Some really loosely related thoughts (and thanks for the quote!): on the subject of perfectionism, this week I caught myself saying "I do something first, then I eventually study the theory about it" to a group of people discussing the most efficient way to learn something from scratch.
I said "I caught myself saying" that because I realised that I haven't been a "do first/study later" guy, it's a relatively new development: for most of my life up until I started working I was heavily "study first/do later (or never...)"-oriented.
But then being requested to problem-solve on a daily basis without much of a supervisor or a mentor while on a job turned me into a professional experiment-runner (is that even a word?): I do hundreds of different tiny things, study a handful of them and keep close to me only a very few of them, and then go on onto the next thing.
To people asking "What's the best way to study philosophy if you start from zero?" I say "Practice philosophy, do something that entail some philosophical concept, see how it goes, see if you really care, and only then, eventually, study something".
People are scared by this approach because it's highly inefficient and it doesn't grant any desirable status (there's no place for certifications or diplomas in my approach...), but I think that this obsession with efficiency and productivity severely damaged our ability to explore, discover and imagine.
Another example: this year I lost 30 pounds/14kg, most of it in the first three months of the year. Set out to lose "some" weight, started using Noom, used it for about 4 months, didn't use the pandemic as an excuse to get fat, counted every calorie ingested until August: then I started to let it go. I quit tracking calories, in the past two months I also quit tracking workout calories.
Past me would be horrified by this approach, but you know what? The difference between me tracking every meal and calorie, both ingested and burned, and me not tracking anything it's barely about 3 pounds.
Trying to regain control of this tangent now: I think that dealing with perfectionism, efficiency and productivity matters because what starts at the individual level spills over at the team level and at the company level at some point.
Up until this year I sort of always refused working with individuals ("I'm a team coach, and organizational consultant, I'm interested in systems, not in atoms or nodes") but now - after struggling getting ahold of teams and orgs while working from home - I see how valuable it will be to integrate more 1:1s in my way of working.
Some really loosely related thoughts (and thanks for the quote!): on the subject of perfectionism, this week I caught myself saying "I do something first, then I eventually study the theory about it" to a group of people discussing the most efficient way to learn something from scratch.
I said "I caught myself saying" that because I realised that I haven't been a "do first/study later" guy, it's a relatively new development: for most of my life up until I started working I was heavily "study first/do later (or never...)"-oriented.
But then being requested to problem-solve on a daily basis without much of a supervisor or a mentor while on a job turned me into a professional experiment-runner (is that even a word?): I do hundreds of different tiny things, study a handful of them and keep close to me only a very few of them, and then go on onto the next thing.
To people asking "What's the best way to study philosophy if you start from zero?" I say "Practice philosophy, do something that entail some philosophical concept, see how it goes, see if you really care, and only then, eventually, study something".
People are scared by this approach because it's highly inefficient and it doesn't grant any desirable status (there's no place for certifications or diplomas in my approach...), but I think that this obsession with efficiency and productivity severely damaged our ability to explore, discover and imagine.
Another example: this year I lost 30 pounds/14kg, most of it in the first three months of the year. Set out to lose "some" weight, started using Noom, used it for about 4 months, didn't use the pandemic as an excuse to get fat, counted every calorie ingested until August: then I started to let it go. I quit tracking calories, in the past two months I also quit tracking workout calories.
Past me would be horrified by this approach, but you know what? The difference between me tracking every meal and calorie, both ingested and burned, and me not tracking anything it's barely about 3 pounds.
Trying to regain control of this tangent now: I think that dealing with perfectionism, efficiency and productivity matters because what starts at the individual level spills over at the team level and at the company level at some point.
Up until this year I sort of always refused working with individuals ("I'm a team coach, and organizational consultant, I'm interested in systems, not in atoms or nodes") but now - after struggling getting ahold of teams and orgs while working from home - I see how valuable it will be to integrate more 1:1s in my way of working.