Speed Matters: Why Working Quickly Is More Important Than It Seems

Somers argues the obvious benefit of working quickly — you finish more per unit time — is the least interesting one. The deeper effect is psychological: fast feedback loops lower the mental "activation energy" of every task, so you start more things, do them more often, and improve faster. Examples: Google's obsession with sub-second search, fast email response habits drawing more email out of senders, fast pull-request merges keeping contributors engaged, and his own slow text-editor undo subtly changing how he writes. "Slow systems starve."