Studio Non Troppo

Photo: atomicjeep

Little problems sometimes merit treatment with big-time tools. The problem solving methodology I teach, TRIZ, is most commonly used to solve mind-bending (and sometimes multi-million-dollar) engineering design problems, but it can also be a good companion when addressing non-technical problems.

Here’s an example:

In order to make progress when working on a project, it’s important to focus on details, to not get distracted by philosophical or high-level questions. But if I were unaware of the relevant contexts, the higher-level questions (including “why?”), the strategic issues, and the ethical/moral issues, it would be too easy to be digging a hole in the wrong place, digging the wrong depth of hole, or even digging a hole when I should be doing something else entirely.

TRIZ suggests I formulate this conundrum as what’s called a physical contradiction: “I should be narrowly focused” and “I should not be narrowly focused.”

Then TRIZ suggests applying what are called separation principles. Two separation principles that work in this case are separation in space and separation in time.

Separation in space might lead me to focus on the details of the problem whenever I’m seated in my task chair, at my desk, working on my computer…while avoiding detail focus whenever I’m not physically in that context.

Separation in time would hint that I might try setting a timer: 40 minutes of focus, then 10 minutes of break and 10 minutes of higher level thinking and reflecting.

Clearly, these are only two possible solutions. And the tools available through TRIZ are massive, towering over such a simple, little problem. But anything that can burst me out of an “either/or” mindset into the open landscape of “both/and” possibilities is worth drawing on.

Photo: Tambako the Jaguar

Looking across a fence, we perceive ourselves differently than we would without the fence there. “The grass is greener” has always been a story about us, not about them, right?

Enjoying a slow stream…

What’s that feeling called when you’re on vacation, but the people around you aren’t? Or when you take a moment to smell the flowers while simultaneously being aware of others not smelling them?

Wondering about the fast stream…

And how are these things related to the pressure we sometimes feel to be caught up, not left behind, fluent in the newest, latest, fastest happenings?

I don’t know if some people manage to stay in one of these streams, the slower or the faster, long-term, essentially continuously, in a sustainable way.

I know I don’t. I switch from one to the other, sometimes gracefully, feeling good (or relieved, or excited) about the switch. Frequently, though, I feel I’m just reacting to outside or self-imposed pressures.

I think the various feelings we can experience when we’re in one stream and aware of the other are all related to the “grass is greener on the other side” phenomenon. Much of the time, as the saying most commonly suggests, we just think it would be better to have that which we don’t have.

But sometimes, for a little while, we’re able to feel ourselves being out of “this” world and inhabiting the “other (greener)  side.” What I don’t know is whether that’s an error of perception, an error of perception that cancels out a failure to be satisfied (two wrongs making a right), or a gift.

Photo: MShades

When there’s more of something in one place than there is in another, that discrepancy can be a resource. The water at the top of a creek has more potential energy than the water at the bottom of a creek, and that’s why a water wheel can do something useful like mill grain. Or if you have fine silk fabric and the people around you only have coarse or low quality fabric, you may be able to exchange some of your high quality fabric for food or something else you would like. We’re used to thinking of benefits and value together.

But inefficiency and waste can also be resources in some cases. Lawyers benefit when two parties cannot come to an agreement on their own. Matchmaking websites make money in addition to matches because the process of finding a good partner for a relationship is rarely straightforward. The stock markets have built-in inefficiencies: they’re known as commissions, and stockbrokers don’t seem to mind them.

In thinking about how you’re trying to earn money with your business, have you considered how to leverage inefficiency and waste? Some of the strongest solutions to tough problems don’t just ameliorate failures; they use failure as a resource.

Some things are meant to be done one bit at a time. Living life, for example. Life is lived as it comes, even though we might spend a lot of time and effort apparently ignoring our presence in the present.

Other things are best done in clumps or “bunches.” For me, processing emails is a task that works best with bunching. If I leave my email program open when trying to work on projects at my computer, the constant, distracting trickle of emails might not completely paralyze me, but it certainly reduces my concentration to undetectable levels.

The problems caused by a constant influx of email interruptions may not be news to you, but if you know the downsides, it’s very easy to fall back in to bad habits of email overexposure.

Batch processing and email are made for each other. Here’s how to do it. Pick a time when you can spend a reasonable amount of time going through email (whatever “a reasonable amount of time” is for you). When that time arrives, turn on your email program and read, write, file, and delete as necessary. Then turn your email program off.

Many people who field a lot of actionable email find they can manage with just two of these email batch sessions a day. They enjoy higher levels of concentration and find themselves more productive than they used to be when they were in their “always on” mode.

What are your “always on” issues? Would your life be made any easier, less hectic, or more enjoyable if you tried batch processing instead?

Having something work out the right way is not a matter of the thing.

