One egg in to many baskets

Minimum effective dose. The notion is known by anyone who engaged into any performance. Also quite easily understood by the people that had been prescribed drug treatment of any sort. A precise amount of the drug is necessary to fight the disease, spread over a given amount of time.

In other areas, this concept is not so easy to grasp:

• a political movement requires a critical mass (% of population) to happen
• a business requires a certain amount of capital to get pass the first 2–3 years
• our body needs a certain number of Kcal to function properly

The math of what is the minimum effective dose requires our due diligence for any action — purpose mechanism we engage in, in regards to the following points:

• a clear measurable objective
• a measuring system
• establish what is the minimum effective dose required
• my ability to control the variables and context

Most people engage in action with little or no analyses of the variables above, generating uncertainty and stress around them. The most probable outcome is self inflected pain, and, for the unfortunate people around them, a hefty dose of collateral damage.

The saying “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” implies:

• I have more eggs (2 or more)
• I have more baskets
• I know what the hack I am doing
• I have a certain mechanism of prediction for at least one basket has a higher yield.

Otherwise, all I get are so many more problems and a lot of wasted time running around so many baskets.

It is good for people with resources to spare - which can vary from “some resources to spare” to “considerable resources to spare”. We can apply this label to all types of resources like money, time, talent, skill, energy, etc. Having the normal 24 hours, average monthly wage, some money aside for the yearly vacation count as “not to spare”. Too many times these are mislabelled categories and as a consequence fall under the misguided opinion “I can do more by spreading my effort in 2–3 different directions”.

Focus your money in one direction — do not try to do it all, accept where you are financially and better wait or put off some things.

Don’t engage in more diverging activities. Time and energy are limited. Engage in one direction and do it so well that over time it requires less and less time & attention. Then start another one complementary, and when most complementary activities are exhausted, go to a new one.

If having more romantic partners simultaneously is not your thing, than you agree to this principle already, just you are trying to bend reality in areas where you think it might be in your advantage. Do not do it.

Most people end of with one broken egg between different baskets. If all you have is one egg, guard it, treasure it, take it for a walk from basket to basket, cherish it, but stop playing around like you have more than you do.

Someone will have to clean up your mess.