Slow is fast
Some partners said my public number why write hot news content so little, this is also one of the most important things I figured out last year.
I dabbled for a period of Time, the effect is very good, the article readership rushed very, very high, once let me have a kind of good days on such a feeling.
But this is a two-way thing, the content in the choice of readers, readers will also choose the content. The readership structure will slowly change, and those readers who are not concerned about the hotspots and care about the depth will be lost, and finally there are only readers left to watch the fun. It’s not that watching is bad, it’s just that I can’t make progress with them.
I later found out that a lot of level bloggers, often rubbing hot spots, over time away from the hot spots will not write; more importantly, his fan structure has also changed, he can no longer turn back, write something else fans will yell, say do not write this we do not see this. This blogger is very easy to shake, has been rubbing who are weak, do not want to rub and can not stop.
So I decided to adjust the thinking, to their own rules, write each article, I must be able to learn something, but also to let the reader learn something. So although the reading volume is not as high as before, but the overall solid, I write while learning, but also to maintain a constant momentum of progress.
I thought about the many things I’ve done in the past, in fact, along the established route slowly engage in it, but always because of various reasons mood swings, suffering from loss, anxious for success; or is the will is depressed, too concerned about being evaluated, anyway, is ultimately engaged in the yellow. Years later, a review, found that most of the yellow thing, basically with the “mentality breakdown” related; even this public number, I gave up once, consider giving up dozens of times The public number, I gave up once and considered giving up dozens of times.
We can also reflect on whether most of the things not done, and the ability to do not have much to do with the main idea was too strange, too eager to achieve, they put themselves to the pit?
I often receive a variety of criticism, there are well-intentioned and malicious. It can’t be helped, this stuff used to disturb me quite a bit and often send me into self-doubt; now it’s much better and I can keep all this mess out of it.
What’s interesting is that from the time I had only 200 followers, people kept saying “blogger you’re not writing as well as you used to”, and now millions of followers across the web are still listening to this voice, now that I think about it, there’s really nothing you can do, no matter what you do, there will be people who don’t like it, and if you focus too much on negative comments, then don’t do anything.
And the logic of “mindset breakdown leads to things being yellow” applies everywhere. For example, some people speculate in bitcoin, liquor, electric cars, photovoltaic, from the price is very low when they start to speculate, until the price of these things are very high, but they did not earn money, because these things are in the fluctuations of the rise, most people with the price fluctuations of various operations, a variety of trading, and finally look as if tossed many years, in fact, did not earn.
No matter what you do, you need to be emotionally stable, it is best if you have no feelings.
I answered a question in Zhihu some time ago, when the discussion was in the end can not do technology for Life.
Suddenly found a problem, in fact, can always do, and technology to make money or not, the key is their own mindset. Because you will slowly assume the following very miserable pain.
Your best friend got a promotion and a raise you did not.
your college classmates got rich you did not.
Your relatives got a pay rise you did not.
These injuries are very big, far more important than “technology has no future”. Maybe you are more than thirty years old dry technology, a year can earn hundreds of thousands, others are quite envious, but your heart is very broken, because the people around you to do management, income higher than you; you can not balance for a long time, and finally bored with the career, the more you look at the work in hand, the more annoying.
In the same way, I recently met some online gods, the book was well written, suddenly it was overdue, I was quite puzzled. I said so many people waiting to see, why is it too late? The reasons vary, basically the late fall, they feel that writing is not as good as before; or scolded, chasing less people, anyway, the mentality collapsed. Other people feel that the writing is okay, but the author himself experienced a wave of decline, psychologically can not sustain, the work in hand no longer attractive, only want to practice a small number as soon as possible.
So I’ve had a feeling these past few years, each of the great gods of success, have to fight numerous mental breakdown. Other people throw dirty water, their own inertia in nature, and social comparison led to imbalance, these pains are more continuous, more damage big.
Back to the article topic, when a blogger is used to eating hot traffic, this traffic is not very stable, emotions fluctuate with the flow, very bad for physical and mental health, and easy to fall into a variety of self-doubt without much reason. In addition, the shelf life of hot articles is particularly short, just a day or two, after which it is impossible to read, which is contrary to what I have always thought.
I’ve said one thing before, I said there is an obvious difference between doing it yourself and going to work is the “long tail effect”, you get a product out of the company, the company paid your salary, and then it’s gone; the future of this product can sell how much money, can sell how many years, have nothing to do with you, even if this product creates a huge company, also has nothing to do with you.
