Solve Your Problems

Of late I have been doing a lot of interesting research. I tell myself it's for the purpose of building the right foundation for my engineering career, being that I hold an interest in the field, along with two other interests: singing and writing. However, in terms of quality and quantity, the outputs I have put forth in all these areas over the past eight months have been less than impressive. What I have found insidious has been my inability to pin down the exact cause of this unimpressiveness. Until I found this


The recent finding points to my research habit as the culprit of my unimpressive productivity.

As an undergraduate student, I often wondered what set apart remarkable students from the rest -what separated those who could peel out string of As from the rest us? One thing I found out in questioning a number of students was that the remarkable students had a habit of applying what they learnt (sometimes early on, before the rest of us knew the full names attached to our course codes.) They used what they learnt in subjects as tools to solve problems (within the subjects) they encountered.

One first class graduating student explained his approach this way: 
You have to master the principles that govern the subject you are studying. Apply them to the problems you encounter and they will always bring out the desired result. If they don't, it is not the principles that are faulty. It's you.
Life and school are not the same, however I feel the preceding premise is applicable to much of life. It's not enough to gather "practical knowledge", I have to apply the things I learn to solve problems I encounter.

In accordance with the philosophy of doing the best with what I have the best way I can it's important to become savvy in identifying two things:
  • The problems I encounter. 
  • The tools I now have to ease the problems I encounter.
In circumstances where the tools available to ease difficulties encountered prove inadequate or insufficient, I do the minimum research needed to counter specific problems. Nothing more. It's important to avoid the trap created by the feel to get one more piece of information, continuing an endless loop of research in the name of self-improvement. Apply, and continue to do so while adding or removing information needed to bring desired outcomes. 

The picture below shows how Jim Collins, bestselling author of Good to Great, divides his time. He sets aside 54% of his time for creative endeavors. Put another way he sets out a large portion of time to create things, time for collecting, producing and applying gathered knowledge. 



To push efforts to more impressive outputs, mimick the approach of remarkable minds. Apply gathered knowledge to solve your problems.

Enjoy!


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Post Author: P. W. Uduk 
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Photo Source (Jim Collins): www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com

1 comments:

  1. Insightful. I think problem solving is a knotty problem and those who are able to breeze thru it are the ones who shine.

    Nice piece.

    ReplyDelete

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BasicPulse is written by Paul Uduk.


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