My Output Equation

Release date: 12 Sep 2024

Views: 63

Recently I was reading Hell Yeah or No by Derek Sivers and one of the book chapters really caught my attention. It's called Seeking inspiration?.

The reason as to why it caught my attention was because I have been struggling with coming up with a good software idea for some time. Espacially after having worked on PdfToExcelTables for a couple of months and realising it's time for something else.

As soon as I saw the title of the chapter, I quickly hurried onto it and started reading it in hopes to finally get a solution for my problem. Since most of Derek's work is very short, digestable and easy to consume; this chapter was no different.

I would recommend you read it yourself but essentially Derek recommends creating stuff instead of consuming stuff all the time. That will help you come up with new ideas. I could really get behind this advice because I want to create more stuff in general anyway.

My Output Equation

I love being able to track progress in any aspect of my life if it's possible. And so I came up with a way to track how much I'm creating and consuming. I will call this the output equation for now but can come up with a better name if the idea develops further.

It's very simple:

1. Measure how much time you spend consuming stuff per day or per week.
2. Do the same for creating stuff.
3. Divide creating stuff time by consuming stuff time.
4. Try to have that number as high as possible.

output = creation / consumption

Let's use an example.

On any particular day I spend 1 hour creating stuff and 4 hours consuming stuff. My equation would look something like this:

output = 1 hr / 4 hr

output = 0.25

That is a number I can track over days and weeks.

If the number is > 1 then it means I'm spending more of my time creating than consuming. Which is the goal.

If it's below 1 it means I'm consuming more than creating. Need to improve.

Also based on this I'm now making an app for myself that will help me track this!

Let's see if this equation helps me lean more towards creating.