It doesn’t matter how fast you move if it’s in a worthless direction. Picking the right thing to work on is the most important element of productivity and usually almost ignored. So think about it more! Independent thought is hard but it’s something you can get better at with practice.
and
Doing great work usually requires colleagues of some sort. Try to be around smart, productive, happy, and positive people that don’t belittle your ambitions. I love being around people who push me and inspire me to be better. To the degree you able to, avoid the opposite kind of people—the cost of letting them take up your mental cycles is horrific.
This the key, isn't it? Great technical solutions to the wrong problem are no solutions at all. Full stop.
Collectively, we spend too much time bickering about tools (e.g., frameworks, programming languages, etc.) and not enough time on how to get better and better ends from those means.
After all, it's very hard to predict the future.
Coincidentally (?), Duke's "Quit" discusses the importance of having a "board of directors" you can go to get objective and critical feedback from. Often, this could be peers / team, but in a work setting - which we often have little control - the quality is going to depend on culture.
Truth Seeking > Group Thinking
https://www.annieduke.com/books/
p.s. I recently picked up "How to Decide" but haven't read it yet. At this point I hesitate to recommend it, but given the other two I'm very optimistic.
I do wholeheartedly agree with your point of knowing when to quit. Need to know when to let go.
