Let me introduce you to the reverse Pareto principle.
Photo by Nubelson Fernandes on Unsplash
Have you ever spent hours, days, or dare I say weeks, watching or listening to self-improvement content? Watching the YouTube ‘hack’ videos or listening to the podcasts with the word ‘secret’ in the title? You know the type…
‘The 6 SECRETS to Gaining 10,000,000 Subscribers’ or… ‘How Joe Bloggs REALLY Made £1,000,000 on YouTube’…
… You know, because the last ten times Joe Bloggs has appeared on a podcast he did not reveal ‘the secret’ but now feels ready to reveal how he really did it…
Aside from the nauseating capitalisation, unfounded claims and constant click-baiting, occasionally these videos can provide useful information.
Which is why they’re so dangerous and why many of us spend our time watching them. But after binging this type of content week after week, I realised two things:
The return on investment (ROI) is often very low, and the tips are often common sense. Spending two hours watching a podcast to learn that you need to be consistent isn’t exactly time well spent. Most of us know this to be true anyway, we don't need a video to tell us so - and the same applies to other 'hacks' like stopping multitasking and setting goals.
The potential ROI is nonexistent if you do nothing with the information, which will now be harder because you, unfortunately, have 6 hours less time than before thanks to these videos.
This is a form of ‘productive’ procrastination, whereby you feel productive because you learn a tiny tidbit of information, but in reality, all you’ve done is spend 3 hours to learn that you should probably get more sleep, or read more often, or drink more water.
Think back to the last ‘Top Ten Productivity’ video you watched, how many of the tips do you remember? One, two? Three if you’re lucky?
This type of procrastination is very common in the productivity space, and YouTubers, podcasters and other content creators know this.
They know that one way to get views is to promise things they know people are interested in (e.g. making £1,000,000 on YouTube), regardless of whether they can actually deliver because...
People want to feel like they’re making progress more than they want to do the thing that makes progress. Getting a new gym outfit is more exciting than working out four times a week for a year, but only one will get you in shape.
Nobody is fact-checking or holding content creators accountable, and consequently, they can (and often do) make things up for ‘social proof’. How many tweets have you seen where someone flexes about how much money they made last year and how you now can do it if you just sign up for their course? Unfortunately, a tweet from a biased source with something to sell you doesn't count as evidence of success.
Creators understand that if their audience actually did the task that makes progress (e.g. writing, practising guitar or studying) their views would disappear.
After all, are successful musicians really watching the ‘5 HACKS to Improve Your Guitar Skills’ video, or are they just practising?
If you’ve watched productivity/self-improvement content for a long time, you’ll probably have noticed that you start to hear the same things over and over...
“Be consistent”, “do the hard thing first”, “time block your work”, “remove distractions”. While many of these tactics work, at some point you’re going to have to use them rather than watching videos looking for more - because these videos often cover ways to save time doing something…
But what use is it trying to do something quicker if you never start to begin with.
This is the opposite of the Pareto principle or the 80/20 rule - what I am now calling the reverse Pareto principle. Instead of identifying the 20% of tasks that move the needle 80%, we spend 80% of the time watching videos, listening to podcasts and other content to save 20% of our time - having never started to begin with.
You can spend your entire life watching videos on how to write a book, but if you don’t write a single word you’ll never become an author.
Watching top ten hack videos and not implementing anything you learn is like reading a book and hoping your life changes through the sheer act of reading it - it’s procrastination masquerading as productivity, and it brings you no closer to your goals.
As it turns out, I’m a very slow learner when it comes to this kind of thing… and it took me far longer than it should have for me to realise I was wasting my time.
This leads me to the point of this article - to convince you to stop consuming this type of content and to get out there and start using some of it. If I can convince you to turn off YouTube and make one change today, this article will be a success, and it might just lead to success for you too.
This is because ultimately, the purpose of hack videos isn’t solely to help you, they’re to keep you watching.
In a world where increased viewership equals more revenue, creators are incentivised to draw out their content as long as possible - at your expense. Unfortunately, a video with one minute's worth of tips that is dragged out to ten minutes isn't a good use of time.
So to take my advice and get to the point, here are three reasons why you should stop watching hack content and start practising today.
1. School Isn’t the Only Place You Learn
As much as I would like to say that you can learn anything by reading books, at some point you just have to start. This is because you cannot start the feedback loop to progress by just reading or watching content.
As much as we can learn vicariously, we also learn by doing, by making mistakes and learning from them - by having the courage to set a goal and go after it.
Though I advocate learning through others, there is nothing quite like the growth you experience by taking on something new. Be that a new hobby, side hustle or gym regime. The growth you observe when you are faced with a difficult obstacle and manage to overcome it.
This feedback loop is what keeps you going. In the words of Jeff Haden, author of The Motivation Myth: “The road to a target, to a goal, or to a finish line is filled with countless hours of work and determination and sacrifice… and countless opportunities to feel good about what you have accomplished, each and every day”.
2. You Can’t Hack Your Way to Success
Similarly to the above, as much as I would like to tell you that one hack will lead to overnight success, this isn’t realistic.
Short of winning the lottery, there is no such thing as an overnight success, and even those who have achieved ‘overnight success’ worked for weeks, months or years to get there.
You have to put in a body of work before you start to see results and, unless you’ve already optimised your entire day, never get distracted or try to multitask, small increases in efficiency will not make a considerable impact on progress.
Side note: One way to ensure you consistently make progress is to set minimum viable work, that is, a certain amount of pages read, time practised or weight lifted for a day to be considered successful - you don’t have to break records to make progress.
While you’re watching videos on how to write most effectively, others are actually putting words on a page, honing their craft and learning what works and what doesn’t. Only the latter makes progress.
3. The Compound Effect
As you begin to pursue your goals you will start to experience the compounding effect of your efforts.
Sometimes referred to as ‘the eighth wonder of the world’, compounding refers to the cumulative effect of decisions (positive or negative) made over time - and is something you can benefit from the more consistent you are.
Regardless of your goal, compounding can manifest in various ways — whether this is learning a new guitar chord more quickly, thinking of new ideas more easily or perfecting your gym technique over time (for more on compounding I highly recommend The Joys of Compounding by Gautam Baid).
However, if you attempt to find hacks, you do not allow adequate time for compounding to take effect. You do not have skin in the game long enough to let your knowledge and skills develop to make progress.
To utilise the compound effect you need to be in the game long enough to discover new insights, implement these, monitor the results and pivot accordingly. Hacking doesn’t work, certainly not in any meaningful way — you need to give compounding time to work.
Summary
Ultimately, in the words of Ross Edgley, long-distance swimmer and world record holder: “hard work is so often the answer, the question is so often irrelevant”, and this is no more applicable than with making progress towards long-term goals.
Putting in time and effort isn’t something to be avoided, it’s something to enjoy. The setbacks, incremental improvements and slow progress are what make life worthwhile, after all — you spend the majority of your life chasing goals, not achieving them. If you dislike the process, perhaps it’s time to consider another path.
Thank You
If you made it this far thank you — I appreciate you taking the time to read my work and sincerely hope you found it useful. If you would like to continue reading, I’ve included a few of my most popular articles below.
Thanks again,
Rob