The original article was published on hawstein.com.

preface

Note: we have very little time that is really free to use, and most of it is wasted.

The soundtrack of this month’s summary is “Shangli and Hand-copied volumes”, and the cheerful tone contrasts sharply with this month’s sparse output, which seems somewhat out of place. A meager output? Is there not much left to write in the summary? Not afraid, summary is not enough, reflection to gather.

Work this month

This month, I didn’t work for about two weeks due to something (I went back to my hometown during this period), so the actual working time was about two weeks. During these two weeks, I mainly did the following three things:

  • I made six videos
  • The site has been tweaked slightly
  • Slack Bot added several commands

It’s only two weeks of work, but that’s pretty dismal output.

Asymptote law is best

When I looked at this month’s Event-time Log and saw that I had made only six videos in two weeks, I felt something hit my brain. Because that also means:

He averages three videos a week.

Note that I’m not trying to show off my math skills. = WHAT I want to express is that the output speed is exactly the one I set for myself since the 101st video. I remember it was written on the website at the time: update 3-5 videos per week. The funny thing is, since then, I’ve been producing about three videos a week, and sometimes I’m not, let alone four or five or even seven.

Let’s go back to September 25, 2018, when AlgoCasts went live and only 40 of the 100 videos in Plan 100 were completed. At that time, I put out a video call and wrote it in the Plan 100 notes. In the end, 60 videos were made in 62 days. Although 2 extra days were spent, most of the time I updated one video a day.

After the launch of AlgoCasts, with the completion of Plan 100 as the dividing line, the actual output rate of videos changed from “7 videos per week” to “3 videos per week”, which was basically determined by the goal I set. Based on this, I deduced another high law, called “best asymptote law” :

The goal you set may not be achieved, but it determines your best asymptote.

According to this rule, when I set the goal of “1 video per day”, I may not be able to update a video every day, but looking back at that period, 60 videos in 62 days is pretty close to a video per day. When I decided to “update 3 videos a week,” I really only produced 3 videos. Although I thought I could do more during the week if I had nothing else to do, it never happened. It’s like the goal I’ve set for myself is an asymptote to the best I can do (or the best I’m consciously willing to do). Which brings me to another famous law, Parkinson’s Law:

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

In translation, your work will always be expanded/expanded until it fills up the time allotted to it. For example, a task that can be done in one day will take you three days if you allocate three days to complete it. You might create more completion steps, or spend more time preparing and researching, or incorporate more breaks in between steps, or do unrelated work in between, etc. Parkinson’s law also explains why, when I allocate a week to make three videos, I get three videos a week instead of three in three days. The difference in time allocation also leads to a reordering of priorities in the day. The day demands that the most important thing of the day is to make a video, while the week may turn the most important thing of the day into having chaoshan beef hotpot with a friend you haven’t seen in a long time.

Afterword.

3 videos per week has been going on for several months, I’m not satisfied with the speed, it’s time to make some adjustments.

Finally, I read two books this month: Show Your Work and Keep Going, Austin Kleon’s follow-up to Steal Like An Artist. It’s not quite as stunning as the first time I read Steal Like an Artist, but it’s good enough to recommend.