Responding to questions with nothing more than “it doesn’t matter” has to STOP.
“How many reps should I do?”
Doesn’t matter. Just work to near failure.
“Should I eat toast or oatmeal?”
Doesn’t matter. A carb is a carb.
Often it DOES matter.
Sure, it’s born out of good intentions.
Folks are easily distracted and spend way too much bandwidth on stuff that might add 20% to their progress (the perfect split or macro percentage), while the remaining 80% (hard work, accuracy, consistency) gets very little attention.
So “It doesn’t matter, just do [really important thing]” becomes the easy response to many “majoring-in-the-minors” type questions.
But there are TWO PROBLEMS:
1) It’s often WRONG.
There’s a lot of stuff that “doesn’t matter” in years 1-3. But it can absolutely matter in years 5-10 and beyond.
And stuff that doesn’t matter when just getting into training can REALLY matter when trying to push beyond average.
So “it doesn’t matter” without some added context is, at best, lazy and, at worst, a disservice.
2) As a personal philosophy, it’s WEAK.
Your personal standards and how you apply them directly affect your results.
Doing a half-assed job on some tasks is a good predictor of your overall effort and results.
Of course, I’m not suggesting everything should receive equal attention.
You shouldn’t approach measuring a cup of rice with the same care you would purchasing a home.
But if a task is worthy of a few seconds of your time, it deserves your attention. Plus, it usually saves time in the long run (measure twice, cut once).
Consider the opposite, which can snowball pretty quickly:
You skip your morning walk.
Meh, one walk doesn’t matter.
You add a large splash of cream to your coffee versus a measured teaspoon.
Doesn’t matter.
You forget to track your weights in your log.
Doesn’t matter.
None really do matter—in ISOLATION.
Until you realize that you half-ass damn near every little daily decision—which add-up greatly and diminishes your results.
“How you do something is how you do everything.”
Sorry, Rock.
It DOES matter.
– Coach Bryan.