Starting at zero every time means you never get far from zero.
In order to grow, you can’t start from scratch every time. Leverage your previous work. This is the essence of:
- building a pile of permanent notes
- Writing is Thinking - an external scaffold for the mind to build on
- having Standard Processes & templates
- Help Future You - when solving new problems, keep your solution understandable and as reusable as possible for your future self
- keeping previous work accessible, discoverable, and improving on it (Progressive Summarization)
If you aren’t starting from scratch, but instead starting with the best assets you have (Intermediate Packets), you’re minimizing work and creating progressively better projects.
Quote from James Clear:
How can the work you’re doing today accumulate and layer on top of what you did yesterday? Find ways to compound your efforts.
Source
- Building a Second Brain Podcast
- James Clear