The most impactful people are often defined by one great idea.
Einstein, for example, had a long career but is known especially for relativity. Marie Curie for radioactivity. Herb Simon for bounded rationality.
Some people are especially famous for being prolific, of course — e.g., Paul Erdos — but I find conversations about these people often tend to focus more on how stellar it was that they published so much, rather than what they published about.
The names I just mentioned are all intellectual giants in their fields [1], but the concept applies at more modest levels of professional accomplishment as well. When considering which Ph.D. students to admit, for example, I find myself more drawn to the people who have done one truly excellent thing than many pretty good things.
In other words, the culture of producing as-much-as-possible is not only bad for mental health (contributing to record high levels of burnout, anxiety, &c.), it is also counter-productive. So, yes, this is just another: “do less, but better” post — but it’s not as simple as all that in practice, is it?
The false dichotomy between quality and quantity: Doing better requires doing more
I’ve written before about the folly of measuring academic impact through count statistics, and…
