There is an old saying that if you can find something you love to do, you’ll never work a day in your life. But this is probably bad advice.

Here is a simple graph, from Seth Godin, to help explain:

The problem with fun things (y-axis) is that they’re fun. So lots of people want to do them. And if there’s a small or no market for said fun thing, then it’s probably a hobby. (Hobbies are still important.)

Sometimes you can be fortunate where something that previously had no market eventually has a big market. Take, for example, tinkering with computers in the early days.

This is what Chris Dixon was getting at when he said that what the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years.

But if this doesn’t happen or if a big market already exists — and you do want to be successful at something fun — it’ll likely follow a power law.

Meaning, you’ll need to be the very best in the world and it’s almost certainly going to be a “slog”. (Bottom right quadrant.) One example of this would be the phenomenon of “starchitects.”

And that’s pretty much it for the fun stuff. The rest of this graph is for things that are difficult, which means that 3 out of these 4 quadrants are difficult and/or a slog.

This is not nearly as much fun as not ever working.

“Project-triangle” by Cosmocatalano - Own work. Licensed under CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.

When I was in business school, one of my friends – who runs his own agency – explained to me the Project Triangle and the “pick any two” philosophy. 

Whether you’re building a building or building a mobile app, projects can be typically broken down in terms of 3 constraints: speed, price, and quality. The “pick any two” philosophy is that – because these dimensions are interrelated – you can only really get 2 of these dimensions at any one time.

So for example:

• If you want a project done really quickly and you want it to be high quality, then it’s not going to be cheap. It’s going to be expensive.
  

• If you want something done really quickly and you want it at the lowest price possible, then it’s not going to be high quality. It’s going to be low quality.
  

• Finally, if you want something high quality and you want it done cheaply, then it’s not going to be done quickly. You might get it done, but it will be deprioritized by whoever is doing it.
  

Few things in life are truly black and white, but I really like this framework. It acknowledges the fact that something has to give. It’s unsustainable to think you can always get super fast, high quality work at rock bottom prices.

Some of you might be aware that I’m involved with a non-profit group here in Toronto called The Laneway Project. 

Our mission is to transform the city’s under-utilized laneways into safe, vibrant, and people-friendly spaces – which is something that has been done with a lot of success in other parts of the world (see Melbourne above).

Today I’m excited to announce two things.

First, the group has received funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. This is great news because it’s obviously a lot easier to execute on a mission when you have some resources behind you.

And that ties into the second announcement. 

The funding received from the OTF is going to be used for 2 laneway transformation projects here in Toronto. Think of them as pilot projects that will help to reorient Torontonians into thinking about laneways as viable public spaces and to demonstrate that this group is about real action.

Once the 2 laneways have been chosen, The Laneway Project will work with those local communities to come up with a vision and then an implementation plan. But before that can happen, there needs to be 2 laneways.

So if you’re a community group, resident association, business improvement area, or some other passionate group, now is your chance to nominate your laneway. Get in touch with The Laneway Project before February 7th, 2015 by clicking here.

Image: Melbourne Laneway via Flickr