How much better would you be after a year if you could get one percent better every day? Let's imagine you start with just $1$ unit of ability.
$\begin{align}
A &= P(1 + r)^t \\
A &= 1(1 + 0.01)^{365} \\
A &\approx 38
\end{align}$
Thirty eight times better! After a week you would be only slightly better (1.1x), and even after a month you'd only be slightly better than that (1.3x better than when you started). After 90 days you'd be a little over twice as good, but by the end of the year you would be a whopping 38x where you started.
```mermaid
---
config:
themeVariables:
xyChart:
backgroundColor: "#1c1b1a"
---
xychart-beta
title "One percent better every day"
x-axis [0, 60, 120, 180, 240, 300, 360]
y-axis "Ability" 0 --> 35
bar [1, 1.8, 3.3, 6.0, 10.9, 19.8, 35.9]
```
By the rule of 72, every 72 days you would double your ability.
What is the value of a vault that adds 6 notes each day [^1] if each note connects to one percent of the existing notes in some way? The process is similar, although not quite as exponential.
```mermaid
---
config:
themeVariables:
xyChart:
backgroundColor: "#1c1b1a"
---
xychart-beta
title "One percent more connections every day"
x-axis [0, 60, 120, 180, 240, 300, 360]
y-axis "Ability" 0 --> 50000
bar [6, 1346, 5277, 11800, 20915, 32622, 46922]
```
The point is that the value of compounding is all around us. But, you have to start with something, and you have to put in consistent effort over time--the longer you invest, the more astronomical the results will be.
[^1]: Luhmann averaged 6 notes per day in his slip-box ([[How to Take Smart Notes]])