I find I have heavily skewed ratios for the various activities in my life, which I could explain away as me just being specialized, although they could still use some work. In general, I have higher production ratios for tasks about which I care about the value of what is produced, or for tasks in which I am currently skilled.
To choose two of the heading items, I cook far less often than I code. Becoming good at cooking (quality of production) is not something I care to focus on, so I choose a PCR that increases only the quality of my consumption, which is realized by spending more money on easier foods, and freeing more time for other things (like coding). Alternately, I choose a coding PCR along the lines that you describe, which is to optimize the quality of my production by learning from others without losing time to learn from my own experience.
I would do well to shuffle these ratios a bit. I spend too little time reading code (and coding articles) because I overestimate my abilities relative to others (and so perhaps the value of time spent coding). And I spend too little time buying strange ingredients and reading allrecipes.com because I underestimate my abilities relative to others (and so perhaps the value of time spent cooking). I overemphasize the value of my current skills over the value of what other skills could be with effort.
Great post, this way of thinking about it is very revealing.
I find I have heavily skewed ratios for the various activities in my life, which I could explain away as me just being specialized, although they could still use some work. In general, I have higher production ratios for tasks about which I care about the value of what is produced, or for tasks in which I am currently skilled.
To choose two of the heading items, I cook far less often than I code. Becoming good at cooking (quality of production) is not something I care to focus on, so I choose a PCR that increases only the quality of my consumption, which is realized by spending more money on easier foods, and freeing more time for other things (like coding). Alternately, I choose a coding PCR along the lines that you describe, which is to optimize the quality of my production by learning from others without losing time to learn from my own experience.
I would do well to shuffle these ratios a bit. I spend too little time reading code (and coding articles) because I overestimate my abilities relative to others (and so perhaps the value of time spent coding). And I spend too little time buying strange ingredients and reading allrecipes.com because I underestimate my abilities relative to others (and so perhaps the value of time spent cooking). I overemphasize the value of my current skills over the value of what other skills could be with effort.
Great post, this way of thinking about it is very revealing.