Quantity vs. Quality

Yesterday I briefly flipped through "The First Twenty Hours" (mostly because he covers Go in the book and I'm starting to rekindle my love of and my desire to learn Go) and I noticed a section in there about Quantity vs. Quality that resonated with me. I struggle with this because I've been conditioned over my life to want to release quality, but at the same time life tends to demand quantity from us (more things to do, get it done quickly, etc.). How this has manifested in my life is kind of interesting. I tend to value moments where I can have quality study (if I can't dedicate at least an hour to this then it's not worth doing). Recently I noticed this when I was at the coffee shop trying to learn Rust. Too much was going on (this is a weekly meeting where lots of people come to discuss programming, and in this particular case there was much discussion, which is a good thing (tm) ) so my concentration was fragmented, and eventually I jut gave up. I think that's a theme for me because whenever I can't get some quality time in studying something I tend to lose interest. This happens in my game design, where I want to generate something of quality straight out of the gate (I mean, who wouldn't want to generate a fully-fleshed out, playtested game in one hour?) What I'm starting to realize is that continued practice is key, and that I need to spend more time doing little increments. There's a balance here between quality and quantity, but the balance is not to freeze up until quality happens, but to keep pushing over and over in learning and doing until quality becomes an artifact of that process.

Just something to think about.


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