Wasted time is unfortunately a prerequisite for value

The extremely nonlinear return of value is a really interesting, and frustrating, thing with knowledge work.

You can spend most of the day doing things that turn out to have negligible value. It just feels depressing and demotivating.

And then, all of a sudden your impact is multiplied by 10x or 100x.

💡 By connecting some thoughts, or concepts, or people in a way that changes everything.

💁 By injecting something into a discussion, seed an LLM with just the right model, bring in a new perspective that unlocks a new insight.

And suddenly everything is so valuable and so right.

Of course the wasted time was not really wasted. It was a prerequisite for getting to the right place. Only that you can't really tell in advance what parts are waste and what are useful.

As I said, really interesting. And frustrating.