As Malcolm Gladwell would put it in Outliers, it’s not just a lot of hard work that made Bill Gates more wealthy than 99.9999999% of the other people in the world. Nor was it his smarts. No, those things were necessary for his off-the-charts success, but they were not sufficient. It also took a constellation of opportunities, huge and irreplicable opportunities (though not necessarily evident as such at the time) for his hard work and smarts to pay off in such an over-the-top way.

When developing a product, say, for example, a bar of soap, it is absolutely critical to recognize that the nature of the new soap is not the key to its success in the marketplace.

The bar of soap simply does not exist on its own. It is tied, inextricably, to the particular marketing plan you attach to it. And to the time (the specific time, not just the time of day or time of year) in which it is released. And to the words you use when you describe your pet project to your friends. And to the global contingencies of soap manufacturing processes today, the day you email companies for production bids. Think the butterfly effect, smushed down to a world of implications in an instant.

There is no such thing as a bar of soap, separate from the myriad details necessary to imagine, design, create, sell, and use that bar of soap.

It’s so complicated, really, that it’s almost miraculous that any particular bar-of-soap idea succeeds. Richard Feynman talked once about how miraculous it seemed that of all the possible license plate numbers in the world, he just happened to see ARW 357 one morning. (Think about that, and feel the delightful discomfort in your mind. He was talking about how some things we consider miracles are examples of an outside-in way of looking at things that are equivalently, but differently and beautifully weird when we look at them from the inside out.)

Catching a wave is absurdly unlikely, and it’s easy to credit wave-catching surfers with superhuman skills. But it’s not that. It’s time on task, luck, sequences of opportunities, a willingness to keep playing with configurations. Aside from mental spin and Taoism, success is neither within our power nor outside of our power.

Everything, logic included, is necessary but not sufficient.

Isn’t that grand?

The only reason to travel is to do something that you can’t do unless you make the trip.

This is verging on a tautology, but some tautologies can be useful anyway. This one works like this: if you could get what you wanted or needed without traveling somewhere else to get it, you wouldn’t travel. You’d just stay home and get it.

If you just wanted an update from your manufacturing director in Belize on the production rate of your carbon nanotube umbrellas, you’d email from home. Getting the information doesn’t require you to drive to the airport, park, fly down to Belize, take the water taxi to Caye Caulker, walk down the beach until you found a suitable $18/night cabin, stow your stuff, walk down to the Split at the other end of the island, and meet your manufacturing director over a glass of rum and lime juice.

But you wouldn’t get that reassuring smile (or the taste of distilled sunshine) by staying at home and emailing, so that’s why you go.

It’s very easy to get mixed up on what constitutes the “ends” and what are the “means,” but it helps to take a minute and honestly consider, “what am I about to do here?” and “why?” It’s the only way to appreciate the trip.

Photo: akunamatata

Working on a big project can be compared to climbing a big hill.

The thing is, with many really big projects, the experience goes something like this: 1) you start climbing, realizing it’s going to be a long trip, 2) you push onward and upward, push, push, push, putting one foot in front of the other, 3) you see the summit before you, and just as you reach the top, 4) you discover it’s not the top at all, just a brief leveling off before angling upwards again.

The psychological effect of this is heavy fatigue. We tend to allocate the energy to ourselves that we need to accomplish the task we have identified, so if the work doesn’t let up where we think it should, that can be a heavy blow.

Imagine a marathon runner reaching the finish line tape, only to read a note pinned there: “today’s marathon is 30 miles instead of the usual 26.2 miles. Thanks for your understanding.”

In these really big projects, such as starting a business, you need to approach it as a long haul. In particular, think of it as a haul indefinitely longer than you think it will be. It’s not that you should be trying to play a mind game with yourself, trying to trick yourself into lasting longer. Instead, make sure every work step, on average, includes the rest and nutrition you need to keep going.

Here, in no particular order, are three technologies I really appreciate. I admit I use the word “technology” broadly.

1. The candle

It has no moving parts (not counting the flame), and it contains its own fuel. It’s not a case of overkill. Dropping a candle might dent or break it, but the candle will still work. The light it produces is soothing.

2. The sidewalk

Again, no moving parts. It generally adds to the safety of being a pedestrian. Crack a sidewalk and it’s still a sidewalk.

3. Life

Plenty of moving parts. Quite a talent (though not unlimited) for self-healing. Predictable enough to reward those who observe and think; unpredictable enough to humble, thrill, and amuse those who observe and think.

OK, now how do most technologies stack up to these? They are frequently complicated in such a way as to make them extremely sensitive to jostling and bad inputs. Drop an iPod, and it won’t be an iPod. Leave out a tiny semicolon from that line of code, and watch the program crash.

Very few technologies are transcendent. Most are fussy.