Sunday morning, January 5th. Your to-do list has twenty items. You want to do them all well. You won't. You'll either do them all poorly or do three well and ignore seventeen. Here's the controversial truth: strategic mediocrity is more valuable than accidental mediocrity, and most people's lives would improve if they got deliberately worse at most things.

The Thesis

Excellence is expensive. Not just in time—in attention, energy, and cognitive overhead. Going from "good enough" to "excellent" doesn't cost 20% more effort. It costs 300% more. And you don't have infinite resources.

This means: If you're trying to be excellent at ten things, you're actually being mediocre at all ten. But if you're excellent at two things and deliberately mediocre at eight, you're genuinely excellent at something that matters.

The controversial claim: Most successful people are worse at most things than you are. They're just better at fewer things. They've made peace with being aggressively average at everything except their chosen few.

Why Excellence Everywhere Fails

The energy economics:

Excellence requires:

  • Deep focus (limited daily supply)
  • Iterative refinement (time-intensive)
  • Emotional investment (exhausting)
  • Continuous learning (attention-demanding)
  • Quality standards (stress-inducing)

You can sustain this for maybe 2-3 domains simultaneously. Beyond that, you're pretending.

The myth of the Renaissance person:

We celebrate people who are "good at everything." But look closer. They're excellent at one thing and conversationally competent at others. The excellence made them visible. The competence makes them interesting dinner guests.

Example: That colleague who seems great at everything? They're genuinely exceptional at their core skill (design, engineering, strategy). Everything else—cooking, fitness, hobbies—they do at a "respectable enough" level. But you remember the excellence and assume everything else matches.

The comparison trap:

You compare your inside experience (where you know you're half-assing nine things) to others' outside performance (where you only see their one excellent thing). You feel inadequate. You try to be excellent everywhere. You spread thinner. You fail everywhere.

What Strategic Mediocrity Looks Like

Deliberate vs. accidental mediocrity:

Accidental mediocrity: You meant to be excellent but ran out of time/energy. It bothers you. You feel guilty. You tell yourself you'll do better next time. You won't.

Strategic mediocrity: You decided in advance this doesn't matter. You set a "good enough" bar, hit it, and move on without guilt. You saved your excellence budget for things that compound.

The permission framework:

Most things in life have three performance tiers:

Tier 1: Unacceptable — Falls below functional. Creates problems. Must be avoided.

Tier 2: Good enough — Functional. No one complains. Doesn't create opportunities. Doesn't prevent them. The strategic mediocrity zone.

Tier 3: Excellence — Compounds over time. Opens doors. Creates reputation. Worth the 300% energy premium.

The strategy: Keep everything in Tier 2 except your chosen 2-3 Tier 3 domains.

The Cost of Refusing Mediocrity

Time scarcity:

Perfectionism is inefficient. Doing your email "excellently" (perfect grammar, thoughtful responses, careful formatting) saves zero relationships and costs 40% more time. That's time not spent on things where excellence matters.

Decision fatigue:

Every domain where you're trying to optimize consumes decision energy. Should I meal-prep or order out? Should I do an extra set at the gym? Should I rewrite this paragraph? Should I research better calendar apps?

These micro-optimizations compound into paralysis. Strategic mediocrity eliminates decisions: "This is a Tier 2 domain. I do the default competent thing. Moving on."

The opportunity cost of maintenance:

Excellence requires maintenance. Your garden, your physique, your network, your skills, your wardrobe, your apartment aesthetic. Every domain you let slip to mediocrity frees resources for domains that actually build your life.

The Excellence Portfolio Strategy

Step 1: Identify your 2-3 excellence domains

Where does 10x performance create 100x outcomes?

For most people, this is:

  • One professional skill (the thing you're paid for)
  • One relationship domain (partner, kids, or close friends)
  • One health foundation (sleep, exercise, or nutrition—pick ONE)

Step 2: Everything else is Tier 2 (good enough)

This includes things you used to care about deeply. Your hobbies, your side projects, your appearance, your social media, your cooking, your reading list, your fitness beyond the one pillar, your entertainment choices.

