Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

> At semester's end, all the best photos came from the quantity group.

The quantity group learned something that cannot be taught: that excellence emerges from intimacy with imperfection, that mastery is built through befriending failure, that the path to creating one perfect thing runs directly through creating many imperfect things.

This reminded me of Roger Federer, who has won 82% of all matches but only 54% of all points.

I really enjoyed this article and also believe that in many cases doing is superior to planning.

Just a word of caution: the author doesn’t account for cost. All examples given are relatively low-cost and high-frequency: drawing pictures, taking photos, writing blog posts.

The cost-benefit ratio of simply doing changes when costs increase.

Quitting your high-paid job to finally start the startup you’ve been dreaming of is high-cost and rather low-frequency.

I don’t want to discourage anyone from doing these things, but it’s obvious to me that the cost/frequency aspect shouldn’t be neglected.

That's a really important point, and I completely agree. This perspective reminds me of an excellent book I recently read, How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner.

This book focuses on extremely high-cost "megaprojects" and emphasizes the critical importance of thorough "planning" before execution. This stands in stark contrast to the low-risk creative activities discussed in the article, which makes the point about cost even more compelling.

However, rather than being a complete counter-argument, I see a significant overlap. The book advocates *for low-risk, low-cost experimentation and creative exploration during the planning phase* through methods like miniature prototyping and CAD simulations. In this sense, both the article and the book highlight the value of iterative approaches, whether it's through frequent, small-scale actions or through meticulous, low-cost trials before committing to high-cost endeavors.