Quality over quantity is a cliche saying for a reason, it is a good guide to follow through with. Having quantity but no quality distracts you from what’s truly important and what actually matters. Having one quality thing is always better than having multiple mediocre things.
When I was in college, I wanted to graduate richer than any of my peers. After graduation, I had about $40,000 to my name. How did I get there? I got there by taking on as many jobs as I possibly could. If I could sell my time for money, I gladly did without thinking twice. Youthful energy was running high.
During the semesters, I took on 2 jobs on average AND worked every single summer. I was a workaholic and had results to backup all of my effort. However, what I now know is that I was going for quantity and not for quality. It would’ve been better to have one paid finance internship than it would be to be a gym cleaner.
Especially since that one finance internship could be the difference between having a phenomenal full time job versus having one mediocre one. I got paid pretty well, I thought, for working at a gym. It paid $8.25 per hour, which I found out was a pay cut from the usual $8.75 per hour for the prior year.
However, there were no exit opportunities. No one really cared that I was a gym cleaner when it came down to full time offers and internships. I completely missed that quality over quantity mantra. That was 20 – 25 hours per week that I devoted to it. All I got was money in return. Which isn’t that valuable in the grand scheme.
Is Quality Over Quantity Good?
Quality over quantity is phenomenal. It gets you to think in bigger picture terms instead of looking at the short term small picture needs. The long term is what matters over the short term. Too many people sacrificed long term gains in exchange for short term gains and ended up worse off as a result.
I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if I did finance internships during the school year instead of taking on menial jobs. Or better yet, started a personal finance blog 5 – 8 years sooner than I did. Or any number of a hundred other things I could’ve done to focus on my long term growth.
I was too short sighted and focused on the money instead of looking over the long term and trying to build out my life. These days, I say no to more opportunities than I say yes to. That’s the power of financial independence, the ability to have choices in the day to day life.
Your time is worth far more than you think it is. I could get a second job making an extra $15/hour on the weekends. However, I would much rather blog and help spread the good word of personal finance around for people. Why? It’s my passion, first of all. Second of all, I enjoy helping other people’s financial lives better.
Always choose quality over quantity even in the earlier years when you have a lot of time on your hands. Time is a nonrenewable resource that you need to allocate it well. You can never get your time back no matter how hard you try. You can easily harvest the power by saying no to more opportunities.
9 Reasons to Choose Quality over Quantity
One reason to choose quality over quantity is so that you can SMASH that social share button and post to your favorite social media! No need to post to as many social media as possible. Just one channel that your friends appreciate is great.
So with that said, let’s get into the reasons.
1) Quality Saves Money
One good product saves more money in the long run than 10 mediocre products. Batteries are a prime example. Batteries are not good purchases from the dollar store. They have a high chance of leaking and causing damage. Buying quality batteries once is better than buying those cheap ones from Dollar Tree.
I splurge and buy one quality iPhone that’ll last me over years and years instead of looking to buy as many iPhones as I possibly can. This year, I spent $300 buying an iPhone that I know I will use for the years to come. Quality over quantity works when it comes to purchases. It saves money over the long term.
The clothes I bought 4 years ago are still working just fine today. That’s because I no longer buy clothes from Walmart that’ll just end up with holes in the shirt and pants. I buy from quality stores such as Nordstrom, even though it’s more expensive in the short run. It’s cheaper in the long run.
2) Quality Saves Time
When you allocate your time to the projects, things, relationships, and people who are the most important to you, it saves time. I would much rather have a small group of quality friends than 500 mediocre friends who I don’t care, love, or respect. Even if it doesn’t come to friendships, it applies to other aspects as well.
When you focus your time on the projects that you care about, you start to feel fulfilled. Why waste your time if you’re only going to put half hearted effort into it? If you want to focus on your fitness on the weekend, focus on fitness on the weekends. I passionately research passive income ideas on the weekend.
I’ve been researching for the past two years and haven’t come up with a good answer for it. I am hopeful that 2022 will be when I can actually realize the passive income ideas I’ve been researching about. It’s when I feel comfortable implementing the thought to actually come into fruition in real life. Quality over quantity saves time.
3) Quality is Minimalistic
When you limit the amount of stuff that you have to deal with on a day to day basis, you are living the simple living lifestyle. Minimalism is the way to go if you want to simplify your life and stop complications from reaching your life. There’s no need to own two cars if one is just going to sit in the garage, never to be used.
A quality car that will last for decades+ will do just fine. I only have one air fryer even though there are better air fryers out on the market. One sparkling water maker and one quality dinner table. There’s no reason to have multiples of it because the one that I have works just fine.
The minimalism that comes with focusing on quality can’t be beat. My family owned one quality TV for 2 decades before it finally broke down and we needed to replace it. There was no need to own multiples of it or even the need to swap it out often. The one we had worked just as well and we were happy with it.
4) Quality Declutters Your Mind
We only have a limited amount of mental capacity to make good decisions with in a single day. Making decisions is a very hard process because our mind immediately goes to the pros and cons of each choice. When you focus on making one or two decisions that are impactful, then you’ve won.
Even someone as smart as Jeff Bezos admits to only needing to make a few good decisions per day in order for his life to be good. Two or three good decisions per day is winning. That’s what quality over quantity gets you. It gets you to focus on making few good decisions that’ll give tremendous impact to your life long term.
