When Is Good Enough Enough?
Welcome to Effective Habits, a weekly newsletter where I share evidence-based strategies and tools to help you live a happy, healthy, and productive life.
Today at a Glance:
A Light Isn't The Sun
4 Thoughts on Muscle Building (And Strength Training)
When Is “Good Enough” Actually Good Enough?
“The time is always ripe to do right.”
A Light Isn't The Sun
David Elikwu
🔦Lights, Camera, ...
Modern life is full of substitutes that reproduce one useful part of the real thing so well that we start forgetting what they leave out. A light bulb lets us see at night, but it is not the sun: it does not set our body clock, warm our skin, shape ecosystems, or pull us outside. A summary can give you a book’s main idea, but not the experience of reading it. A message can maintain contact, but it is not the same as being with someone. Clips can show you the best moments of a film without giving you the immersion of watching it. The danger is not that we literally confuse the copy with the original; it is that the copy satisfies one need quickly enough that we stop noticing everything else we are missing. Worse, over time we begin designing the originals around their compressed versions: books built to be summarized, films built to be clipped, songs built around snippets, conversations written to be screenshotted. Convenience is useful, but a facsimile is still a facsimile. A light can keep the darkness away, but sometimes you still need to open the curtains.
🎬Action!
Don’t let the convenient substitute become your default. When you catch yourself consuming the compressed version, like summaries instead of books, clips instead of films, texts instead of time together, AI output instead of thinking, ask: What am I missing by consuming the compressed version? Then regularly choose the fuller experience when it matters. Use shortcuts to save time, not to replace the parts of life that derive their value from depth, attention, and presence.
🔦Lights, Camera, ...
Building muscle is often made more complicated than it needs to be. You don’t need to obsess over a “perfect” rep range, lift as heavy as possible, feel every muscle working on every exercise, or eat everything in sight to grow. What matters is understanding a few basic principles about how muscles respond to training, how strength differs from size, and how much food your body actually needs to support growth. The four ideas below can help you train more deliberately, build muscle more efficiently, and avoid some of the most common mistakes in the gym.
🎬Action!
Use a range of rep ranges. All rep ranges build muscle, provided your sets are sufficiently challenging and you progressively increase the demands over time. Heavier, lower-rep work is particularly useful for building maximal strength, while moderate and higher reps can be an efficient way to accumulate muscle-building volume. You don’t need to choose one: use heavier compound lifts alongside moderate- to higher-rep accessory/isolation work.
Use the mind-muscle connection where it helps. On isolation exercises, focus on the muscle you are trying to train. If you barely feel it working, reduce the weight, slow the movement down, and improve your control. For heavy compound lifts such as squats and deadlifts, prioritize good technique and moving the weight safely rather than trying to consciously feel every muscle involved.
Train for both strength and muscle growth. Getting stronger does not automatically mean you are building as much muscle as possible. If hypertrophy is your goal, combine heavier compound lifts with enough moderate-load isolation work to accumulate sufficient training volume. Aim to progressively increase your performance over time, but do not rely on strength gains alone as proof of muscle growth.
Use only a modest calorie surplus. More food does not automatically mean more muscle. Eat enough to support training and gradual weight gain, while avoiding a large surplus that mainly adds body fat. Beginners can generally tolerate a larger surplus because they can build muscle faster, while experienced lifters usually benefit from a smaller one. Adjust your intake based on your rate of weight gain, training performance, and changes in body composition rather than relying on a fixed calorie target. However, you’ll generally be looking at a range of a ~200 to 500 calorie surplus per day.
When Is “Good Enough” Actually Good Enough?
Nir Eyal & Jasmine Eyal
🔦Lights, Camera, ...
Sometimes the hardest part isn’t doing more; it’s knowing when to stop. We can keep refining a presentation, researching a purchase, rethinking a decision, optimizing a routine, or chasing a slightly better outcome long after the biggest gains have already been made. It feels productive, but often it’s just discomfort with declaring something finished or sufficient. The END framework is a simple way to recognize that point: when extra effort costs more than it adds, you can’t identify a meaningful improvement, and the returns are clearly shrinking, “good enough” is no longer settling—it’s the sensible place to stop.
🎬Action!
Effort cost - Is this the best use of my time right now? Every extra hour you spend improving one thing is an hour you can’t spend elsewhere, such as on sleep, relationships, another priority, or simply recovering. Ask whether the likely improvement is worth what you’re giving up. Fixing a serious error in an important contract may justify another hour; polishing an already-good caption probably doesn’t. Stop if the extra effort isn’t worth the opportunity cost.
Name the improvement - Can I clearly say what I would improve next and why it matters? Don’t keep working simply because something vaguely feels like it could be “better.” Name the specific change and the benefit it should create: “I’m changing [specific thing] so that [specific result].” For example: “I’m adding the key takeaways to the final slide so stakeholders can immediately see what matters.” Stop if you can’t name a meaningful change and its intended benefit.
Decreasing returns - Is more work likely to materially improve the result? Early effort usually produces large gains; later effort often produces tiny ones. A second draft might substantially improve an essay, while the twentieth may amount to swapping synonyms back and forth. Even if you can improve something, ask whether the improvement will be noticeable or important enough to justify the effort. Stop if additional work is unlikely to meaningfully improve the outcome.
TOOL TIP
Squoosh: Compress, resize, and convert images while comparing the original and optimized versions side by side. Processing happens locally, so images never leave your device.
FUN FACT
Wood frogs can spend months frozen solid. Their hearts stop, they stop breathing, and even their eyes freeze. Sugar produced by their livers protects their cells, allowing the frogs to thaw and awaken in spring.
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Disclaimer: The information provided in this newsletter is for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Please consult a medical professional for advice, diagnosis, or treatment. We are not liable for any risks or issues that may arise from using this information.
