Unlocking the 10%

90% of the time, you're capable of achieving your best with the resources at your disposal.

For example, as a product designer, your laptop would suffice for most of what you need to get done. But there are those times you wish you had an external monitor, a more powerful device, or access to some paid service.

For software engineers, the same applies. But, your situation may be about time, it may be about guts, it may be about people you have access to. Let me explain this one.

With time..

I'll illustrate with scenarios

• If your laptop was more powerful than you needed, you should never hit any lag/speed bump when working. It may save you a few seconds to minutes per productive work session
• If you were not at the mercy of poor internet and power supply–this one is self-explanatory
• If you had your car, or perhaps you worked from home, you save yourself minutes to hours of productive time

I believe you get the idea. You save yourself minutes to hours every day.

With guts..

If you had the guts, and the grit, maybe you'd try something new, send that cold dm/email, leave that stalled job/relationship/situation.

If you had the guts to confront yourself, maybe you'd realise that you could do things differently.

With people..

If you only had that one person in your network. The person that had the info you didn't know you needed.

If you only had a close relationship with that person. The person you could be yourself with, relax and grow with. I will emphasise that this does not need to be a romantic relationship.

I should be pretty clear–things are working out great for you as it is. You have 90% locked down. That's not bad at all.

And really, it may not be "90%". Just that, what you have satisfies most of what you need. But, there's room to grow.

The question is what happens if you unlock that 10%?

First off, unlocking that 10% will typically take monumental effort. It may seem like the effort required is not commensurate with the 'small improvement' that 10% is supposed to bring.

If you decide that's the case for you, I can't fault you.

I'm embarking on an exercise, an experiment. I have a theory that the returns of unlocking that 10% is exponential. It is not guaranteed, it may not be immediate, really it might not yield a result at all. Or maybe it yields results in some spheres and falls flat in others. Still, I'd like to see.

I'd like to see what happens if I unlock that 10%.