Share your little snippets of insight!

I wanted to create a little thread where people can post their small insights as they come across. Ones that are valuable, but not big or thorough enough to justify posting a full thread.

I think business is a constant learning experience, and we’re always figuring out better ways. I sometime think of little insights that I want to share on here, but think “I’m going to post a full thread for that? meh."

So I figured it would be a good idea to get a little thread going for snippets like those. Almost like a journal.

The first, I touched on in another thread. Which is: Average and finished beats perfect and incomplete. I have a habit of perfectionism. I can sit and work making every detail perfect then lose sight of the forest to the trees. Finished beats perfect.

So what are your little insights? Post them here, or post them here as you think of them.

 

On Learning: when you learn something: put it into practice immediately. Our cognitive memory is terrible, but out experiential memory is great.

Imagine the following scenario. You’re learning new directions to a new class you signed up for. Your friend sometimes goes with you knows where it is. You ask him how to get there, he tells you, you write it down, and read the paper 10x to memorize it. But you let him drive. You know where the place is. You memorized it.

But then one week he has to give a talk somewhere, so he won’t make it. You take your little memorized directions and try to make it there. You’re almost certainly going to get lost.

What would have been a better decision. Once he gave you the directions, you should have said “Let me drive, I want to learn the way.” then driving that route would havre been second nature.

When I was learning programming at first I just took notes, did the quizzes, etc. But then when I had to do it on my own, I got lost a lot. So I took a new approach. Rather than just taking notes and memorizing, whenever I learned a new technique, I would put it into practice immediately. I would do it over and over until I could practically do it with my eyes closed. Seriously, you have to do things over and over until you’re bored. Boredness is a signal that you’re not benefiting anymore.

Things need to be ingrained in your mind. You create different neural pathways when you do something. You don’t even necessarily have to intellectually know something to have the neural pathways. It’s like when you dial a phone number. You can often dial the phone number just fine, but when someone asks you you’re like ‘uhhhh, let me go look at a number pad.’ Or the same with directions sometimes.

You have a muscle memory where you know exactly what you’re doing.... but you can’t intellectualize it. And the opposite can happen; you can intellectualize something, but have no idea how to actually do it. Don’t make that mistake!

 

Yep!

Scientific American: A Learning Secret: Don’t Take Notes with a Laptop

NPR: Attention, Students: Put Your Laptops Away

Also, notes definitely have their place. My example may have sounded like it was poo-pooing note-taking, but that’s not how I meant it. It’s just that doing is very important since it commits it to muscle memory. Note taking is very important too. Both methods have their place.

 

Jeez louise. This list is amazing. Basically every one is a home run. I might print it and stick it next to my 40 rules printout as a reminder.

+Rep!

 

This is actually one of the first things that Apple teaches in their design classes. When designing an App, product or user experience (yes, an email is part of the user experience) people want feedback. If you put in an order, and there’s no confirmation, people are like ‘wtf, did it go through?’ They some type of indication that their action has results. When delete an email, it needs a sound, an animation, a checkmark, whatever.

When people do something, then get no feedback, they get confused.

I think they cover it here: Designing Intuitive User Experiences - WWDC 2014 - Videos - Apple Developer

If not it’s in one of these design videos: Design and Development Videos - Apple Developer

 

While on the subject of notes, here’s the absolute magic way to take them.

Take a piece of paper and divide it in half. On one side of the paper is a question, on the other side is the answer. That way you can cover up the “answer” side and your notes double as Flashcards, which are proven to be one of the single most effective ways of learning.

From a BBC article on which learning methods are proven effective, vs those proven ineffective:

HOW THE TECHNIQUES FARED

• Elaborative interrogation - being able to explain a point or fact - MODERATE
• Self-explanation - how a problem was solved - MODERATE
• Summarising - writing summaries of texts - LOW
• Highlighting/underlining- LOW
• Keyword mnemonics - choosing a word to associate with information - LOW
• Imagery - forming mental pictures while reading or listening - LOW
• Re-reading - LOW
• Practice testing - Self-testing to check knowledge - especially using flash cards - HIGH
• Distributed practice - spreading out study over time - HIGH
• Interleaved practice - switching between different kinds of problems - MODERATE

Link: BBC: Revision techniques - the good, the OK and the useless

Flash Cards fall under “practice testing.” You take your notes, that are cut in half. Cover the answer side, then move it down line by line as you test yourself. Then review them using the “Spaced Repetition” (Distributed Practice) Method, and you have pure magic:




One of the most popular Online Courses available: Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects | Coursera

 

An interaction I had with a local owner of a great pizzaria near me

Me: “Can I grab a white slice?”
Him: “Sure”
Me: “just not too hot, last time I grabbed it literally burned my mouth.”
Him: "Oh jeez, sorry about that,” and with an obvious agitation with his worker said, “The guy probably forgot,” where you could tell he’s obviously had issues with their carelessness
Me: “Yea, whenever the other guy does it, it’s wayyyy hot. He’s done it twice. The last time I literally heard it sizzling next to me”
Him: “Yea, it’s ridiculous. What does he care? He gets paid either way. He doesn’t care if people burn their mouths and don’t come back.”
Me: I laughed. “Well not if the business goes under or he gets fired."
Him: “Eh, he’ll just find something else. He doesn’t care, his names not on the door.”
Me: “Well... maybe that’s why his name isn’t on the door”
He laughed, and the pizza was the perfect temperature.

 

If you admire someone's art, learn everything about that persons taste as possible. It will tell you exactly how to reverse engineer what they're created and you can add those lessons to your personal pallette.

One example, I'm a huge Metallica fan. One of their biggest influences? Bach. To non-Metallica fans, that will be surprising... but for anyone familiar with Ride The Lightning, MoP, ...And Justice for All, that will make sense right away. (Example at 3:50) Their original bassist Cliff Burton was a huge fan of a wide variety of music like Bach and Black Sabbath. And that marriage of classical music and heavy metal is what made Metallica so unique. But by understanding an artists' influences, you can easily reverse engineer their formulas.

Another example is.. it's no secret I'm a huge Steve Jobs fan. I went through his biography for the sole reason of understanding his influences. He discusses how he was hugly inspired by Eichler Homes

Steve Jobs Biographer: Apple Founder Was Driven By Simplicity, Mystical Thinking, And Occasional LSD Use

https://gizmodo.com/the-house-that-first-inspired-steve-jobs-5854889

He also had a huge love of Zen design, which is so obvious in his products:



So if you ever want to understand someone's "formula" look at their influences.