I Wonder..
Could people with less technical knowledge than you have in an area be able to do the same things you can do or even more in the same time you can?
Could someone be as fast or faster than you are at what you've done twice as much times as they have?
I think the answer to those questions is yes
But Perhaps
Perhaps we should ask why; Why should they?
Surely more experience and more knowledge should translate to faster right?
Well... the answer to that is, it isn't enough.
It isn't always enough to have more knowledge about something or to have done something more times than others have.
Experience gives an edge a lot of the time, but not always– the world isn't fair, or maybe fair just gets blurry sometimes.
Picture this:
Two chefs of different levels of experience cook the same meal everyday. The more experienced chef does everything entirely off memory and starts from scratch everyday. The younger chef on the other hand, every week, packages the exact amount of each ingredient required for that meal for each day in the week and labels them accordingly.
The chef with an organized workflow will deliver the dish promptly consistently and will have a less messy process even with less experience. The other chef will harbour a lot of chaos leading to a very noticeable difference in service quality.
Someone with a well organised structure will always beat you at your own game if you insist on a buggy workflow.
Build Systems
There's a reason why it's very easy for large corporations to put smaller companies out of business, even when those smaller companies came up with whatever the idea was that they were selling.
The big companies will do it faster and reach wider audiences because of what they've built already. Of course it technically is because they'd have more money, but it isn't just the money, it's more about what the money is used to achieve– speed and efficiency.
You might feel, "There's not much I can change; I don't have employees, I do everything myself." (I fall in that box too)
Frankly, it doesn't matter.
Point is whatever you do needs to have some kind of order surrounding it that optimizes the process.
A business needs a business model– a system that guides how the journey from design to production to sales and everything in between is coordinated.
What you as an individual need is to create various systems to help you do whatever you do faster and much more efficiently than it already is. It doesn't have to be people.
It might be;
a speed dial,
chat shortcuts on your home screen to your most recurring business conversations,
automatic replies on your social media accounts,
scheduling for your content creation,
software shortcuts in your design software,
Emmet/zen coding in your text editor,
template files for your most created documents,
creating a central hub for all your work,
I could go on and on.
Anything can be optimized. Nothing is too little!
A Shuri quote from Black Panther goes, "...just because something works doesn't mean it cannot be improved."
Leverage AI tools
.AI is already the now, and will most definitely be the future.
I know of an influencer who has used a service called Delphi.ai to massively scale his online presence and availability by essentially creating a digital clone of himself that can conduct conversations and other tasks the way he normally would at times when he can't be present.
I won't bore you with things you've heard countless times on how AI will take jobs and all, but I'll give you this;
If AI on its own, will do much faster and with less mistakes what humans can, then AI backed by a human mind should do much more.
In the end,
Some people will be left behind, some will get in front of the others. Who knows; it might just be the fact that you can do something 0.001% faster that'll give you the edge you so much need.
Don't stay stagnant.
Don't forget to keep exploring.
I'm rooting for you!
Theophilus Oluwape Alagbe
Come Find Me, I’ll be waiting!
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