The Entropy Dial

The entropy dial is how I describe the amount of self-directed chaos/randomness in your life/team/company/etc.

When you're at the beginning of something — a career exploration, product or team launch, etc. — you often want to set the entropy dial to max. Figuring out what "works" is hard, and some amount of randomness and trying new things can be really helpful.

Over time, you often need to crank this setting down: once you find PMF for your life/career/business, the primary task becomes figuring out how to routinize operations and optimize doing the same thing—instead of experimenting all the time.

Now, it's important to not crank it down to zero. The longer it stays low, the harder it is to turn back up. And it's impossible to survive in a changing world if you always stay the same.

At the end of the day, the entropy dial is something you control.