Maximise the reward-to-effort ratio
A description of how I approach work, and the energy spent on it.
I was too lazy to work for an A in most university modules.
We don’t want to have the maximum reward, because sometimes, the maximum reward takes too much effort.
Consider a generic task, which progress can be measured. That in itself is quite rare, because we are susceptible to changing the goalpost of completion. The first 70% takes a short time to finish, but the next 20% takes twice as long, and the next 5% takes even longer.
What we want practically is to maximise the reward-to-effort ratio. Start asking yourself: Where do I want to stop? Is more effort worth the benefit? How much does this feature improve the outcome? What does ‘done’ look like? Achieve that.
This is something I have adopted as a core operating principle. Am I being lazy? Maybe. At the end of the day, if I can achieve what is important to me, does it matter?