Good enough means: Functional. Not broken. Not embarrassing. But not optimized. Not excellent. Not even "pretty good."

Step 3: Automate, delegate, or default

For Tier 2 domains:

  • Automate: Subscriptions, systems, defaults, routines
  • Delegate: Pay someone, ask for help, let others decide
  • Default: Do the obvious acceptable thing without deliberation

Examples:

  • Clothing: One style that works, buy multiples, replace when worn
  • Food: Rotation of 5 easy meals, order out when tired
  • Exercise (if not your pillar): 20-minute walks, no optimization
  • Entertainment: Watch whatever's popular, don't research "the best"
  • Email: Reply in 2 sentences, don't wordsmith

The Counter-Intuitive Benefits

Authenticity through constraint:

When you stop trying to be impressive at everything, you become genuinely interesting at something. Depth beats breadth.

Energy availability:

Excellence requires surplus energy. Mediocrity at most things creates that surplus. You're not tired from optimizing your meal prep—you're fresh for the work that matters.

Reduced anxiety:

Half your stress comes from the gap between your standards and your performance across twenty domains. Cut the standards for seventeen of them. The stress evaporates.

Faster learning in what matters:

Excellence requires iteration. Iteration requires volume. Volume requires time. Strategic mediocrity everywhere else gives you that time.

Objections and Responses

"But I care about doing things well!"

You care about the feeling of caring, not the outcome. If you actually cared, you'd measure impact. Most things you do "well" create zero measurable improvement in your life. You're optimizing for the sake of optimizing.

"But won't I become a boring, one-dimensional person?"

No. You'll become a person who's genuinely excellent at something instead of someone who's exhaustingly mediocre at everything while claiming they value quality.

"But what if I'm mediocre at the wrong things?"

You can change your excellence portfolio. The point is: you can't be excellent at everything simultaneously. Choose wrong? Choose again next year. Just choose something instead of diluting effort across everything.

"But I enjoy optimizing [random domain]!"

If optimizing meal prep genuinely brings you joy, it's not strategic mediocrity—it's hobby-level engagement. That's fine. But be honest: are you doing it for joy or because you feel like you should do it well?

Takeaways

Core insight: Excellence is a limited resource. Spending it everywhere means having it nowhere. Strategic mediocrity is how you conserve excellence for what compounds.

What's actually true:

  1. Going from good to excellent costs 3x more energy than going from bad to good
  2. You can be truly excellent at 2-3 things; everything else is theater
  3. Most successful people are deliberately worse at most things than you think
  4. Decision fatigue from optimizing everything prevents excellence anywhere
  5. "Good enough" in 17 domains funds excellence in 3

What to do:

Audit your excellence budget:

  • List everything you're trying to do well
  • Honestly assess: Does this compound over years, or is it maintenance?
  • Identify your 2-3 domains where excellence creates outsized returns

Set Tier 2 standards for everything else:

  • Define "good enough" (functional, not broken, not embarrassing)
  • Give yourself permission to hit that bar and stop
  • Eliminate decision-making: automate, delegate, or default

Ruthlessly protect your excellence domains:

  • Schedule time for deep work in these areas first
  • Treat them as non-negotiable
  • Iterate, refine, improve continuously
  • Let everything else slide to maintain this focus

Practice strategic mediocrity:

  • Send emails in 2 sentences instead of 2 paragraphs
  • Wear the same style of clothes every day (decision eliminated)
  • Eat the same breakfast for a month (no morning decisions)
  • Skip optimization research for Tier 2 domains (don't find "the best" option)
  • Ignore trends in areas outside your excellence portfolio

The uncomfortable truth:

Your life will improve when you get deliberately worse at most things. Not accidentally worse from burnout—deliberately worse from choice.

The person who's excellent at their craft, excellent in their relationships, and mediocre at everything else will out-perform the person trying to be great at everything by a factor of 10.

Because excellence isn't about doing everything well. It's about doing a few things exceptionally and giving yourself permission to be boringly competent at everything else.

Stop trying to be impressive everywhere. Start being exceptional somewhere.

The path to excellence is paved with strategic mediocrity in everything else.

Today's Sketch

January 5, 2026