Small world

Consistency is great but it shrinks your world. By design.

Yes, by design, consistency means doing a small subset of routines over diversity. You do less so that you can focus more. So it naturally follows that your world gets smaller on consistency.

It can be good or bad.

We know the benefits. Increased focus, more efficiency and effectiveness, compounding improvement, etc. But it also has downsides. Like Goodhart’s Law, where the metric becomes the goal is a problem. It’s easy to lose sight of why you’re being consistent for.

Another big downside that I’m seeing more recently now that I had gone on for years is how small problems feel big in a shrunken world.

When you don’t have alternative points of view; when there’s no one to compare notes with; when you’re just circling inside your own head and routines all day, all week, for months and years, the small world from consistency starts to mislead you.

Your small problems feel big. Tiny issues that by comparison are trivial, feels life-and-death. Minutiae gets magnified. You obsess over the tree and fail to see the forest.

It’s ironic, when the benefits become counterproductive.

So… consistency is great and all. I’d still say, do it. But leave some room for diversity. 80:20 perhaps. Meet friends. Get outdoors. Try something new. Travel. If not, the boosts become deadweight.

And the small world starts to strangle and suffocate you.