I have to agree and it happens in all areas but actually in a slightly different form usually. To take the analogy from the post, you start walking 20 miles a day and then someone says that it seems easy to do that so why not up it to 30 miles a day. Before you know it, the 40 mile day is the expectation, off days are not allowed and you fall further and further behind, eventually succumbing to burnout and the whole thing ends badly.
Software projects are the same. Nearly every company I've worked at, a senior manager says "Well if we can get these guys doing all this and they seem to be working well within their boundaries, lets push them harder". Pushing people harder can be good if they are really just slacking, but for the most part, people can't sustain more than is comfortable for long periods of time without their work or their mental state suffering. The end result is crappy code, people who leave companies or those that become non-functioning because they're burned.
There is a state that I call "waiting in motion". You have a goal. It is some ways away. It will take a lot of work to get there. But you just make sure you stay in motion in the right direction, then wait...surprisingly soon you will arrive.
But it is frustrating to want to be there, and just be plugging away.
Excellent story. I think people in general overestimate the time they have available to do things and underestimate the time it takes to actually do it; which inevitibly leads to situations where you think you can make up for "lost" time by sprinting forward, tomorrow. The most valuable lesson I learned about productivity is that small actions, done now, can lead to huge productivity gains tomorrow. The hard part of course is to subconsciously justify to yourself that those small actions are actually making significant progress towards your end goal. It's important not to get discouraged and keep charging ahead.
What's more insidious are those "busy working" tasks that can consume your day where you actually feel productive, but haven't made any real progress towards where you want to be.
As an aside, every other blog I have seen that is part of this svbtle network (unless this one isn't and is just styled the same) has a nice mobile theme. This one works poorly with mobile because of the fixed left bar.
For some things, this makes a lot of sense: read something technical (preferably while taking notes) for twenty minutes a day; work on a small problem (brain teaser, programming koan, etc) every day; get some exercise everyday; etc, etc. And certainly, this applies to hiking as well (just ask anyone who's hiked the PCT).
To me, creativity doesn't seem consistent, though. I might come up with a great idea and pound out code to implement it one day, then get stuck the next. I don't see how someone could force themselves to "hike twenty miles every day" in terms of creativity. Also, sometimes you have to push yourself to grow or improve. Not saying that "twenty miles a day" isn't pushing oneself, but if you get comfortable with that, you might want to try pushing to "twenty-one miles a day".
The part about planning and paranoia is spot on though: even if your plan has to change (which it will), if you're paranoid enough, you will have backup plans.
You do have to work faster sometimes, but maybe not in the way you think. Recall the tortoise and the hare. It really is a similar story. Except the moral shifted from "never underestimate an opponent" to "even if you're slow, consistent effort will bring you far".
How about the guy who does a minimum of 20 per day, and does extra on the good days? He's going to clean your clock. Or the guy who uses a bicycle. Or a car. Or flies. Or takes a different route. What exactly is the point of this story? It's advocating consistency through a completely fictional, contrived story.
Okay, change it a bit: you're hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (2,663 miles). You can't take a bike, a car, a plane or a different route. And most people agree, 20 miles a day is a good upper limit. Much more than that and you will make yourself too sick to continue. Bonus points for the fact that it's such a long distance that you can't carry all your food with you, so you must be extra paranoid and have a plan (like the article mentions) for food caches.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder why he didn't use hiking the PCT as his scenario, other than many people haven't heard of it.
Where did the 5 extra "miles" come from? He picks a quote where “20 miles/day” is a good pace to have set for yourself, but then adds this about his team: “We’ve been constantly marching at a good pace (~25 miles per day)“.
Cannot read the article as the navigation is floating above the text on my Android phone. At least this is somewhat consistent as it happens quite often.
Software projects are the same. Nearly every company I've worked at, a senior manager says "Well if we can get these guys doing all this and they seem to be working well within their boundaries, lets push them harder". Pushing people harder can be good if they are really just slacking, but for the most part, people can't sustain more than is comfortable for long periods of time without their work or their mental state suffering. The end result is crappy code, people who leave companies or those that become non-functioning because they're burned.