Quality versus Quantity

Last week, a guy at my Toastmasters club gave a speech about failure that included an anecdote about a pottery class. A teacher told half the class they’d be graded on the quality of their best pot. The other half would be graded by how many pots they made. (The whole story is here and a bunch of other places on the net.)

Of course, the group that was aiming for quantity ended up with better-quality pots than the group whose goal was quality. Why? Because they got more practice. Of course, they had to strive to make better pots even though it wouldn’t affect their grade, otherwise they wouldn’t have learned anything.

I have more to say about this, which will have to wait until next week. So I guess I’m assigning homework: apply this story to writing.