Explore vs. Exploit: The Pattern-Novelty Balance

There's a really cool concept that I always come back around to, which is the oscillation in life between "explore" and "exploit."

The best simple example is trying new restaurants. When you try a new restaurant, you're taking a risk that it could be bad for the potential reward that it could be better than anything you've ever had.

Once you've tried enough things, you eventually have a list of things that you know you like. When you decide to go to one of those restaurants, you're now in exploitation mode.

The key point is that if you do too much of either, it reduces your overall amount of enjoyment.

There's another way I framed this a long time ago, which is pattern versus novelty, and the example I use there is music.

My go-to here is a melody or a hook in a song, which the song keeps coming back to. That's the pattern. And then there's unique things in the song as well, most importantly the lyrics, and maybe the tone, and the performance of the artist.

So once again, it's the oscillation between the two that's necessary. People love familiar patterns. But if you do too much of it, it becomes boring.

People also love novelty. Unique sounds and ideas and tastes. But within novelty, if there is too much of it, or it goes for too long, they eventually search for a pattern so that it feels familiar. So they have something to anchor on.

Too much novelty and you want patterns.

Too much pattern and you want novelty.

Too much exploit (going to your favorites) and you seek to explore. Too much explore (collecting favorites) and you want to just go enjoy some of them.

Here are some other examples:

1. Relationships: Taking your spouse to her favorite restaurant a few times a year, but constantly surprising her with new restaurants as well.
2. Content Creation: It's great to have new content and ideas all the time, but people also love it if you have a catch phrase, and a familiar sound or logo present in your stuff.
3. Romance: Known goods, but excitement as well
4. Business: Customers know you're trustworthy and dependable if they see your logo, but they know you're always releasing new things too
5. Etc...

This is a really powerful concept for thinking about how to get the most out of life—and provide the most as well.

And now that you've heard it, you'll probably see it everywhere.