Thoughts of a Mad Man

Blocked: The difference between Aims and Standards

It's been my experience that rattling things off in the roughly proper order, madlibbing things, often creates surprising success. The first thought is that this means I have an unlimited supply of rough drafts that I could then choose the best from.





In practice I've had a different result.





What actually happens is that I do the procedure a few times and am shocked at how well they turn out on the rough draft. How little they need to be a presentable scrap.


Then by the third or fourth iteration my expectations rise and I find myself terrified to proceed. Something comes out that is not to my standards and I find myself quitting.


The thing that seems to be at issue is that I have raised standards rather than tightening my aim. In any endeavor, 1/5th of your efforts will be 16x as good as the rest. This is the Paretto principe, and while difficult to quantify, it is good to realize that the majority of our efforts will not produce as easily or as satisfyingly. The striding is easy to see the value of, but the experience of the slog–that 1/16th power work–enables us to learn HOW we produce what needs to be done.


Of course we may learn to go into the stride range more often, but it is wise to consider that even with this improved skill we will still have a similar eighty twenty distribution.


So in order to succeed, one needs to accept that slogging (read: blocked) work is perhaps more valuable than the stride (read: inspired).





In addition to the difference between a slog and a stride, one needs to also look at the difference between an aim and a standard. The difference is simple: an aim tells you what to do but does not tell you how to identify failure; a standard also tells you what to do but is primarily concerned with categorizing whether a thing is a success or failure. Therefore, it is wise to have low standards at the outer ring of your aim that are nearly always achievable, while at the same time maintaining the highest possible aim.





Example: I would like this to be a bestseller and a classic quoted a thousand years from now (Aim) but I have succeeded so long as I keep my fingers near the keys and type whatever I think. This allows us to continue by feeling good about participation while still stimulating the pursuit of high goals. This means you are more likely to continue through a block, and far more likely to learn from it.