Archives for May 2023

If you reflect on the people you’ve worked with over the years, what proportion defaulted to blaming someone else—or something else—when something went wrong? What proportion took ownership of a problem even if it wasn’t their fault?

Taking this one step further, of these people, who was quick to take personal credit for a win? And who was quick credit the efforts of the broader team?

My guess is there’s a correlation between these actions.

I had an eye check-up today because I’d been experiencing some increasing discomfort due to allergies. Thankfully, all looks OK.

However, as part of the visit, I had my pupils dilated for the ophthalmologist to perform a scan. They warned me I’d have slightly blurry vision for the remainder of the day.

For about 4 hours, everything within arm’s reach was blurry. My WhatsApp messages, the labels at the supermarket, and the time on my watch.

Despite being short lived, the experience made me pause and be grateful for consistent clarity of vision.

Asking “so what?” was a core part of the problem solving training at my first job.

It goes a bit like this: whenever a new piece of information or data is presented, the appropriate next question is “so what?”

A former colleague described the question as having two functions:

1. Meaning: How do we need to look at it (differently)?
2. Action: What do we need to do or decide?

The first challenges us to reconsider our opinions and change our mind. The second says that unless we do something different as a result, we’ll be no better off than if we ignored the new information.

Thinking of “so what?” in terms of meaning and action makes the tool much more useful.

Earlier this year I posted about my sleep experiments. I was only getting 6 hours per night—sometimes less—and was feeling frustrated with my lack of shut eye.

I made 3 changes: reduced my caffeine consumption, imposed a consistent bedtime, and started a “wind down” routine.

After 5 months of adding in and subtracting these variables, I’m reasonably confident that excess caffeine consumption was the culprit all along.

I’ve dropped my caffeine intake down from 6-8 cups of coffee to 1 cup per day, and I can now reliably hit 7 hours sleep per night. When I give myself enough runway, 8+ hours is achievable.

A consistent bedtime and “wind down” routine, although helpful, don’t have a nearly as much impact compared to my level of caffeine consumption.

This change may seem obvious, but when I was consuming 6-8 cups of coffee per day, I didn’t even think about the effects it could have.

Here’s to better sleep and the benefits of consistent experimentation.

I’ve got an idea.

I can bring it clasped in a closed fist. Keeping it idea hidden with a tight grasp. Protective.

Or I can bring it in an open hand. Letting others try it for themselves. Allowing it to transform and take new shapes as new people add their own ideas.

All ideas need their space to breathe.

How much more effective would each team be if they got to the harder questions faster?

It’s really easy to put off the hard questions.

If they’re tomorrow’s problem, then life today will be a bit easier.

But a consistent habit of tackling the hardest questions immediately, calling out the elephant in the room whenever there is one, and not delaying the decision until tomorrow, pays off in the long run.

Zane Lowe is one of the hosts on Apple Music 1. In this role he has access to an amazing array of artists, and his laid back style puts them at ease; allowing them to open up not only about their music, but their lives.

Lowe recently put out a video saying the album ‘Calico’ by Ryan Beatty is “one of those rare albums that, after the first listen, you know will stay with you for your life’s journey”.

This stood out to me because I’ve never listened to an album, thought it was so good, and subsequently decided that it would “stay with me for life”.

So on the way back from the airport the other night—when I had at least an hour’s commute in front of me—I put on Calico, pulled up the lyrics to each song, and let Ryan Beatty take me on a journey.

I love the songs ‘Ribbons’, ’Bruises of the Peach’, and ‘White Teeth’. Beatty has Frank Ocean-esque style vocals, with unpredictable and fresh melodies. His chord progressions and the ensemble of instruments chosen for each track are thoughtful and nuanced. It’s just a great album, and one I’ve been playing all week.

If you give it a try, let me know what you think!

I was profoundly moved by this 2-minute snippet from Stephen Colbert’s interview with Anderson Cooper on grief and gratitude.

Cooper asks, “You said, ‘I have learned to love the thing that I most wish had not happened… what punishments of God are not gifts?’ You really believe that?”

Colbert replies, “Yes. It’s a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering; there’s no escaping that… But if you’re grateful for you life, then you need to be grateful for all of it. You can’t pick and choose what you’re grateful for.”

I could go on and quote extensively, but there’s a tonne of nuance and thoughtfulness in this short interaction, and I’m sure it’ll be a good use of your time to take 2 minutes out of your day to have a listen.

Go find that old notebook. Look back on your old to-dos. Do any feelings of stress, pressure, or overwhelm come back?

Now with the benefit of hindsight, did any of these old problems matter as much as we thought they did at the time?

There’ll always be a crisis, a deadline, and a reason to stress.

Looking back on old to-dos can help give us a little perspective on the current backlog of tasks we’re working through.

I’m loving the book ‘Build’ by Tony Fadell. Fadell was one of the engineers and designers behind the original iPod and iPhone, and was the founder of Nest—the smart thermostat company.

The following piece of advice stood out to me:

“Being exacting is different to micromanaging.”

Micromanaging is being prescriptive about the step-by-step actions for how someone should perform a task.
Being exacting, on the other hand, is holding high standards and expectations for the target outcome, but letting the team figure out the path to get there—supporting them where and when they need it.

Maru and I are currently in Menorca for a wedding. We’re sharing a four bedroom Airbnb with good friends, and during the course of the weekend we discovered an oddity in the kitchen.

The owners only included 3 normal sized mugs, but had 56 sets of espresso cups and saucers.

56!

To make things weirder, there was no coffee machine in the house to make espresso. So although the set of espresso cups and saucers look striking, they have little to no functional value.

This is an example of little consequence, but it serves as a good metaphor for products and services that are built without thinking about the end user. The feature the team wants to build looks cool—56 sets of espresso cups and saucers cool—but if it doesn’t solve a real problem for real people, the feature has no value. Zero.

I’ve been using both an iPhone and Android phone for the past 6 months, and I’ve gotten used to the quirks and idiosyncrasies of each.

There are a few features on each of the platforms that I really wish were on the other.
One that I find particularly helpful is Google’s Android clock app. When you set an alarm, there is a little notification that pops up and says “Alarm set for X hours and X minutes from now”.

It’s a small signal, but I find it really helpful. If I’m going to bed later than usual, and I see I’m going to get less than 7 hours of sleep, I’ll reconsider if I can shift anything in my morning routine to later in the day to ensure I hit my sleep target. I’ll often find myself moving exercise or errands to alternate times to prioritise sleep.

The iPhone doesn’t have this functionality, and although sleep duration is something I could easily calculate, I’d just rather not do it right before falling asleep.

I love finding these little details within products that have an outsized impact on the user experience.

I like the idea that “if the goal doesn’t make you feel a little squeamish, you’re not aiming high enough”.

When we’re doing something that requires guts, we’ll almost certainly feel it in our gut.

A colleague shared a helpful idea the other day. It went something like this:

We can’t solve every problem ourselves. There aren’t enough hours in the day, nor do we have the energy to do so.

However, if we can be the cause as to why a problem was solved—by asking an insightful question, nudging a team in the right direction, or alerting people of issues early—then we can scale ourselves across a wider breadth of work.

When it’s something so few people want to do, it becomes an asset. A way to build trust, confidence, and empathy with the people we work with everyday.

We shouldn’t be afraid to own the mistake.