What Produces the Best Results, Quantity or Quality?
Here’s a post that I found really interesting on CyberCashology called Are You Asking the Wrong Question? The post rambles a bit but here’s the part that rings true with me:
…the teacher of a pottery class split his class into two groups. He told one group their grade would be determined on the basis of the number of pots they made during the semester. The quality of the pots did not matter, only the sheer number of pots created. The other group was told they only needed to make one pot and their grade would be determined based on the quality of that one single pot.
Interestingly, at the end of the semester, the group that produced the large volume of pots also produced pots of much higher quality than the group that was being graded on quality. Who knows why but presumably the group that was being graded on volume didn’t spend any time “thinking about it.” Instead they just started doing and learned from their mistakes until they created high-quality pottery. The other group instead of developing their pottery skills by actually making pottery probably studied all aspects of making high quality pottery. They spent too much time studying and too little time actually doing.
The reason I know that this is true is that I see it all the time on this blog. Often I’ll write a story that I think is fantastic and it won’t get a single comment and seems to be received with a collective yawn. Then I’ll toss something up to fill space because I’m feeling guilty that I haven’t posted in 3 days, and it’ll get Stumbled, commented and picked up by an A-List blogger.
Why is that? I know the pottery example is true, but I haven’t figured out why, and more specifically why we don’t all get it not thinking so much?
Browse Timeline
Comments ( 2 )
Leo Dimilo added these pithy words on Aug 13 07 at 11:12 pmInteresting observation. I also imagine that the “practice makes perfect” notion would have something to do with this.
As an example, way back in the day when I was playing music, I wrote nearly everyday. While most of the time I didn’t produce “optimum” results, every once in a while I produced a gem.
Would I have produced this same gem if I hadn’t put in the time to “practice” writing and instead focused on things that I considered to be a future opus? Probably not.
I know that a lot of bloggers suggest that you don’t post anything but top notch quality posts but the “quality” of the post is really in the eye of the beholder.
By producing “quantity” you are doing two things. First, you are building a skill quickly by doing the same thing over and over again. Secondly, every once in a while (for me it seems rarer than most), you will produce something that the general public adores. Go figure.
Jon added these pithy words on Aug 14 07 at 12:08 pmYa Leo, it does seem to go against logic, but also seems to make sense at the same time that volume produces quality.