Tag: action=progress

Outgrind?

MIKE1 Comment

The big idea from Outlive is that most health advice centers around avoidance (smoke in the lungs, sun on the skin, cells overloaded with sugar).

The next chunk of advice centers around basic things: move some, cultivate relationships, eat nutritious foods. It’s two 80/20 systems stacked on each other.

But we think about the last mile because we like to feel like we’re doing something. We like to feel that action is progress.

Pretty good is pretty good.

On his great blog, Justin Skycak writes about this in terms of “grind”.

Think of grinding on a project 50% of the time. If you double that to 100% that’s a 2x increase. What might take two years now takes one. That’s a sizeable change.

But “If you’re pushing 80% of the time, then the multiplier drops to 1.25x. You’re getting fairly close to max capitalization.”

Pretty good is pretty good.

This might be a more optimal situation too because of another idea: you have to be consistent before you can be heroic. I often said this to myself during a lot of Zone 2 training during 2024 (ultimately this worked out for me, I set a PR in the half marathon of 1:32:30).

There’s not a lot of return for grinding away at something all the time relative to most of the time. Like with Outlive’s advice, pretty good is pretty good. And, having the extra wiggle room allows for other things like serendipity and consistency.

The Headspace JTBD

MIKE7 Comments

Headspace, the mindfulness and meditation app had a problem. People came to the app under duress and wanted to feel better. Now. So, Rory Sutherland summarized, people didn’t persist for the long term benefits without a short term win. “That’s fair,” says Dr Clare Purvis. The company had to address the immediate need but also address the long term benefits.

A common idea around here is the Barry Ritholtz refrain: don’t just do something, sit there. The idea is that we equate action with progress but fail to assign inaction to progress too. Usually action=progress is negative, like with poker or architecture. But the action=progress mental model can be used for good. This, I think, is what Headspace did.

“One of the things that we tested,” Purvis pontificated, “was that rather than an eyes closed mindfulness practice was some eyes open embodied practices of stretching and breathing. We saw overwhelming positive responses to these.”

Traditional meditation (🧘‍♂️) doesn’t fit action=progress. But standing or standing and breathing is something. This isn’t sarcasm. I truly believe that part-of-the-reason this worked was because it made people feel like they were addressing the immediate issue.

What’s the job-to-be-done of Headspace? Make me feel better. ‘Embodied’ is action, action is progress. That’s what I want, especially right away.

…

Maybe this applies to marketing trading/investing too. Though less profitable, is it easier to sell action?