Aim for quantity, not quality

What's the best way to master something?

There was once a pottery teacher who decided to split his class into two groups. The "quantity" group had to make as many pieces as possible throughout the year. The "quality" group had to spend their year creating one perfect piece of pottery.

By the end of the year, the quality group created one near-perfect piece. The quantity group made a lot of pottery, and most of them were bad. The ones they did at the start were feeble, but their works later got even better.

When asked about how their pieces improved, they said they didn't know why. They focused on churning out one piece after another.

The teacher then took the last piece they made and compared it to the one near-perfect piece. What's surprising is that the first piece was nowhere as good as the last piece made by the "quantity" group.

This story is why it's essential to focus on quantity when you're learning something new.

Don't let perfection get in the way of progress.

If you want to get better at something, put in your reps.

• Want to write better? Write 100 articles.
• Are you learning tennis? Play 100 matches.
• Learning the guitar? Play 1000 songs.
  

When you practice so many times, you're bound to get good at it. It's impossible to write 100 articles and not get 1 or 2 golden ones. Each repetition also gives you feedback on your work and further improves it.

I'm trying to do something similar with my writing. I decided to up my quantity game and write every day for a month to improve my writing. I've been writing weekly-ish before this, but I wanted to level up and produce more.

Research shows that the more you create, the more creative you become. Instead of taking a month to write an article, write several articles in a month. Aim for a B+ quality and an A+ consistency.

I'm not satisfied with my articles’ quality, but I'm focusing on putting in the reps for now. And I can say it's gotten better since my first post.

The trick to mastering anything is to take action and put in the reps. You can become successful without knowing what you are doing. You can also become successful without talent. But you can't achieve success without taking action.