July 13, 2026

Theory vs Practice

Let’s start off with a classic quote:

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. –attributed to Richard Feynman and many others

I was reminded of this quote recently when I read a comment on an old Cal Newport post about time blocking that said:

“I’ve bought into this idea. However, I can’t get it to work.”

This sounds to me like the commenter is saying that time blocking is a good idea in theory, but not in practice.

It reminds me a little bit of agile programming which almost everybody seems to think is a great idea but almost nobody really follows.

Which raises the question:

If a system is too hard to implement reliably, is it really a system at all?

Yours,

—J

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