replicate or replace. This is why long-term thinking and decision-making are so powerful, hard, and infrequent. It’s one of the core reasons I love building a company and product over the course of many years and why it’s so challenging yet fulfilling at the same time. I feel the same way about marriage and parenting. In the end, I believe all the difficulty is worth it because creating and sustaining great, enduring, and thriving things is one of the most worthy endeavors in life. In work and in all of life, here’s to selecting those few “constant attention and care” things wisely and to having the commitment and persistence that’s needed to stick with it.
A realization I’ve had lately: practically anything that’s great in the world is that way only through constant attention and care—e.g. great products, yards, marriages, companies, friendships. If left alone, practically everything defaults toward mediocrity at best or ruin at worst. “Constant attention and care” always requires time and this is a large part of the challenge—it is costly and limited. Nobody can do this with everything and the bigger the thing is, the more bandwidth it requires. It’s a struggle. However, on the positive side, a state of constant attention and care compounds over time. So the length of time doing this ends up being extremely meaningful. Consider many years of a fertile environment for a product, yard, marriage, company, or friendship. It grows into something that is especially hard to replicate or replace. This is why long-term thinking and decision-making are so powerful, hard, and infrequent. It’s one of the core reasons I love building a company and product over the course of many years and why it’s so challenging yet fulfilling at the same time. I feel the same way about marriage and parenting. In the end, I believe all the difficulty is worth it because creating and sustaining great, enduring, and thriving things is one of the most worthy endeavors in life. In work and in all of life, here’s to selecting those few “constant attention and care” things wisely and to having the commitment and persistence that’s needed to stick with it.
When assessing your progress on producing things of real value (the best path to building a rewarding and well-rewarded life), consider your own capacity for hard focus. Most important accomplishments boil down to this single, often overlooked ability.
Cal Newport • On the Value of Hard Focus - Cal Newport
I met a social worker whose job was to look after four orphaned children. She’d alternate with her coworkers spending 24 hours at a time living with the kids, effectively acting as their parent. The children, unsurprisingly, had a lot of trauma and so her job was certainly not an easy one, but she found it deeply rewarding and she
... See moreThe problem is that when you focus on what is truly important, something will always be underserved. No matter how hard you try, there will always be things left undone at the end of your day, week, month, year, and life.
Gary Keller • The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results: Achieve your goals with one of the world's bestselling success books
It took me a while to fully realize the value of something my company achieved years ago, and continues to savor today. It’s one of our greatest quiet advantages, full stop.
It’s not something you hear much about in business circles. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone spend much time on the topic, or even bring it up in convers... See more
Care Doesn’t Scale
I met a social worker whose job was to look after four orphaned children. She’d alternate with her coworkers spending 24 hours at a time living with the kids, effectively acting as their parent. The children, unsurprisingly, had a lot of trauma and so her job was certainly not an easy one, but she found it deeply rewarding and she
... See more