Month: July 2023

Occam’s razor is a philosophy principle that makes a simple claim – if an event has two possible explanations, assume the simpler explanation with fewer assumptions is correct.

The more the assumptions, the more unlikely the explanation.

I’ve found that applying this principle to problems in relationships leads to one answer – communication.

Most problems in relationships are issues with what is communicated and then how it is communicated. And these problems are caused because the communicator assumes their preferred “what” and “how” is what the receiver prefers as well.

And of course, that is almost never the case.

I got flustered/frustrated a couple of times recently. Reflecting on them, there were a couple of obvious reminders.

For example, I was short on sleep and more susceptible to frustration. I wasn’t communicating well either – likely compounded by the tiredness. Regardless, I should have known and done better.

But the biggest reminder of them all was just how useless it was. Being flustered and frustrated was a charade that accomplished nothing and made me and everyone around me feel worse.

Skip the tantrum. It is called a tantrum for a reason.

“At the highest levels of any kind of competitive discipline, everyone is great. At this point the decisive factor is rarely who knows more, but who dictates the tone of the battle. For this reason, almost without exception, champions are specialists whose styles emerge from profound awareness of their unique strengths, and who are exceedingly skilled at guiding the battle in that direction.” | Josh Waitzkin, The Art of Learning.

I love this note.

Josh, a child chess prodigy, describes the process of his falling out of love with chess beautifully in this part of the book. A big part of that was being coached to play in a style that didn’t suit his strengths or natural approach.

But, to his point, it is an idea – like all great ideas – that has widespread applicability. Leading teams, for example, works just the same way. The best leaders lead in a way that suits their style in contexts and organizations that suit their strengths.

Understanding ourselves and placing ourselves in teams and contexts that suit our unique strengths may be among the most important things we do.

Not every stimulus requires a response.

Wisdom is being able to choose which ones to let go while ensuring the ones that need a response get one that’s appropriate.

I joined a couple of folks who were kicking around a football/soccer ball in a park with a couple of small sized goal posts. There was a spunky young kid playing in goal with 3 of us taking shots.

When the ball was passed to me, I curled a couple of beautiful goals in. Top corner, hard to stop.

A few minutes later, a bigger adult swapped as the goalkeeper. My remaining 3 shots were all over the place – nowhere near the goal.

Somehow, the sight of the bigger goalkeeper got me shooting everywhere but the goal. In my attempts to outdo this keeper, I couldn’t get the basics right. In that process, my odds of beating this keeper went straight to zero.

It got me thinking about how we can often lose battles completely in our heads. More often than not, simple is best.

But simple is hard.

Some days you’re the driver…and some days you’re just along for the ride, whether you intended it or not.

The best thing you can do on such days is make the best of it, get some rest, and start afresh the next day.

Show me where you draw your boundaries, and I’ll show you your priorities.

Of all the skills that are most useful to live a good life, I think the ability to consistently take the many lemons life throws at us, figure out how we can make and sell the lemonade with what we have available around us, and do so with unending enthusiasm is the most useful skill of them all.

You don’t always get good lemons and you definitely don’t have all the tools you need. But that’s also when we realize that being constructive and enthusiastic are worth at least 25 IQ points.

Happiness is a choice.

Joy is a choice.

Optimism is a choice.

Yes, some are biologically more likely to skew toward these. And yes, some have the circumstances (where they were born, who they were born to) that make it more conducive more these choices. Privilege helps.

But, and here’s that but, choosing these requires perspective.

And perspective cannot be handed from one person to the other, it is earned. It is the gift at the end of adversity and reflection.

There’s always a reason to be glum. There’s always a reason to complain. Things are never perfect. We’re constantly dancing with the suboptimal – balancing risk and uncertainty.

That is when that earned perspective that helps us take stock and consistently find reasons to be optimistic and grateful… and find the joy, peace, and equanimity that we seek.

I often think about choices we make as product designers as a series of trade-offs. One code trade-off is around how much we want to design for the power user.

I’ve often thought about that trade-off when I’ve operated microwaves. Microwaves have gotten so complicated with an ever expanding set of options. However, if I had to guess, over 90% of the usage is some version of the “add 30 seconds” or 1 minute button.

This microwave’s design brought that trade-off to light. All this microwave does is allow users to change power level and time with a simple dial. No learning curve required. It just works.

It won’t work for the person who wants to use the microwave to defrost something. But for most folks, it’ll probably do the job.

I loved this design because it beautifully illustrates the trade-offs we need to make when we make our products simpler. We’ll effectively be telling some group of people “this is not for you.”

And that’s both okay and why building simple product is hard.

Simple product is opinionated product.