Compounding - Sustainable Productivity
Compounding is the essence of sustainable productivity. What I write on productivity does not offer you immediate returns. You need to make foundational changes to benefit from my articles. However, when you change the state of your mind and continuously build upon yourself, the outcome will also be extraordinary. A productivity hack like taking a cold shower can boost your energy for a few hours, but it’s not sustainable. You cannot compound on that because you don’t gain anything by taking a cold shower. Unlike these productivity hacks you can find everywhere, getting quality sleep, for example, can provide sustainable gains. Then you can also build upon your gains because once you have good sleeping habits, your body will function better on an ongoing basis.
Initially, the term compounding is used in the field of economics. “Compound interest is the addition of interest to the principal sum of a loan or deposit, or in other words, interest on interest,” writes Wikipedia. What’s intriguing in this definition is the interest on interest. You gain not only from what you have but also continuously build on what you earn. Let’s say you have 100 coins. You came across a magical place called Coinbank, which offered you a 1% daily interest on your coins. The banker also gave you two options: You can keep investing the principal sum and collect your daily gains, or you can reinvest what you gain every day and thus increase your sum for the next day. With the first approach, you calculate that you’ll end up with 365 new coins at the end of the year, making your sum 465. “Wow,” you think, “that’s pretty cool!” Then you do the same calculation for the second option. Since you’ll gain a cumulative interest on your coins, your gain will be a bit more than the previous day. On the first day, you’ll get one new coin. On the 365th day, your sum will become 3778 coins—eight times better than the first option.
