Opportunity Cost
From Brain Food:
The simple genius of Charlie Munger:
"All intelligent people should think primarily in terms of opportunity cost. When deciding whether to do something compare the best opportunity you have."
This is another phrasing of a similar tweet from Tobi. To paraphrase, "the cost of doing something isn't just the cost, it is also the cost of saying no to everything else you could have done in that same time". In other words that it's important to be picky about what you take on because of the opportunity cost.
But the reason the above quote stuck out to me today was the part about the "best opportunity you have". I thought, "what if you don't have any particularly good opportunities?"
On the one hand you likely always have some opportunities. So there is naturally one that is the "best". You have to compare new opportunities to that. If that opportunity is not that good to begin with I don't think you have much of a problem of deciding whether to take on or add a new one.
And what if you don't have many opportunities at all? Maybe that suggests you shouldn't decide much on whether you should do something. You should just do it.
This is then a corollary to the idea that in the beginning of any creative pursuit you have a lot of taste but no skill. That's why getting started is so hard. But it's important to get started, with the smallest thing.
When you have high taste and low skill, you likely don't have many opportunities. Which means don't think too hard about whether to do something - just do it. But if you have high taste and high skill, you likely have many opportunities. Be selective.