Opportunity Cost

A practical definition of opportunity cost:

If you spend too much time working on good things, then you don’t have much time left to work on great things.

Understanding opportunity cost means eliminating good uses of time. And that's what makes it hard.

— James Clear (@JamesClear) February 1, 2020

I would venture to guess that most of us have too many commitments. By that I mean that we are involved in too many good things to the point that we don't have enough opportunity to focus on things that are the most important in our lives. It's an easy trap to fall into and one that can be difficult to climb out of. Here's a simple exercise that can help you eliminate the less great uses of your time. Write down each of your commitments on a Post-it Note. Stick the notes up somewhere where you can see them all. Then examine each commitment and decide whether it is truly the best use of your time. My guess is that you will end up eliminating a number of things that you are doing right now. Those things might truly be good things but not necessarily the best use of your time. It's hard to say no particularly when there can be a wealth of good opportunities available to you. But by being willing to say no to good things you open yourself up to having the opportunity to pursuing great things. Recommended related reading: Essentialism - The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Gregory McKeown.

Daily Links 5-5-14

Good morning. Here are a few links to start off your week. In today's edition: failure and fostering success, things I wish I knew as a college student, the best time of day to do anything, and more.

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This is an interesting quote from Pixar Studios co-founder Ed Catmull on failure:

We need to think about failure differently. I’m not the first to say that failure, when approached properly, can be an opportunity for growth. But the way most people interpret this assertion is that mistakes are a necessary evil. Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new (and, as such, should be seen as valuable; without them, we’d have no originality). And yet, even as I say that embracing failure is an important part of learning, I also acknowledge that acknowledging this truth is not enough. That’s because failure is painful, and our feelings about this pain tend to screw up our understanding of its worth. To disentangle the good and the bad parts of failure, we have to recognize both the reality of the pain and the benefit of the resulting growth. 

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Interesting history: how the King James Bible came about.

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This is a fascinating list: 20 things I wish I knew as a college student. I am sure that if I had known at least a few of these things I would have gotten much more from the whole college experience. (Hat tip: Aaron Armstrong)

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Once again, science proves something useful: taking notes by hand is more effective than taking notes on a computer.

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More great reading: finding the opportunity in every obstacle.

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Some useful suggestions on the best time of day to do anything.

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This is cool: a few minutes of footage from the 1919 World Series.

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Quote of the week: