<aside> 👉 Original text from http://sebastianmarshall.com/staying-with-it-design-vs-marching-lead-vs-lag-process-vs-outcome-trend-upwards-vs-hohw, currently down for maintenance (as of Oct 2022)

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Staying With It

Here's a problem --

Most success needs to unfold over time. Doing the right thing, today only, can be good -- but to reach high levels of success in most endeavors requires consistently doing the right thing, day-in and day-out, for long periods of time.

For most people, almost all people, this is somewhat unnatural and unintuitive.

We get really excited about a new nutrition or fitness plan, and we stick to it 3-6 weeks.

Then, inevitably, something stupid happens. A little crisis. A busy trip. An illness. The power or hot water goes out at your apartment for a couple days. Some dumb little thing.

And then you're not "staying with it", all of a sudden, and you don't even realize it until much later. "Hey, I was doing so great? Why'd I stop doing that?"

This is true for most personal progress, most development of skills and career, most business-building.

Staying with it consistently is key, but hard to do.

Four Tradeoffs to Consider to Help You Stay With It

I've been thinking and dialoging a lot lately on how to conceive of work, plan it out, get it done effectively and efficiently.

This isn't the whole story, there's a lot to it, but it's a big part of it.

Here's four tradeoffs you might want to consider next time you're designing a campaign or project for yourself.

1. Design vs Marching

When I decide I want to do something, one of the first questions I ask myself is,

"Is this a design-type thing, or can it be marched out?"