Why Your Cumulative Output Matters More than Any Individual Piece of Work

Remember Toad the Wet Sprocket, Jesus Jones? If you’re a millennial you probably have no idea who I’m talking about. They were popular in the 90’s and their music was good. I still like it 20 years later. But they were one hit wonders.

A few days ago I was getting a bit anxious because my last few posts on medium had really low view counts after several straight weeks of posts that hit well over 1000 views. But I never stopped writing. One of the things I know from coming up with ideas for things to write about is that you have to plant seeds. And the seeds won’t come to fruition until a week or two after the seeds have been planted. I had been thinking about the idea for this post for more than a week, and suddenly it started coming to me.

It’s great when a blog post goes viral or something you create reaches a large audience. But one piece that does that is not a sustainable strategy to build on.

• Before it became the viral sensation that we know today, there were over 19 videos of Kid president.
• Seth Godin has written more than 6000 blog posts. I don’t think you could pinpoint any one and say “that’s the one that made him into who he is.”
• If you look at a musical act like U2 or Dave Matthews whose career has spanned decades, you might know a few of their songs, but it’s their cumulative output that has made them into who they are.
• I’ve written a thousand words a day as if my life depended on it and over a million words in the last 5 years. It was only when I focused on increasing my cumulative output that I started to get opportunities like writing books and paid speaking gigs.

Think of it this way. Your cumulative output is a bit like training for the race, the game, or the competition. You’d never go to the gym once and expect to be in the greatest shape of your life. That would be insane. What you put out into the world is the game itself.

There are no shortcuts to creative success.

In a recent conversation with Jessica Abel, I asked her what she learned from working with a master of his craft like Ira Glass. This is what she had to say.

It’s grit. You stick with it through the tough times. The work can be brain breaking. And it can be depressing. It can be so difficult. You just have to focus and keep going. You just stick with it and keep making it happen. And you have to keep doing that for so long. You can make some comics and get them up online on tumblr in like a week. You can make a mini comic in a month. But you’re not going to be a great cartoonist until you’ve done that for several years. Maybe alot of years, maybe never.

In Adam Grant’s new book, Originals, he cites the research of Dean Simonton

“Across fields, Simonton reports that the most prolific people not only have the highest originality; they also generate their most original output during the periods ins which they produce the largest volume”

This makes a compelling case for quantity over quality. And quality is often the result of quantity. By all means, you want to put high-quality work out into the world. But that takes a willingness to write shitty first sentences, shitty first drafts, and producing things that were never meant to see the light of day.

It might help to know that you don’t have to publish everything you write. I don’t publish 90% of what I write. By knowing that, it makes it easy to increase my cumulative output.

It’s not any one thing that makes a body of work what it is. It’s the cumulative output of the creator.

I’m the host and founder of The Unmistakable Creative Podcast.

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