At 12 years old, in 2021 Abhimanyu Mishra became the youngest chess grandmaster in history. For those unfamiliar with chess, being a grandmaster means you're The Big Cheese. As of 2022, there are about 2000 chess grandmasters worldwide.

Becoming a grandmaster is no easy feat. And, for most of history, attaining that level at the age of 12 was completely unfathomable.

Over the last decades, top practitioners in virtually all disciplines have improved and are reaching new heights. Runners and swimmers are faster, the best gamers are more strategic, the best soccer players are more clinical, and top competitive programmers are problem-solving demons. And, I'll be the first to say, it's not surprising.

With every passing year, we learn how to do things better. So, in addition to discovering the new best practices that push the frontier of excellence forward, we're also learning better ways to teach, practice, and implement these learnings.

Not only is chess theory improving over time, our understanding of how to teach chess is improving. Taken together, this means that a genius kid exclusively focused on chess can achieve substantially better results now than they could have 20 years ago.

It's easy to see the rising tide when you look at the best of the best, but this accelerated rate of improvement can be seen among average practitioners as well. The 'you's and the 'I's.

A motivated weight-lifter leveraging our modern understanding of nutrition, training, and recovery can improve their physique more easily. An inquisitive developer can learn any programming language they want with the drop of a hat, through an abundance of online tutorials, guides, and (now) question-answer AIs. And a devoted poker enthusiast can now practice their game 10 hours a day through a mixture of online courses and live games.

Modern technology and understanding have made it so every hour of deliberate practice can push you that much farther than it previously could.

What this translates to for me is this:

The cost of watching TV, sitting on the couch, or "name-that-unproductive-activity" is higher than it's ever been before.

If you (like me) live, among other things, to improve, then the opportunity cost of "wasting time", however you define that, is at its peak and only climbing.

Sometimes I have days where I get significantly less done than I set out to. Not because I couldn't do the work, but typically because I was tired and simply opted to do something else. I've made a practice of noting it when this happens. Few things motivate me more than not wanting to mark down my hours wasted, because I realize just how much I'm giving up by giving in.

Much more can be achieved in a productive hour now than could have been achieved in a productive hour twenty years ago. Internalizing this fact has made me all the more motivated to make good use of my time, and perhaps it can do the same for you.

Aside: This outlook may not resonate with everyone. Some people get great pleasure out of taking the day by ear, vibing, and rolling with the flow, and I'm totally cool with that and pass no judgment. This is just my perspective and how I tend to contrast good days versus less good days: by how much I get done (with maybe more than a little nuance).