No joke: talk to yourself in private. About everything. I routinely talk myself through technical problems, new ideas, etc. I spend most of my working time alone and doing this has not only improved my work significantly, it's made communicating face-to-face much smoother.
Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
61–70 of 280 posts
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#62By thinking slow.
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#63Sometimes what people think is quickness is actually extensive prep. I had a 30 minute meeting the other day to ask a team to do something I didn’t think they would want to do. It ended up going really smoothly and they just took my word for it, but had they not, I spend several hours preparing for that meeting, gathering data, preparing charts to illustrate the data, thinking of the possible objections and responses…
YEah, pre-caching is very much what I do.
If you combine it with empathy skills: "What motivates this person", "What are their goals", "what are their interests/specialities" then you can work out a list of stock answers before hand, and alter them to suit the situation later on.
You still need to listen, as there is a non trivial risk of your mental model being wrong.
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#64You can improve your quickness with experience in a particular area.
I am not very good at chess. If I need to make a decision on a move, I will think slowly and deeply. In the end, I often make a move because I feel I used up too much time, and not because I think it is a good move.
There are some domains where I am very experienced. When I listen to someone's question, many possible solutions come to mind. As the person continues to explain the situation, some of the solutions are eliminated as they don't apply. When the person finished speaking, I have either a possible solution for their problem (assuming they provided adequate context) or some followup questions. In either case, I am able to offer a quick response or followup question, and may come across as quick-witted.
I don't think I am quick witted. I am able to listen and process at the same time. I have a considerable library in my head on some subject, and can navigate it while someone is speaking.
This varies from subject to subject, and largely depends on the complexity of the question or decision. The more I know about something, and the simpler the situation, the quicker comes a response. To someone who has less experience, this may seem like a quick wit.
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#65you can reduce the need to be in those situations
when it comes to human interactions, you don't really need to respond. most of that is pride or lack of options.
for example, in interpersonal relationships, its a learned trait to not respond reactively
in another example if you're overemployed, you don't need to quickly fight for relevance in your job from decisions that could theoretically seem like threats to your division or employment to just you, because you already secretly have another job
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#66I 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.
This is quite a dismissive stance, and I understand the context behind it: IQ was devised to measure broad population academic performance for schoolkids and has big flaws in how it measures that.
But it still has merit as another psychological test battery you can do to determine areas in which you may struggle to process information.
My working memory sucks [compared to the standard for my age range and demographic]. I've had access to stuff like RBANS (Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status), through psychologist friends working in memory clinics. IQ tests correlate that finding, and are much more readily available (ie. free and not locked behind institutional firewalls).
Sure, the most thorough IQ tests are paywalled, but as a concept it's readily available online, though tests will yield you huge variation in scores.
We can choose not to treat IQ as a tool to compare ourselves to other people, but rather as a tool to identify our own strengths and weaknesses within different areas of the test. Ignore the single score at end of test, think on what felt hard, and performance in the score breakdown.
I would love to see more (better designed, statically rigorous) neuropsychological assessments become open and free to access. It would definitely have helped me growing up as an unknown AuDHD kid, to understand I really wasn't "a bright kid just making excuses for things I don't want to do".
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#67As I've gotten older I've noticed things that used to just come to me(simple things, like compound boolean statements) now require thought. In addition,I take a lot longer to ingest new info and reason about it.
To work around this, I rely more on social skills, a positive attitude, pre-canned responses, and deferral of judgement on technical approaches until I've had time to consider them. (Fortunately my social brain hasn't aged as poorly as my nerd brain)
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#68Speaking from the heart and being well-versed on popular topics. Most people read headlines, not the actual news nor the history of what led up to these events. I tell them what I know based off my experiences or sources. I state facts from studies I've read or heard of. "In my experience..." or "I've read that X is Y."
As for arguments, make them try to convince you. Make them come to you. This is power. It's easier win an argument from a defensive stance. Picking apart their attacks is easier than you convincing them. They either see the error in their ways or you will see errors in your own and tell them you'll think about it. For this to work, you will need an open mind.
Also, if you have time, prepare as much as you can.
People that try to dominate in an argument instead of keeping a pro-social, open-mind only desire to boost their ego, not to truly learn. Avoid these people. Relieve yourself of the insecurity they wreak upon you.
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#69> how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
Through poor work/life balance. Working overtime to solve tasks that I can't solve during the regular hours.
Re: Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
#70This 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…
Note: Some of us spend way to much time "playing chess" with problems, particularly people, and many times, the quick responses I have are because of that. It doesn't mean I'm set in my ways or making irrational choices, but like someone studying a chess position, sometimes all you're waiting for is the next move. But, externally, no one's gonna see this shit so it's just something one has to get comfortable knowing…
yes, I think you both agree with each other. good thinking is an inherently slow process.
the way to get fast is to do some caching, if you already explored the domain and stored the answers for it you can just remember the information.
the problem is when the caching is done wrong. you explored only a subset but thought you explored everything.
the other kind of fast thinking is when you go bullshiter route and act like an LLM you fast interpolate between known data-points without system2 validation and give plausible looking answers with full confidence, you'd be amazed by how many people get fooled by this.