Passing the Door Without Entering
Updated 2026-08-10
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
The image comes from Yu the Great, who passed his own doorway three times while taming the floods and never stepped inside. As a thinking model it stands for dedication bought at a price: extreme achievement is paid for with extreme sacrifice, and a startup sprint may genuinely require that focus. The hard condition is honesty about the deadline, because as a permanent institution this mode is unsustainable and burns out the very people carrying it.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Bound the sprint: set an explicit end date before the intense focus begins. - Isolate the work: cut ordinary commitments for the duration of the sprint. - Plan the return: fix in advance when and how normal life resumes.
Anchor fast decisions
A goal of that magnitude consumes attention and energy that ordinary life would otherwise claim, and in short bursts the trade buys extraordinary output. The arrangement depends on heavy spending of personal reserves, which is why it works as a phase and fails as a permanent rule.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
account_treeGenealogyexpand_more
menu_bookReferencesexpand_more
Source support: Explicit
- zh.wikisource.orghttps://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%88%97%E5%AD%90/%E6%A5%8A%E6%9C%B1%E7%AF%87verified
PRIVATE NOTES · Only visible to you
SAVED Q&A
ENTRY Q&A · Private saving available
Ask with a clear boundary
thinkingmodels answers from published entry context only.
Your question is sent to thinkingmodels. The answer uses public entry context only.
RELATED MODELS