Hit The Spot

Many human endeavors seem at first glance to call for MorePainMoreGainSolutions, such as earning money, writing software, building a house, and studying for school. Supposedly, the harder and longer you work, the sooner and greater your reward.

But in reality, there is a point of diminishing return, after which working harder and longer will produce less reward, rather than more, if for no other reason than we need to sleep and eat and exercise.

If we want to improve ourselves, it is better to acknowledge this fact and become skilled at recognizing and hitting the sweet spot, rather than to pretend it does not exist and continue to try to work ever harder and longer. We might even be surprised at where the sweet spot that produces good long term results is located.

Therefore, convert MorePainMoreGainSolutions into GoldilocksSolutions.

Get better at predicting the sweet spot, and get better hitting it (perhaps applying a LessIsBetterSolution to the variance).

Examples

The amount of work attempted by ExtremeProgrammers each iteration.

How much one studies the night before a test.

Time spent at work.

The amount of time one spends perusing Wiki.

About the name

HitTheSpot is a one-person-at-a-time game of skill. To win, you must move two sloping and pivoting metal rods enough apart at the top to get a metal ball to start rolling uphill, but not so far apart that the ball drops. If you open and close the rods at just the right times, you can get the ball to move all the way up the slope, and hit the spot.