There’s too many things going on in our mind at once. We have to focus on cleaning the apartment, cleaning ourselves, taking care of ourselves, helping our friends, etc. Imagine adding more things on top of that. The quality of your decisions has to go down due to decision fatigue. Focusing on quality solves this problem.
5) Quality Helps Your Health
Fitness training is not about the number of hours you put in. It’s about the quality of those hours that you put in. There are people who spend all day in the gym who is in worse shape than someone who just spends a couple of hours in the gym. It’s not about the quantity, it’s about the intensity and the quality of the hours.
If you don’t put in the quality hours into the gym, you might as well never have put in those hours in the first place. I recently got a new job offer. The company has a sponsored gym in the building. I will be taking full advantage of it and can’t wait until I get to work out again.
However, when I do work out, it will be based on the quality of hours that I put in. I will not focus on the quantity of hours that I put in because it’s not a good indicator of my fitness progress. Protect and take care of your health by looking at quality over quantity.
6) Quality Keeps you Focused
After I graduated college, I looked at so many side income generating opportunities. I looked at being a bartender on the weekends, I looked at doing surveys, mystery shopping, blogs, and more. That was a classic case of drowning in opportunity. By the end of it all, I abandoned all projects within 7 months.
By not focusing on quality over quantity, I was so unfocused. So unfocused that nothing came out of my efforts. I should have only focused on one or two income generating activities that would’ve brought me passive income over the long term. However, I didn’t. The important thing is that I learned from that mistake.
No longer do I look to do too many things at once. I just look to do quality things and go all in on it on the weekend. Any time that I focus on A is time that takes me away from B. As a result, I have to carefully choose what activities that I want to pursue. Because my time is a very limited resource that I treasure and cherish.
7) Quality Keeps You Happy
It’s not about the number of friendships you have. It’s about the quality of those friendships. There are many friends who will be nice to your face only to talk bad things about you behind your back. None of my friends that I have are like that and I am immensely grateful for that.
The intensity and the quality of your friendships are what’s going to make you whole and feeling happy with them. It’s not about who has the most number of connections on LinkedIn, friends on Facebook, or followers on Twitter. It’s about having a small but passionate group of people who are going to be behind your vision.
What you stand for and what you want your followers to achieve. That is true influence and that is true happiness. Those friendships and relationships are genuine and will make you happy. When you know you can count on them when you’re feeling down is when you know you have great friends. Quality over quantity of friends.
8) Quality Gives More Meaning
When you are married to a billionaire, is a $1,000 gift going to get you to say, “wow, how generous!”? More than likely not. However, when you are married to a poor person, a $1,000 gift means more than anything in the world. It means something because it shows that they are willing to sacrifice a lot to make you happy.
Quality gives the feeling of intensity. It means something when you focus on quality. Thoughtful gifts are more meaningful rather than 20 gifts that have no thought behind it. Quality just has more meaning behind it especially if there were things besides money that went into the planning..
Quality over quantity. You appreciate things more when you only have one of something. To the point where you don’t even want to use it. I take immaculate care of my health because I know I only have one body for the rest of my life. You never appreciate what you have until it’s gone. That’s how much you’ll care about quality.
9) Quality Gets Rid of Things that Don’t Matter
Life is about eliminating the things that don’t matter and focusing on things that do matter. When you’re saving money, you don’t skimp out on purchases that give you meaning. You spend as much money as you possibly want on them. For me, that is in stocks and assets.
I ruthlessly spend as much as I want on quality assets and ruthlessly cut out on things that don’t give me joy. I don’t like to drink caffeine so no Starbucks coffee for me. By focusing on quality, I am eliminating things that don’t add value to my life and I love that part about it.
By focusing on things that does matter and getting rid of things that don’t matter, you are winning both ways. That’s what quality over quantity gets you. It isn’t always about finding out meaningful projects to pursue. Sometimes, it’s about finding out what bad projects to avoid.
Always Choose Quality Over Quantity
Quality over quantity is a way for you to simplify your already complicated life. Don’t admire the people who have a lot of stuff. Admire the people who can be happy living with less. Those are the people who achieved internal peace and are comfortable in their own skin and life. Whether they have more or less, it doesn’t matter.
Focusing on quality gets you to that point. There’s no need to have an unlimited amount of everything as long as enough. The cost it takes to get you that extra one is greater than the joy you can experience by holding onto things you already enjoy. There’s no need to have 2 jobs to grow your nest egg.
Having one job that has the highest potential for you to grow into where you want to be is valuable. A job culture where they not only give you work life balance and happiness is something that can’t be bought with money. That’s the beautiful part about life. You don’t need to be right all the time.
All you have to be right is one time then everyone can call you an overnight success. Whether it’s relationships, a job, friendships, or the like. All you have to do is be right one time and your life is set up for life. There’s no need to chase for more when what you already have is phenomenal.
Quality over quantity gets you farther in life than quantity over quality. Make the right decision the first time around so there’s no need to backtrack and think things through again. That way, you can minimize the amount of regrets you could have over your life.
9 Reasons to Choose Quality over Quantity
- Quality saves money
- Quality saves time
- Quality is minimalistic
- Quality declutters your mind
- Quality helps your health
- Quality keeps you focused
- Quality keeps you happy
- Quality gives more meaning
- Quality gets rid of things that don’t matter
