- Cyber Patterns by Jason Levin
- Posts
- Explore, then Exploit
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How do you know when it's time to try a new opportunity versus when to double down on existing ones? This is a decision known as exploring v. exploiting or explore/exploit .
It's the same game theory when deciding whether to keep dating v. settle down, keep trying new skills v. practice one skill harder, or be a digital nomad v. live in one place.
I spent my first 23 years of my life exploring. Now, I'm exploiting.
I spent ages 13-23 losing on the internet trying a bunch of businesses, but never sticking with anything too long. I spent 17-22 switching cities and countries. And I spent 14-23 dating around and bouncing between girls. Things are different now.
I live with my girlfriend in NYC and despite TikTok telling me that being a polyamorous digital nomad is the secret to happiness, I'm 100x happier and more fulfilled now. As for writing, doubling down has been the best career decision of my life.
But even within writing, I struggle with exploring/exploiting. Everyday, I'm faced with deciding how much time I spend on:
My writing: blogs, threads, tweets
Freelance work: others' blogs, threads, and tweets
If I'm not careful, my exploring will distract me from my own writing. If I died today after writing countless freelance pieces, but never writing a book, I'll come back to life and haunt Twitter forever. I love freelance work, but my personal writing is what drives me to get out of bed in the morning.
On a more granular level, there's so much explore/exploit within my own work. Everyday, I must decide how much time I spend exploring new platforms or exploiting ones that work. Do I try building on visual platforms like TikTok and Instagram or just double down on Twitter and LinkedIn?
"Experimentation is sometimes a malinvestment,” writes Josh Kaufman. We've all wasted time on shit we thought would help our careers. But, these malinvestments are just tuition for getting where you want to go. In the near-term, they'll feel like they were distractions, but they were really just lessons.
The Explore/Exploit Pirate
Ok, but let's cut the happy-go-lucky bullshit. Sometimes a malinvestment really is a distraction. But what happens if this distraction is profitable?
A couple weeks ago, I got paid $800 for making memes about The Merge for companies. Should I keep making memes and improve my meme-making skills? Or should I be spending that time writing? See, it's easy to give up a distraction when it's not profitable, but a lot harder to give up a profitable distraction.
The worst kind of distraction is a profitable one.
“People come to me left, right, and center with ideas and requests [about podcasts, NFTs, etc],” author Robert Greene said. “Those aren’t opportunities. They’re distractions. I want to write books—that’s what gives me pleasure. So I say no a lot.”
I'm saying no more to projects that don't excite me, but here's why I'll keep making memes for money. It helps me crystallize my thinking into one small precise idea. Plus more importantly, it's fun as fuck.
And even though I know I'm focusing on writing, that doesn't mean I can't explore other avenues on the side. Why does the exploration phase ever stop?
If you're only exploring, you're a broke dilettante. If you're only exploiting, you're bored (and boring). There needs to be some happy medium.
In the words of Kaufman, "the master key to a satisfying life is experimentation." Plus, if you're smart, you can combine exploitation and exploration.
That's why I've only been saying yes to projects where I'm learning & earning rather than one or the other. For me, this mostly means working 1:1 with founders and VCs. But sometimes this means trying new stuff like writing ad copy or making memes.
To learn or to earn, that is the question. The answer is both.
"The line between exploitation and exploration can be pretty blurry," writes Austin Kleon. My advice: find the explore/exploit line and keep your feet on both sides at all times.