Wasted motion and power saps your time, energy, and motivation. It obscures your vision. It creates unnecessary risk. It decreases your awareness and adaptability.
Examples from my own life: - Teach kids to self-assess using an explicit rubric, instead of delivering feedback yourself every step of the way.
- Move slower and use the minimum power possible when doing chores.
- Jog more slowly and stay in zone 2, where you feel like you can go forever.
- Determine the smallest software performance test scale that makes the issue you’re trying to resolve reliably apparent.
- Resolve as much uncertainty as you can about new software features through separately scripted spikes before attempting to orchestrate them in the full codebase.
- Invest passively in index funds.
- Strip down presentations and pause a few seconds after most sentences. That lets the message sink in, gives you space to decide if you need to say more, and gives the audience a chance to respond if you’re not addressing their confusion effectively.