Quantity Over Quality
Metadata
- Author: Ali Abdaal
- Full Title: Quantity Over Quality
- Category:articles
- Published Date: 2020-11-23
- Summary: The author emphasizes the importance of quantity over quality in creative endeavors like YouTube videos. Using a pottery class example, he shows that producing more work leads to better results. The advice is to overcome perfectionism by creating consistently and learning along the way.
- URL: https://aliabdaal.com/newsletter/quantity-over-quality/
Highlights
- One of the main messages that I preach when it comes to succeeding on YouTube (and in fact, in every other creative field too) is that in the early stages, quantity matters more than quality. (View Highlight)
-
There was once a pottery teacher called Brian. One month, he decided to split his class into two groups. Group A had to make a pot every day for 30 days (so 30 pots in total). Group B had to work on a single pot for the whole 30 days. At the end of the month, Brian judged the quality of the pots. Without exception, every one of the top 10 pots came from Group A, the guys that made one pot per day. None came from the group that focused on perfecting their single pot. (View Highlight)
- Note: The Parable of the Pottery Class, from the book Art & Fear.
- “your first 100 videos are going to suck. So get through those as quickly as possible, and then you’ll start making good stuff”. (View Highlight)
- Note: The same thing goes with anything, I think. My writing fucking sucks, if anything. 😂 Well to be fair, I’m not really writing for anyone but myself. It’s always been one of my core philosophies to do stuff for myself, not for other people.
- I’ve been wanting to learn (a) how to draw, and (b) how to write songs for years now. But what’s holding me back is a sense of “I don’t know how to do this”.
Instead, I should just aim to draw 100 things, or write 100 songs, and figure the rest out along the way, like I did with YouTube. (View Highlight)
- Note: What the fuck, Ali Abdaal’s literally just doing side quests now. Previously a Doctor, now a businessman, musician, and an artist? Lol.
- what are you stalling because you feel you haven’t learned enough to create? What’s your sense of perfectionism holding you back from creating? (View Highlight)
- Note: I’d long reflected on this to understand that what I’m doing now, which is my Public Journal, isn’t something I’m trying to perfect. It’s just something I try to have fun with. But with regards to the question, “What’s your sense of perfectionism holding you back from creating?” I really think I need to learn how to code again. I shouldn’t have stopped learning it two years ago. By now, I would’ve been able to create more stuff through my coding, if only I hadn’t stopped. I’ll get back to it, though. I’m really interested to learn coding again.
- I think I spent around 6 hours today playing it, while listening to my audiobook – can’t believe I’ve never discovered this secret trick of stacking up the pleasure of an audiobook with the pleasure of a video game. (View Highlight)
- Note: I’m not sure how ‘effective’ this is, lol.
-
We also tend to overestimate the percentage of reality that we understand. We think we know all the opportunities that are out there. Five years ago, I thought I knew all the career opportunities that were available to me. Thankfully, I was wrong. I never thought I could or would be working on the things I’m working on today. It seems the way to do this is to increase your exposure to positive volatility and generate more options for yourself. (View Highlight)