People Who Solve Problems
I saw the world was divided into two groups: there are people who cause problems, and there are people who solve problems.
Samuel Weiss
Procrastination
Read a very interesting article on the airplane about a big problem of mine - procrastination. The article was written by Karen Leland (who wrote Water cooler Wisdom: How Smart People Prosper in the Face of Confect* ). In it experts like David Allen, Piers Steel, and Brenda Wade discuss their research and thinking into an age old failing.
Dr. Steel, a professor of human resources at the University of Calgary, thinks that procrastination is a too deeply ingrained in human nature to ever be completely routed out. He believes procrastination is caused by:
- lack of self confidence,
- the relative appeal of the task at hand,
- impulsiveness.
According to the article, both Dr. Steel and Dr. Wade agree impulsiveness is the big determinate of how long we put things off. Dr. Wade even suggests turning off email notification to get more done.
For David Allen, author of the very helpful Getting Things Done, overcoming impulsiveness is a matter of routine and habit. In the article he is quoted as saying:
"People procrastinate when they know they need to take an action on something but have not yet decided what that action should be."
To take the next action, article author Leland suggests breaking down big tasks into a series of small tasks, scheduling or taking on the most challenging tasks during those natural periods when energy, attention, and focus are at their peak and finally recognizing and celebrating each small task as it is completed.
Finally I would add from my own experience planning the next day's tasks the night before for the and Jenny Craiging tasks into 25 minute increments (with 5 minute breaks). I would write more but I will put that off for another time.
(*I am never sure what the authors of books with these titles expect dumb people to do. Isn't that really the bulk of their audience?)
A Quote
"A man who can see the weakenss of a giant knows that he is a man indeed."
Miranda July
Creativity
Although our society pays a lot of lip service to creativity, it in fact views true innovation with suspicion. Yet we live on a planet that sometimes demands creative problem solving for survival. Animals like sloths, which are very well adapted to living in cecropia trees (where they can account for two-thirds of the mammalian biomass and half the total energy consumption on a diet of leaves) are unable to survive outside the tropical rainforests of South and Central America.
No where is that suspicion more evident than in our education system. That is why I am grateful for HK for sharing with me an article about Investing in Creativity. The author, Professor Robert Sternberg, has a theory that creatively gifted people share a number of similar characteristics, but that in order to be successful they need to balance three types of thinking -the synthetic, the analytic and the practical.
- Synthetic thinking goes beyond the given to see unexpected connections.
- Analytic thinking is the ability to pick and choose between good and bad ideas an weigh them by their relative merits.
- Practical thinking is the ability to translate theory into practice.
Without all three, the creative thinker is doomed to failure. In a not very original twelve step program Professor Robert Sternberg outlines how creative thinking can be encouraged.
- Leaders should serve as role models for creativity
- Questioning of assumptions should be encouraged
- Mistakes should be allowed
- Sensible risk taking should be encouraged
- Creative assignment should be given
- Students should define problems
- Creative ideas and products should be rewarded
- Creative thinking demands time
- Ambiguity must be tolerated
- Creative approaches create resistence
- Creative thinkers need nurturing environments
The problem with this approach is that it create risk, such as the risk of wasting time, which must be managed.
Quotes
She likes herself, yet others hates,
For that which in herself she prizes;
And while she laughs at them, forgets,
She is the thing that she despises
William Congreve
L'amour-propre offense ne pardonne jamais
Jean Baptiste Etienne Vigee
Two Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes
Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Quote
"Another lesson that I learned early on is that it is a grave error to align our fortunes with those of the powerful, for we are more certain to lose than to win"
Arturo Perez-Reverte
Purity of Blood p. 61
The Four Humors of Man
According to reasoning so old its origins are lost our personalities can be classified by an abundance or lack of four bodily fluids: blood, yellow bile, black bile (which if you ask must be scat), and phlegm. The corresponding personality types are sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic.
Although ancient though this thinking it lives on today. In the modern context sanguine temperaments are marked by sturdiness, high color, and cheerfulness. Choleric temperaments are easily moved to unreasonable or excessive anger. Melancholics are prone to depression. Phlegmatic people demonstrate a slow and stolid temperament.
Unilinear
Just learned this great new word...unilinear. Unilinear means developing in a progressive sequence from the primitive to the advanced.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote this very interesting quote in his Confessions:
"My fault in this respect resembled the coquetry* of respectable women who sometimes, in order to obtain their object without allowing or promising anything know how to excite greater hopes than they plan to fulfill."
*coquetry - a flirtatious act or attitude
