Is it a monkey or a pedestal?

When trying to accomplish anything, there are usually a lot of different pieces that need to fall into place. While picking an easy place to start can be a good way to build some initial momentum, it’s helpful to see the full scope of things and make sure there isn’t something that might trip you up before you finish.

For example, if you wanted to create a new social media platform, you might think of three things that need to happen:

• Get a computer
• Design a logo
• Code the site

The first two are relatively easy, but the last one could take years. You might think you’re 2/3 of the way done, but at that point you’re not even to 1%.

It’s similar to a story in Annie Duke’s excellent book “Quit” about monkeys and pedestals:

Imagine that you’re trying to train a monkey to juggle flaming torches while standing on a pedestal in a public park. If you can achieve such an impressive spectacle, you’ve got a moneymaking act on your hands. Teller recognizes that there are two pieces to becoming successful at this endeavor: training the monkey and building the pedestal. One piece of the puzzle presents a possibly intractable obstacle in the way of success. And the other is building the pedestal. People have been building pedestals since ancient Greece and probably before. Over two-plus millennia, pedestals have been thoroughly figured out. You can buy one at a furniture store or a hardware store, or turn a milk crate upside down. The bottleneck, the hard thing, is training a monkey to juggle flaming torches.

It’s unlikely that you’ll need to code an entire social media site or a teach a monkey to juggle flaming torches, but we all have monkeys in our way.

In a post on her website, Annie compares this to things like electric car batteries. You can do everything perfect in building an electric car, but if you don’t have a battery that can go at least a few hundred miles on a charge, you’ve got nothing.

Personally, I’m often bad about knocking out the low-hanging fruit at the expense of solving major problems. Attack the hard work first, and let the easy pieces fall into place when the time is right.