Go fast! post

_posts/fast.md

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+---
+title: "Go fast!"
+date: 2024-01-01
+---
+A big lament of mine while I prepare for interviews is that it requires you to do things fast, usually faster than is required in the actual job. And speed at, e.g., programming is not a sign of mastery. But I've realized that there is a lot of intrinsic value to being not just competent but fast (and maybe even trading off competence for speed) at programming, writing, math, drawing etc -- skills that underlie the bigger things we try to do.
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+I think this is primarily because going fast is fun. And it's fun because it reduces the time from an idea to reality. Of course there are a lot more benefits: increased iteration speed (if you can build something 50% faster, you can make 2x the things), momentum\*, and focus. The last one, "focus", merits more explanation. Up until a certain level of speed, a task requires concious mental effort to do. Once it gets fast enough, it is so fluent that it requires no thought; you can just focus on the hard stuff.