Taken in isolation, part 1 left me confused. Part 2 greatly improves the value of the transcript.
Zebra is dealing with a set of problems, which may or not stem from a single Problem. I saw your questions as an effort, not only to clarify the issues, but also determine the structure of the problem set. Here, you describe the problem spiral, where solving one issue raises further issues because you keep thinking of the whole set instead of taking each issue in isolation.
Note there are two seemingly conflicting strategies here. One is to solve part of the problem, focusing on it for a given time, trying to jumpstart a success spiral. But how would you differentiate this from bikeshedding? How can you be sure you’re not focusing on irrelevant things?
On the other hand, carefully thinking about the Problem, and how to solve it all at once, or by the correct sequence of actions, may lead to an efficient strategy. However, taking on the Problem as a whole shatters all motivation, warps the view of the problem set and makes small tasks seems undoable.
You linked Zebra, in the transcript, to Nate Soares’s Replacing Guilt series. I would pinpoint my advice with Moving towards the goal. Solving the Problem (the cluster of problems, taken as a single eldritch entity) has to be set aside. You can picture the goal state, but the planning fallacy goes both ways: you can overestimate the difficulty of the solution. What matters is to make progress.
(I may have paraprashed your post here—I wanted to write down my own understanding of it)
Note there are two seemingly conflicting strategies here. One is to solve part of the problem, focusing on it for a given time, trying to jumpstart a success spiral. But how would you differentiate this from bikeshedding? How can you be sure you’re not focusing on irrelevant things?
You can’t. That’s where iterating comes in. even if you do spend 20minutes solving the leaking tap in the bathroom, which is maybe the most irrelevant problem, you only killed 20 minutes.
I would suggest hamming style questions too—to ask “what is the biggest problem?” a few times. Not just listing out the things that are bugging me.
This strategy is not going to work the same if you have a sharp deadline—i.e. an assignment due tomorrow. In a problem-situation with no deadlines—try to work on any one problem for a period of time will work on that one problem.
Taken in isolation, part 1 left me confused. Part 2 greatly improves the value of the transcript.
Zebra is dealing with a set of problems, which may or not stem from a single Problem. I saw your questions as an effort, not only to clarify the issues, but also determine the structure of the problem set. Here, you describe the problem spiral, where solving one issue raises further issues because you keep thinking of the whole set instead of taking each issue in isolation.
Note there are two seemingly conflicting strategies here. One is to solve part of the problem, focusing on it for a given time, trying to jumpstart a success spiral. But how would you differentiate this from bikeshedding? How can you be sure you’re not focusing on irrelevant things?
On the other hand, carefully thinking about the Problem, and how to solve it all at once, or by the correct sequence of actions, may lead to an efficient strategy. However, taking on the Problem as a whole shatters all motivation, warps the view of the problem set and makes small tasks seems undoable.
You linked Zebra, in the transcript, to Nate Soares’s Replacing Guilt series. I would pinpoint my advice with Moving towards the goal. Solving the Problem (the cluster of problems, taken as a single eldritch entity) has to be set aside. You can picture the goal state, but the planning fallacy goes both ways: you can overestimate the difficulty of the solution. What matters is to make progress.
(I may have paraprashed your post here—I wanted to write down my own understanding of it)
You can’t. That’s where iterating comes in. even if you do spend 20minutes solving the leaking tap in the bathroom, which is maybe the most irrelevant problem, you only killed 20 minutes.
I would suggest hamming style questions too—to ask “what is the biggest problem?” a few times. Not just listing out the things that are bugging me.
This strategy is not going to work the same if you have a sharp deadline—i.e. an assignment due tomorrow. In a problem-situation with no deadlines—try to work on any one problem for a period of time will work on that one problem.