One common psychological strategy is to set small goals or start slowly. This strategy usually fails because there is no tangible progress despite achieving several small goals . There is a good reason for this.The S curve or logistic function is a useful model to understand why this strategy rarely achieves the desired results
The image is curve
DW was kind enough to draw this scenic for me. Imagine you are sitting at the bottom left with some aspect of your life.The bottom left is a case of budget disaster , being out of shape, being socially inept, being unproductive at work, being uneducated, etc., whatever bothers you. The ultimate goal is to sit at the top right.The upper right is the state of wealth
, being the best you can be, being famous, highly productive, knowing it all, etc. Pick one and call it P. If this is too algebraic for you (and it is for some!), just think “productivity” instead of “P”.It will work if you have a lot of patience, but often this patience is difficult to achieve. The increase in productivity is proportional to current productivity (currently very low to the left) and proportional to the potential for increased productivity (currently very high) . This makes sense primarily because if you are already productive, you can easily become more productive by building on what you already have, and secondly when the potential is high, there is nothing holding you back. Conversely, if your productivity is very high (upper right corner), your potential for further productivity is low (the curve isn’t rising very quickly anymore), and you won’t become more productive despite your efforts (shift to the right). This is the main point of the Pareto Principle and one of its basic principles
4 hour work week
Here’s an equation for the geeks Logistics functionWhat he is saying is that with few resources, the ability to change will be proportional to the resources. This is like compound interest.Compound interest by itself has never made anyone rich. Invest $1 at 8% interest, wait 30 years, and get $10. this is no thing. But invest $100,000 at 8% interest for 30 years and you’ll have $1 million. This is real money. To get anywhere, it is very important to build resources as quickly as possible. Setting small goals in this case is a guaranteed way not to see results too quickly. Conversely, putting in a lot of effort is a guaranteed way to see immediate and growing returns.
Once the base is built, motivation should come automatically . And in the middle of the curve where there is a linear relationship between effort and results. Work more and get more results. Work less and get less results. In other words, this is the stage where extra effort is rewarded more than it was in the beginning. It’s best to get to this stage as quickly as possible, because starting too slow often makes people give up.
As more effort is put in, the productivity ceiling begins to appear due to limits Of resources, customers, responsibilities, market size, etc. Maybe you found yourself with a job description that could be done in 3 hours even though you nominally had to work 8. In that case, you know what I mean about hitting a productivity ceiling. In such a case, it does not make sense to increase work effort by 25% if the return increases by only 5%. In such a situation it is better to start additional projects or look for more responsibility.So here’s the thing.
Almost all projects work like an S-curve running from the bottom left to the top right
. It is important to include this curve in your thinking because it incorporates the ideas of compound growth as well as the law of diminishing returns. Understanding this curve reveals that on a large scale, setting small goals to start won’t accomplish much. Most likely there will be a few weeks of insincere effort and the project will be dropped because it doesn’t seem to make any difference anyway. Instead, work hard at the beginning and continue until the returns become linear (in the middle). Continue as long as you see linear growth. When that growth starts to taper off, it’s time to set different (not bigger) goals instead of continuing to race for very low returns.
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