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Zero Grams and An Essay From Oliver Burkeman
This Week's Note
Zero Grams
Scales designed to detect small changes in weight are an important aspect of consistently making great coffee. While any scale represents a monumental step in the right direction, some scales are equipped to detect changes in weight all the way down to .01 grams which enables brewing a fine batch even more attainable. Unfortunately, some scales fail to measure amounts smaller than a single gram, disallowing users from finely dialing their results.
In practice, when a few beans are placed on a technically inferior scale the resulting message is essentially “zero grams” which is an innocuous, but misleading response. In this scenario, the coffee being weighed does not amount to an objective, incalculably small total, it's simply less than the scale’s technical ability to measure.
Much like some scale’s inability to read small changes in weight, our ability to detect change as it pertains to our hobbies, careers, or development can be ill equipped to capture small or subtle shifts. We read a few pages of a book, eat less junk food, go on a slightly longer run, or write a few pages of our novel and chalk up our effort to essentially nothing. We look at the small progress we’ve made and equate our effort to the lived equivalent of “zero grams” but as mentioned before, zero grams is a half truth.
Zero grams is merely the result of an inadequate scale, not a fact of the reality we actually inhabit. The amount of effort (or coffee) in question can always be measured if we’re using the right scale. Accepting this truth frees us from the task of constantly increasing our effort. When our goal becomes finding a helpful scale, we measure the results we are consistently capable of producing as opposed to ratcheting our striving to unsustainable levels.
We often make progress towards our goals, but our efforts are (likely) in isolation so small that our “scale” our ability to notice doesn’t recognize our pursuits. In this case, we need not become obsessed with time management or efficiency, the salve is simple: find a better scale.
This Week's Resource
An essay from Ground Up resident Oliver Burkeman, author of 4,000 Weeks and The Imperfectionist Newsletter. In this article Burkeman shares three ideas for turbulent times.
The essay should only take a few minuets of your time and is well worth the read.
​Here's the link​
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