What is pretending to be hard?

A friend I knew before was very enthusiastic about participating in various trainings every day. He insisted on updating his articles every day. He was very diligent and had written more than 300,000 words in less than half a year. He checked in in the WeChat group every day.

I really don't want to tell her that she just made a diligent gesture but lacked the wisdom of diligence. Such diligence was like a low-level performance.

I often tell members: Use knowledge to change your destiny and let your family live a decent life. This is to remind everyone not to do low-level hard work.

1 What things are considered low-level diligence?

I think that many people talk about fragmented learning, but in fact they are doing the following typical low-level diligence:

1) Insist on writing daily on WeChat public accounts or Jianshu, but don’t ask why the number of fans or readings has stagnated.

2) Persist in continuous action, such as getting up early to memorize words, but don’t ask how this persistence will help you achieve your big goal?

3) Learning in fragments here and there, but never using what you learn to solve a pressing problem in real life.

4) Following up on every new thing that comes out, talking about new terms but not being able to clearly explain your own industry and what it’s like to be at a professional level.

... ...

A lot of people got shot.

2 How to break away from low-level diligence and improve your level through fragmented learning?

Two things are enough:

1) Choose first, then work hard

2) Study systematically for big goals

I believe you have heard this sentence: Choice is more important than hard work.

Many people do not understand this sentence. In fact, a more accurate expression is: first choose the right direction of effort, and then continue to work towards this goal.

So how do you choose the direction of your efforts?

Previously, in How to Better Understand "Choice is More Important than Hard Work" I talked about two business models. The following figure shows that the power law distribution business model has more advantages.

Therefore, before entering an industry, take a general look at whether the industry has a power-law distribution business model.

For example, when you are looking for a job, if you have two choices, Xibei Restaurant or Internet company, you will definitely choose to join the Internet company with power law distribution. The marginal cost of catering is not zero, so it conforms to normal distribution. The Internet industry conforms to power law distribution.

The right choice can increase your probability of earning more overall.

If you run your business as a company, while earning money from working, you should also find ways to sell the same time multiple times and find your own power-law distribution business model.

The picture below shows what I did after I changed my business model.

Many people do not have any influence when they first enter society, so they can only choose to work for a company and sell the same amount of their time once (normally distributed personal business model).

However, a few people can make a qualitative leap and slowly cultivate their personal influence. After they have a large number of fans on the Internet, they can publish books or open paid columns, thereby selling the same time of their own many times and realizing a business model with zero "marginal gain" (power-law distributed personal business model).

This is also the logic behind my current lectures on the Internet. You will find that before I could only rely on the normally distributed business model to make money by working, but at the same time I was slowly cultivating my personal influence on the Internet in order to create a power-law distribution business model on the Internet.

Different business models have different final results, which is why choice is more important than hard work. Let's take a specific example.

For example, you and a college classmate enter the same company, and both of you work very hard, but you both do one thing, which is to share your technology on Zhihu. Because you do a good job and cultivate tens of thousands of fans over a long period of time, then you start a paid course. The publishing house sees that you have such a great influence and invites you to publish a book. While you sell your time many times, your college classmate can only make money by working for the company.

So, you see, although everyone is working hard, the business models they choose are different, and the final results of their efforts are also different.

Next, let’s look at the second solution to avoid low-level diligence.

3. Study systematically for big goals

Nowadays, many people like to learn in fragmented ways, learning this today and that tomorrow. It seems they are busy, but what they learn are just superficial things and they are not proficient in any field.

However, to become an expert in a field, you need to learn systematically. And any effective skill requires training, and it takes a long time.

Then, you should ask yourself a question every day: Is what I did today one step closer to my big goal?

As for the so-called low-level diligence, I think the biggest problem is that you are so busy that you forget your big goals.

If you want to make progress, you must use goal orientation to constrain the output of your efforts.

The benefit of asking this question is that it makes you realize whether your daily efforts are directed towards a clear goal, whether your efforts are helpful to the goal, and whether you have forgotten the goal because you are busy.

It's like writing the same article every day won't help you become a writer unless your goal is to write an article every day that challenges or trains a writing skill.

Unless you are sure from the beginning that your output supports your bigger goals, hard work is just a consolation to remind yourself that you are not doing anything, which is useless.

You know, the relationship between an individual's income and ability will actually become a "compound interest curve" like the one below.

Assuming that the world is generally fair at this level, if the income is too low, it can only mean that the ability is too poor. In essence, then there is only one thing that should be done: work hard to improve your real ability.

Becoming an expert in a field is the best proof of your ability. Therefore, your big goal should be to become an expert in XXX.

For example, if your goal is to become an expert in the field of data analysis, then you should spend most of your day systematically learning knowledge in this field.

There is no difference between those who study and those who don’t study on a daily basis; the difference is negligible on a monthly basis; the difference is obvious but not a big deal on a yearly basis; but when you look at it every five years, it is a huge difference in wealth. When you look at it again in ten years, it may be an unbridgeable gap between one life and another.

It is like, in the short term, there is no difference between people who look at the candlestick chart every day and people who systematically study statistical probability thinking every day. However, in the long term, people with statistical probability thinking are more rational, can better see through the long-term investment cycle, and will not be affected by short-term stock price rises and falls.

Avoid low-level diligence and improve your level through fragmented learning by doing the following two things:

1) Choose first, then work hard. While working, slowly develop your own power-law distribution business model.

2) Use fragmented time to study systematically for big goals.

Don’t overestimate what you can accomplish in one year, and don’t underestimate what you can accomplish in five years. Remember:

1) The fundamental way to increase income is to improve your abilities.

2) The fundamental way to improve your abilities is to spend time in the same direction.

3) The biggest mistake in your career is not studying systematically in the same direction.

ps: There are various learning scenarios. Finally, I would like to mention that the learning scenarios discussed here are limited to the following:

The fragmented learning in the answer mainly refers to fragmented learning related to work skills or personal wealth improvement skills. Learning outside of this scenario, such as personal hobbies such as playing Honor of Kings in fragmented time, or other personal hobbies, is not within the scope of discussion.