I belong to the hard working people category. Not very strategic ones.
I have come to appreciate that there is some benefit to hard work. But as I get older, I need to learn how to be strategic. Time being the most expensive asset we can have, hard working takes too long to get things done.
I have many examples where I could share how I stumbled upon a more efficient way of doing something, after I had already done it the hard way. The latest example is the Medium writing competition.
There were 4 prompts for this challenge.
Death, Re-entry, Space and Work.
The moment I heard the 4 prompts, I suspected that people would have a lot of content for 'Death'... with COVID19 going on. In addition, it is easier to write emotional content with death than any of the other prompts. That is why I had an idea for all but for 'Re-entry. I had nothing for that prompt. And I hoped that I could submit for 3 of the 4 to increase my odds of doing well.
Despite my early awareness of the skewed potential of interest, I was unable to write for the other prompts. By the time I finished writing for 'Death', the deadline had arrived. Recently someone posted a comparison listing how many entries each prompt had.
Death - 2.5K
Re-entry - 1.5K
Space - 1.4K
Work - 1.3K
So the one prompt I wrote for has the most submissions - just like I suspected. Writing for the other prompts would have increased my odds and would have been more strategic.
Oh well... I shall be more strategic next time.
I have come to appreciate that there is some benefit to hard work. But as I get older, I need to learn how to be strategic. Time being the most expensive asset we can have, hard working takes too long to get things done.
I have many examples where I could share how I stumbled upon a more efficient way of doing something, after I had already done it the hard way. The latest example is the Medium writing competition.
There were 4 prompts for this challenge.
Death, Re-entry, Space and Work.
The moment I heard the 4 prompts, I suspected that people would have a lot of content for 'Death'... with COVID19 going on. In addition, it is easier to write emotional content with death than any of the other prompts. That is why I had an idea for all but for 'Re-entry. I had nothing for that prompt. And I hoped that I could submit for 3 of the 4 to increase my odds of doing well.
Despite my early awareness of the skewed potential of interest, I was unable to write for the other prompts. By the time I finished writing for 'Death', the deadline had arrived. Recently someone posted a comparison listing how many entries each prompt had.
Death - 2.5K
Re-entry - 1.5K
Space - 1.4K
Work - 1.3K
So the one prompt I wrote for has the most submissions - just like I suspected. Writing for the other prompts would have increased my odds and would have been more strategic.
Oh well... I shall be more strategic next time.
in the long run i think that was the best move you could've made because that was what you were most interested in doing.
I wrote about this in my daily email the other day.
i wrote about how at our stage of creator-hood we shouldn't focus too much on what other people want. This is because we haven't earned that yet.
we should more focus on what we like creating/doing. Someday we can focus on the consumer... but not yet...
my opinion based on how focusing on the 'wrong' thing often leads me to stop wanting to write.
For a beginner like me with less odds of wining, I should have written for all 4 prompts. There is always something to learn from each experience. There are more lessons I learnt from this that I will share in future write ups.