Tell my wife the retort I should have come up with 10 minutes earlier, and remind myself that good decisions that truly matter are still just as good the next day.
Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
51–60 of 280 posts
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#52Observing other people I interact with often and learn their motivational flows and behavioral patterns. People telegraph a lot once you take the time to study them.
I also cultivate a measure of unpredictability in myself to slow other people down by defying their assumptions.
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#53I have taken a properly administered IQ test. I scored 135 in one area and 89 in another. My main issue is I have very poor working memory. Luckily, we have technology to compensate for our deficiencies. * I write everything down on calendars, to do lists, planners etc. * I have a smart speaker in every room so I can capture pieces of information as soon as I know about them. * I use many different kinds of timers to…
The only insight IQ tests can give you is that anyone who gives them any merit is either a moron or uninformed.
Why?
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#54As other commenters have mentioned, I’ve noticed that people generally tend to fall into one of two groups: those who think out loud and those who process internally. (And I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or not, but almost all of the managers I have had in my career have been the former.)
I tend to think internally, and while I usually have a clear vision in my head of how a system works, if I try to translate that mental model on-the-fly into an explanation for others, it typically comes out as an incoherent jumble of loosely related phrases.
To that extent, I much prefer written communication. It gives me time to convert the thoughts in my head into English, and I typically iterate on what I’ve written down quite a few times until I’m satisfied with it (including Hacker News comments for example).
The one exception to being a “slow thinker” is if the discussion involves a topic I know very well and someone says something that is incorrect or inconsistent. While I can’t necessarily articulate my own ideas immediately on the spot, I do seem to be able to quickly identify and explain flaws in deductive reasoning or come up with examples that highlight inconsistencies.
I’m not sure I necessarily like that my brain defaults to looking for flaws in arguments rather than reasons to support them, but my own internal process of generating ideas consists of a cycle of proposing an idea to myself followed by immediately trying to find ways to shoot it down (such that whatever ideas survive this mental gauntlet are decent ones I guess). But I think this approach had the unfortunate side effect of optimizing the “quick thinking” part of my brain into that of an inconsistency-detector rather than a rapid brainstorming mechanism.
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#55This is something that's easy to have an opinion on so you're going to get buried. I'll do my best to make a high-signal comment here, but it will be drowned by all the other replies, which also likely touch on these points. First, "slow-thinking" is really just a different way of expressing your thinking and you should begin by leaning into it rather than leaning away. Take time, allow yourself to pause to collect y…
"I’m a disappointing person to try to debate or attack. I just have nothing to say in the moment, except maybe, 'Good point.' Then a few days later, after thinking about it a lot, I have a response" - Derek Sivers ( https://sive.rs/slow ) This sounds very admirable to me
Phenomenon also known as Esprit de l'escalier : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier
I suffer from it myself and i'm definitely better at answering by email than in an oral discussion when i'm overwhelmed by thoughts and can't focus on one.
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#561. Prep. 2. Bluster while I prep. A lot of quick thinkers are not actually quick thinkers. They are quick responders, using far more words to say just as much, with the filler works frontloaded to give them time. For example: "Now, correct me if I am wrong, and I may be, and this is something to consider, what if we X?" buys you about 5 seconds of time to think. You can say those words in front of pretty much every a…
"buys you about 5 seconds of time to think." Steve Jobs had that mastered, like in this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeqPrUmVz-o
If anything, that clip proves the inverse. Jobs didn’t blurt out meaningless words to buy himself time to think, he stopped in silence to gather his thoughts and respond.
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#57This is something that's easy to have an opinion on so you're going to get buried. I'll do my best to make a high-signal comment here, but it will be drowned by all the other replies, which also likely touch on these points. First, "slow-thinking" is really just a different way of expressing your thinking and you should begin by leaning into it rather than leaning away. Take time, allow yourself to pause to collect y…
"Avoid 'quick decision' situations"
That's a great way to hear god laugh. Jokes aside - if the quick decision can be "walked back" or is not detrimental if you decide wrong then it doesn't matter and you should probably decide quickly to get through the "maze of life"
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#58This is something that's easy to have an opinion on so you're going to get buried. I'll do my best to make a high-signal comment here, but it will be drowned by all the other replies, which also likely touch on these points. First, "slow-thinking" is really just a different way of expressing your thinking and you should begin by leaning into it rather than leaning away. Take time, allow yourself to pause to collect y…
"deliberate" is an excellent point. I often have gaps in my conversation trying to think of just the right word(s) to describe "thing". I dislike filler umms and aahs so I just wait until the right word comes - deliberately. Thoughtfully.
And when it's come out how I want it to, it's understandable to the third parties. Deliberate equates to clear and intelligible.
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#59Use asynchronous communications when possible. Ask for things in writing, which moves the conversation to email. Say you have to sleep on big decisions, or need to consult some information you don't have in front of you. Try to be prepared with a decision tree made in advance so you can answer the predictable stuff quickly. And you don't have to think of absolutely everything, but the act of planning will help you be…
Related to keeping things in writing: use a writing system that you can easily recall information you want from in the future. An email client generally has a pretty good search, but one problem is that it's usually not possible to hyperlink to specific emails. I recommend a personal wiki / Zettelkasten system that you use with the intent of avoiding re-thinking the same thing. I am often surprised to find that when I go to find where I want to start writing a note in my org-roam, I have already worked through exactly what I was planning on starting to think about.
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#60Avoiding situations in which I need to think on the fly. If I'm playing a game, I play a turn based game, not a real time game. Why do what you're bad at and will never be great at? Sadly one of the places where quick wittedness is most essential is face to face social interaction so at some point you just have to bite the bullet and do things you're worse at than others.
> Why do what you're bad at and will never be great at?
To find better between bad and great.