But if you sell something by yourself, there is a randomness and a long tail. Randomness is that your work may not have much effect, but may also be bursting fire, bursting a may be able to change a lifetime. The “long tail” is that your article today, next year may still suck traffic to you, many articles stacked together, will produce a huge long tail.
People always have to make choices. Choose short-term or long-term, fast or slow, have to take the initiative to choose, at the very least to do so that they do not do traffic slaves, to be able to quietly study the value of the output.
For example, in the last article on electric cars, I read hundreds of thousands of words of material and looked for more than a dozen industry gods, and finally my own understanding of electric cars went up a notch and made readers gain something.
2
Value network
This problem has been thought about for a long time, if you do business, in the end what kind of business can be big and long?
Now there is an idea called “value network”, that is, you can provide value – something that can help others is called value; you also need a network, the network so that the value continues to amplify, value so that the network continues to spread.
This is a bit roundabout, but an example will be clear to everyone.
The most obvious is the steam engine. This thing has actually always been around, since the Athenian era, and has always been improved. Watt is actually a tipping point, before him, the steam engine has been pumping water in the mines, can also help a little, but the failure rate and bulky nature of this thing is seriously bound, the advantages and disadvantages of a counterbalance, the disadvantages of the mainstream, resulting in has not been able to spread.
After Watt improved, the steam engine began to become in more and more areas can provide positive value, we also need this thing. More and more people use it, it will be more and more people know and use, and slowly become unstoppable, sweeping the world. After the improvement of steam engines used in trains, ships, the British Empire ran into a new era.
Everyone does other things are the same. But everything that can be done, is certainly to provide more or less value to others, only the value we get more than the cost of time, you do this will be similar to the steam engine someone needs.
Another thing “network”, the network is not the network we use, can be understood as “link”. But a mutual endorsement of the relationship, similar to your friends have used a good thing, introduced to you; you used a good, introduced to another friend, maybe he received two recommendations, may prefer this product.
And there are big hotspots in the network, recommended by them once, may top being 10,000 times, similar to Taobao store often said “Vea Li Jiaqi recommended” as well. There is also that strange thing, the old gentleman’s painting life no one cares, suddenly selected by a large gallery auction once, so the value soared.
Valuable things will form their own network, where the value includes a lot of things, such as knowledge, methodology, soothing emotions and so on.
So no matter what you do, the first thing that comes to mind is whether you can provide value? And is the kind of lasting.
If you can, then keep outputting, slowly let the value spread along the network.
3
Micro-iterations
When I first entered the software industry, I often wondered how a project project millions of lines of code, how we write out.
Later found that this is really not a matter. If you write so many out at once, it is really more trouble, but the project is similar to the property, there are a phase two and three, each time you add some new features, and slowly become very outrageous.
I have seen a strange project, the earliest is the customer worried about the equipment overheating, and do not want to watch the scene, so let us do a small function, once overheating, send a text message to the customer. An intern wrote a total of less than fifty lines of code to get it done, and then the customer said that some of the other fault detection also send SMS alerts, so more and more demand, has been tossed, tossed five or six years, and now has been derived into an independent management system, but also can sell money separately.
Other software projects are similar. Do a few months each year, each time to add a few small features, and slowly become more complex. Some software has been done by a certain company for decades, forming a barrier, others want to join very difficult, such as those few well-known database companies and operating system companies.
Including the steam engine we mentioned above, Watt made improvements on the Newcomen steam engine, and then someone else made improvements on Watt’s steam engine, and Trevithick made improvements on Watt’s steam engine, which became a high-pressure steam engine, used in trains. This thing is also a process of evolution.
In the past few years I found that doing products, sports and writing articles, are similar, at the beginning to get a small, slowly to the big toss. Later found Musk in a talk show also talked about this, I forget the original how to say, probably means “tiny iteration”, which has a great impact on me. I also understand the saying, “Doing big things and doing small things is almost the same”, anyway, then the big things, is divided into many small things slowly.
I write an article is also, looking at a large, if a breath of writing out is really rather vague. Now also write several waves, first write a shelf, and then slowly fill in, or find the content of the microblogging stuffed in; at first can not see, change a few times on the shape.
I now also began to feel that no matter what, as long as it can be divided into small enough actionable steps, basically anything can be done.
4
Epilogue
Over the years there is a feeling that people can choose what they do, and what they do will in turn shape people, each other is a mutual evolutionary process.
I still hope that everyone can find their own thing, to be able to long-term output value. Value to create a network, and value in turn will shape you.
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