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How to do hard things

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Re: How to do hard things

#11

Post by jonaf »

hanoz wrote: post #8

It sounds like great advice, I just wish I had some properly hard things I needed to apply it to, rather than the multitude of what ought to be simple things of which a few unexpectedly and inexplicably turn out to be grossly disproportionately difficult to do for no very good reason.

I have also experienced this phenomenon. Why do you suppose we come to these surprises, and why do you suppose we experience them?

Is it because we are confident? Or because we lack sedulity? Or because our analysis was incomplete?

Is the surprise time consuming because we want/expect it to be easy? Or because we are focused on a different problem really. Or because our focus was interrupted.

Re: How to do hard things

#12

Post by jacobolus »

yay_cloud2 wrote: post #7
keypusher wrote: post #6

The most valuable thing I learned at university was how to tackle difficult problems. Taking advanced math and science courses where I had to really study, and still struggled, and having to write essays so frequently that I could no longer procrastinate or wait for the spark to hit me, was more valuable in the long run than any of the actual knowledge I gained. The advice to break a hard problem down into simpler pi…

Your comment reminds me of the exercise where a class was split into two cohorts, one was tasked with producing just one clay pot (I can't remember the thing now), while the other cohort was tasked with making one per day or something similar. Put simply, one group put all of its energy into producing just one, and the other group just turned out pot after pot after pot. At the end, so the story goes, the group that…

> (I can't remember the thing now)

Don’t worry about the details; it was just a made-up story in the book Art & Fear; I have never seen any evidence such a pottery class ever existed. https://kk.org/cooltools/art-fear/

> The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pound of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot -albeit a perfect one - to get an "A". Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

Re: How to do hard things

#13

Post by DennisP »

jacobolus wrote: post #12
yay_cloud2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reminds me of the exercise where a class was split into two cohorts, one was tasked with producing just one clay pot (I can't remember the thing now), while the other cohort was tasked with making one per day or something similar. Put simply, one group put all of its energy into producing just one, and the other group just turned out pot after pot after pot. At the end, so the story goes, the group that…

> (I can't remember the thing now) Don’t worry about the details; it was just a made-up story in the book Art & Fear ; I have never seen any evidence such a pottery class ever existed. https://kk.org/cooltools/art-fear/ > The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they p…

How hard did you look for that evidence?

Re: How to do hard things

#14

Post by Bonooru »

jonaf wrote: post #10

This is a very interesting philosophy. A few years ago, a former coworker and good friend of mine introduced me to an algorithm for solving problems. This is a slightly different purpose than doing something hard, but there are some interesting similarities. In my experience as an engineer in software and operations, this algorithm has never come in reach of failing me, and until I was introduced to it, my own system…

This one? https://www.xkcd.com/844/

Re: How to do hard things

#15

Post by debt »

yay_cloud2 wrote: post #7
keypusher wrote: post #6

The most valuable thing I learned at university was how to tackle difficult problems. Taking advanced math and science courses where I had to really study, and still struggled, and having to write essays so frequently that I could no longer procrastinate or wait for the spark to hit me, was more valuable in the long run than any of the actual knowledge I gained. The advice to break a hard problem down into simpler pi…

Your comment reminds me of the exercise where a class was split into two cohorts, one was tasked with producing just one clay pot (I can't remember the thing now), while the other cohort was tasked with making one per day or something similar. Put simply, one group put all of its energy into producing just one, and the other group just turned out pot after pot after pot. At the end, so the story goes, the group that…

I’ve heard this lil story before but honestly both strategies are really dependent on the situation.

There might be situations where’d you want to continually churn out pots. In other situations, pressure is really high, and you have one shot to get it right.

Both strategies depend on the context. If anything, the best approach is to figure out which strategy is needed for the given situation. I would imagine, strategy of churning out pots is the most common one.

But safety critical systems certainly need that pot to be right the first time otherwise people die.

Re: How to do hard things

#17

Post by closeparen »

jonaf wrote: post #10

This is a very interesting philosophy. A few years ago, a former coworker and good friend of mine introduced me to an algorithm for solving problems. This is a slightly different purpose than doing something hard, but there are some interesting similarities. In my experience as an engineer in software and operations, this algorithm has never come in reach of failing me, and until I was introduced to it, my own system…

I'm partial to the Feynman Algorithm:

1. Write down the problem.

2. Think real hard.

3. Write down the solution.

Re: How to do hard things

#18

Post by markrages »

DennisP wrote: post #13
jacobolus wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (I can't remember the thing now) Don’t worry about the details; it was just a made-up story in the book Art & Fear ; I have never seen any evidence such a pottery class ever existed. https://kk.org/cooltools/art-fear/ > The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they p…

How hard did you look for that evidence?

I looked for it before and reached the same conclusion -- it is just a made-up story.

Re: How to do hard things

#19

Post by maxxxxx »

yay_cloud2 wrote: post #7
keypusher wrote: post #6

The most valuable thing I learned at university was how to tackle difficult problems. Taking advanced math and science courses where I had to really study, and still struggled, and having to write essays so frequently that I could no longer procrastinate or wait for the spark to hit me, was more valuable in the long run than any of the actual knowledge I gained. The advice to break a hard problem down into simpler pi…

Your comment reminds me of the exercise where a class was split into two cohorts, one was tasked with producing just one clay pot (I can't remember the thing now), while the other cohort was tasked with making one per day or something similar. Put simply, one group put all of its energy into producing just one, and the other group just turned out pot after pot after pot. At the end, so the story goes, the group that…

I think there needs to be a balance. If we want to keep talking about pots at my workplace there are people who produce the same pot quickly but never ever improve. Then there are others who talk about great pots but never make one. And then there are some that produce a little slower but each pot gets better. Depending on the situation probably any of these approaches makes sense sometime.

Re: How to do hard things

#20

Post by jonaf »

Bonooru wrote: post #14
jonaf wrote: post #10

This is a very interesting philosophy. A few years ago, a former coworker and good friend of mine introduced me to an algorithm for solving problems. This is a slightly different purpose than doing something hard, but there are some interesting similarities. In my experience as an engineer in software and operations, this algorithm has never come in reach of failing me, and until I was introduced to it, my own system…

This one? https://www.xkcd.com/844/

This was the one, a facetious version of Pirsig’s algorithm: https://xkcd.com/627/
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