[[Jeff Olson]] [[lit/kindle/The Slight Edge|Highlights]] > Simple productive actions, repeated consistently over time. That, in a nutshell, is the slight edge. The Slight Edge was an important book for me. Olson begins by focusing on the cultivation of a positive philosophy. > Your philosophy creates your attitudes, which create your actions, which create your results, which create your life. He emphasizes that a "philosophy" need not be complex, and in fact should be simple. A few philosophies he offers in the book are quotes like: - "The formula for success is quite simple: Double your rate of failure." - "Do the thing, and you shall have the power." - "Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal." - "Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do." - "There is a natural progression to everything in life: plant, cultivate, harvest." - "It’s never too late to start. It’s always too late to wait." - "The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer." Olson goes on to describe what he calls "the secret of time" but what is otherwise known as the compounding effect. The formula for success is simply consistent daily actions multiplied by time (a lot of time). > Simple daily disciplines—little productive actions, repeated consistently over time—add up to the difference between failure and success. Consistent effort over time produces the "flywheel effect", which Olson borrows from the book *From Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t*, by Jim Collins. > Pushing with great effort, you get the flywheel to inch forward, moving almost imperceptibly at first. You keep pushing and, after two or three hours of persistent effort, you get the flywheel to complete one entire turn. You keep pushing, and the flywheel begins to move a bit faster, and with continued great effort, you move it through a second rotation... > > Then at some point—breakthrough! The momentum of the thing kicks in your favor, hurling the flywheel forward, turn after turn … whoosh! … its own heavy weight working for you. You’re pushing no harder than the first rotation, but the flywheel goes faster and faster... > > Now suppose someone came along and asked, “What was the one big push that caused this thing to go so fast?” You wouldn’t be able to answer; it’s a nonsensical question. Was it the first push? The second? The fifth? The hundredth? No! It was all of them added together in an overall accumulation of effort applied in a consistent direction. The key of course is consistency over a long period of time. "How long will it take?" Olson asks. "Chances are it will take longer than you want it to—and that when the time arrives, you’ll be astonished at how quick it seemed." You must "view your actions through the lens of time" to understand the slight edge. Importantly, Olson argues against a top-down planning approach in this endeavor and instead argues for the combination of a vision of where you want to go and a next action in true GTD style. He likens this approach to the Apollo missions that used a gyroscope to constantly course correct the rocket (which was actually off course 99% of the time). Olson, like David Allen in [[lit/books/Getting Things Done]], argues that the slight edge, despite it's surface level focus on the future, is actually a means of being more present in the now. > Mastery begins the moment you step onto the path. Failure begins the moment you step off the path. Olson lays out a philosophy that is much like a Kantian approach to morality: do only what you might will everyone else to also do, except instead of other people, consider all of your future selves: *Do now what you might will every future you to also do.*