Most of us want to produce the best work possible. How do you pursue that goal? One approach is to aim for excellence. You study everything you can about your area, read obsessively about top performers, and anxiously practice your craft with an eye toward perfection.
This is one common-sense way to pursue excellence, but there’s another option as well. You could just throw quality out the window and produce a lot of work without worrying if it’s much good. Which path will get you closer to your personal best?
The parable of the pots (or photographs)
The famous parable of the pots from David Bayles and Ted Orland’s book Art & Fear claims to answer that question with an anecdote about a ceramics class. The professor divides the class into two groups: One will be graded on quantity and the other on quality. The first group will have all their pots weighed and the heavier they are, the higher the grade. The second will be graded on the best pot they produce, no matter how much work they turn out overall.
“Grading time and a curious fact emerged: The works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity,” the authors report. “It seems that while the ‘quantity’ group was busily churning out piles of work — and learning from their…
