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bertrand russet's avatar

Rereading what I've written below, I note that I should lead with: I love your writing and always value your perspective.

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Writers are often fond of dispensing the advice to narrow focus, and I think it's because of the sort of activity that writing is. I myself was also very fond of narrowing focus during my 20s -- I was doing graduate work in math, and avoiding mental clutter was helpful in making research progress (I don't make strong claims about my success in focusing, just that I appreciated the usefulness).

However, there are many domains where actors necessarily have to spread their attention between many different inputs. Business and politics come to mind. For business, I don't mean focus in the sense of finding a niche for your product and specializing to your customers, I mean - new technology, competitors, and economic forces will conspire to erode the payoff associated to any type of action.

This framework comes from a different culture of thought, but I think it may be interesting to you to consider a characterization of activities that's sometimes used in the fitness world. Here are two examples: https://www.otpbooks.com/dan-johns-four-quadrants-infographic/ and https://medium.com/@danjohn84123/yes-even-parenting-is-a-quadrant-activity-33b708998dee (if you'd like to pursue this further, I can dig up more/better references)

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Another quibble: formal work in multi-arm bandits often assumes that the payoff landscape and the action space are fixed in time. It should be clear that neither of these two assumptions is true about being an actor in the world, and that both suggest higher prioritization of exploration.

On the other hand, it's certainly possible that the most valuable benefits you derive from focusing on writing include intimacy with your work and a feeling of clarity. And from the perspective of extrinsic rewards, if outsize success is what you're after, as suggested by the anecdotes you supply, then it's worth noting that achieving outsize success often involves increasing outcome variance -- often by declining to hedge bets.

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On the margin, I feel that more people would benefit from narrower focus, and from using decision theoretic metaphors in their life. But- remember to interrogate the assumptions of the model that you use, be wary that the abstractions you choose to express your decisions don't cleave reality well, and look for other metaphors, of course.

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Kat's avatar

This is such a cool description of the phenomena, Henrik! And I really appreciated reading how you implemented it into your own life.

I have a concrete example of focus + skill development:

I am learning both Lindy Hop and Dragonboat at the same time. I am happy with this decision, because I wanted my life to have both. However, I am learning both much, much slower than if I chose one, and focused on it.

With both my week looks like:

* Dragonboat practice twice-a-week.

* Lindy Hop classes once-a-week or attending a social dance once-a-week.

My friend who focuses on dragonboat solely does:

* Outrigger canoe paddling 1-2 times a week

* Dragonboat practice twice-a-week

We both started at the same time, but she is miles better than me on every measurable level.

My friend who solely does lindy hop social dancing:

* Class once-a-week

* Social dancing 1-2 times a week

Also, miles more advanced on every measurable level.

I would rather be making slow progress on both at the same time at this point (though, debating switching to a model where I lindy hop when it is cold, and paddle when it is warm), but it illustrative to see how much of a skill trade-off that decision had.

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