Going all in can be alluring, though, as a downside, our focus narrows.
Setting a goal on the edge of your comfort zone and letting it consume you can be as meaningful and invigorating as it gets.
Whether it's a big creative project, an athletic feat, or falling in love, there's something to say about going all-in.
The problem occurs when we get such tunnel-vision that we leave behind other important parts of our lives and the qualities that make us who we are. We run the risk of becoming too narrow—and distress, restlessness, and burnout often ensue.—The Growth Equation
You cannot deliver the best for multiple projects, hobbies, and relationships. The concept of minimum effective dose (MED), coined by self-experimenter Tim Ferris, takes the perspective of the homo economicus to reap the maximal benefits with the minimum investment. You can work sixty hours a week, but you will not be able to focus all the time, or you can do it in forty with a concentrated effort. You can opt for hour-long walks, or you can do a high-intensity session. This is not a new insight per se: MED only seems like a clever rebranding of Pareto's Law (also known as the 80/20 rule).
Yes, the name MED sounds much better than Pareto's Law, but it also emphasizes a different perspective: an overhaul of our assumptions about what characterizes "good" work. There are tasks where time spent equals productivity, but there are many, especially in the knowledge sector, where this simply does not hold.
Thus, beware of setting a time-based MED and then staring at the keyboard/book without doing anything. Non-temporal quantities, on the other hand, can also be problematic since writing 500 words a day could create artificial pressure just to reach that number. Use your common sense and do not make too much fuss about the exact goals, i.e., avoid the extremes.
The minimality also stresses that it is easy to start. You might become a better coder by writing code for twenty minutes a day. Or you improve your writing skills by writing in most of the mornings (khmm....).
Consistency is the key: when (and not if) life intervenes, then sticking to a short bout is simpler than doing the same with hour-long efforts.
You only need to show up:
Doing your best is about the position you find yourself in when you show up. Over the long term, the average person who constantly puts themselves in a good position beats the genius who finds themselves in a poor position. What looks like talent is often good positioning. And the best way to put yourself in a good position is with good preparation.—Farnam Street
Minimum effective dose acts like a safeguard for our identities, too: limiting efforts lets us diversify our lives. No single field becomes dominant in defining ourselves, which hedges against when one aspect becomes unsustainable due to injury, illness, or a layoff. To decide where to apply the minimum effective dose, we need to know ourselves and respond according to our goals and values.
A better way to optimize for a specific activity or pursuit is defining one's core values, or the foundational tenets and practices toward which we aspire. In particular, the goal is specifying a minimum effective dose for each of your core values, and then sticking to it.
MDE can contribute to a happier life: having a wider range means something will draw us away from work (friends, hobbies, Netflix...). This might sound egregious, especially for the perfectionists out there. Let me share a story: when I was looking for a Ph.D., I looked for potential supervisors. Then, I found a personal website for an eminent researcher whose self-description burned into my retina. I, the all-time perfectionist (and I do not mean this as a badge of honor, more like something I need to be aware of), could not possibly imagine how that professor listed things on their personal website, such as being a passionate hiker and even some exotic-sounding (and definitely time-consuming) hobbies. I simply could not believe that. For me, getting enough sleep was an issue; I did not dare to wonder about hobbies. Obviously, my approach was wrong. I got tangled up in the self-imposed definition of someone who does things perfectly and pushes everything to its limits. That is not a self-description you want to hear about somebody's whole identity.
By imposing a limit, you need to think critically about what brings the most. Mindlessly picking things at random simply will not do, and neither will the "we-have-always-done-things-this-way" attitude.
Actionable advice
If you struggle with an aspect of your life, think about what could be a minimum effective dose: agreeing on a fixed time to meet friends eliminates the planning overhead; dropping that project you thought you were passionate about ensures that you can work on what is meaningful.