Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Phaedrus, #1) written by Robert M. Pirsig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I didn’t gain a great handle on Zen or motorcycle maintenance. Tho I thoroughly enjoyed the road trip through philosophy, and the role of Quality and how it enlightens our lives – if we allow it.
Steve Jobs (The Exclusive Biography) written by Walter Isaacson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A good insight into the genius and personality behind products and services we take for granted today. It filled some gaps in my knowledge, and strengthened some opinions I’d already made. A book is so much simpler to read when you know half the story already.
The week before last, was the first game of this year’s (Australian) State of Origin rugby league series.
For rugby league fans, this is one of the major events in the calendar.
Sadly, my state of Queensland (the good guys) lost in a close encounter. That gives their opposition New South Wales Blues the upper hand, leading up to Game 2 of the three game series.
It reminded me of the time 11 years ago that Queensland were down 1-0, and I felt responsible for the loss. I penned the following letter, which a few people enjoyed and was published in a local paper (and Mens Health Magazine got approval to print in their pages).
Although all the game details are from over a decade ago, I thought it’s worth publishing here for posterity.
14/06/2003
State of Queensland
Queensland
AustraliaTo the people of Queensland:
I feel the need to apologise to the state of Queensland. My cheering at Wednesday night’s State of Origin rugby league match was clearly lack-lustre, and it obviously led to the New South Wales team’s win.
I was happy with how I started the match with lots of clapping and countless screams of the
“QUEENS-LAND-ER” war cry, but at pivotal moments through the match I made bad judgments which lost us the match.Queensland scored first through Darren Lockyer going out wide. I was able to set this up through some strong “C’mon”s which built up to an almighty “Gooooooo!!” which the opposition had no way of defending. At this point I felt pretty comfortable with my form, and perhaps this was part of the problem. I thought the game would soon be under control so I moved back into my seat and had a sip or two of my beer. What a mistake that was. While I was happily taking it easy, New South Wales answered back through Anthony Minichiello scoring practically under the posts. He completely caught me off-guard – I nearly sprayed the row of fans in front of me with my mouthful of Queensland’s finest beer.
Now with the scores even it was time for me to calm things down. To get the team in the right frame of mind I shouted “let’s go guys” while clapping, and it was getting results. The team was successfully absorbing the pressure those New South Wales Blues were applying, so I thought it was an opportune time for me to visit the toilet and release some of my pre-match beverages. I awkwardly made my way down the row of spectators, then down the stairs and into the toilet when I heard some of the crowd roar. This was clearly not going to be my ‘Origin night. The Blues had taken advantage of my departure with another Minichiello try. Johns successfully converted to make the score 12 – 6 in NSW’s favour.
When I returned to my seat I was determined to not let down my state again. I really focused on my cheering. And although I wasn’t able to improve QLD’s score before half time, I was content with keeping NSW from scoring again.
The half time break gave me a good chance to reflect on my first half effort, and think through my plan for the second forty minutes.
Before I knew it, those insolent New South Welshmen parade back to the field. That’s my cue to open with a strong “BOOOOOOO.” I smile wryly at the knowledge they now know they’re in for one tough second half.
The Queenslanders then jog back on to a crescendo of applause, whistling using my fingers, and a medley of previous screams. It felt for a moment that my voice was beginning to fail, but thankfully it was just a false alarm. There was an air of tension, but I was quietly confident of turning things around this half.
The game got under way. I decided to go out strong; this was to be my half. I applauded every run and every tackle our guys made. And it wasn’t long til my increase in intensity brought results. Our team’s captain Gordon Tallis fed off this enthusiasm, and scored. We kicked the goal to tie the scores up again. But this time there will be no taking it easy and having a drink. The team needs me.
Play continued and it becomes a bit of an arm wrestle with no team getting the upper hand. I know I need a game-breaker. It’s time to bring out the big guns. While we’re down in their half putting a string of good plays together I decide to go for the stand up and scream “goooooo!!”. It worked and got our captain over the line again. Then I perhaps made my biggest mistake, I chose to follow up this play with a “woo hooo” combined with a contented look around the stadium. When I drew my attention back to the field, the referee was asking for the video ref’s assistance and adjudication. I knew at this point that the “woo hooo” was definitely premature. I prayed to all deities and hope I hadn’t blown it for the team. But after an eternity, the score board displayed the video ref’s ruling: NO TRY .. I sat back in my chair, and thought of what could have been.
Soon after this our defence started to struggle. Not on my watch I thought to myself. I immediately answer with a “get back guys!” And while they did make an effort, our line became too stretched and their captain, Andrew Johns, put Craig Wing over the line underneath the posts. They converted the goal. NSW now lead 18 – 12.
With all this excitement, the NSW cheerleaders make a move and assemble behind their team’s goal line, IN FRONT OF ME. There is no limit to the dirty tricks NSW will play in a desperate attempt to get me off my game.
It worked.
The distraction allowed Andrew Johns to kick a field goal to make it even more difficult to manufacture a comeback. NSW lead 19 – 12.
At this point I should have gone back to my original plan and raised the intensity. But instead the pressure reduced me to biting my nails in the hope that somehow this would devise a new plan. Nothing came to mind, so I turned to beer for assistance. But as soon as I thought of something that would surely work, Johns runs through a gaping hole in the defence I neglected, and converts to make the score 25 – 12.
The game appears to be flying past me. I forget the plan, and my beer is empty. It’s time to get another. I go to stand up and get another but glance at the scoreboard on my way up. There is under a minute of play remaining. I sit back down with my hands over my face, and think of the many places I went wrong.
The siren sounds game over, and New South Wales have defeated me 25 – 12.
NSW take a 1 – 0 lead in the series. But I learnt a lot of lessons from the game, and the experience has better equipped me for the two deciding games of the series.
Queensland, I won’t let you down again.
Sincerely yours
A. Speck-Taytor
History goes on to show, my letter was quite unhelpful. New South Wales won that year’s series in the next match, sadly the first of three series wins in a row.
I was astounded to hear the recent news of Donald Sterling – the owner of the LA Clippers NBA team – making racist remarks against black people. I listened to the recorded phone conversation, hoping it was just a confusion. It was not.
It’s astounding that it comes from someone with such a long history of involvement in the National Basketball Association – of which it’s players are predominately African Americans.
The only comfort to this episode is that the NBA organisation took swift action in making an example of him.
In this day and age, there is no room for such intolerance.
The healing process may take some time. At least it’s already off to a great start through such a strong message coming from the governing body.
Silver acts swiftly, strongly against Sterling « NBA.com | Hang Time Blog with Sekou Smith.
Everyone brings their experience and life to their work, afterall it is who we are. People may assume it works the other way also. It’s not always the case.
I know chefs who never cook at home. And some strict, powerful people I’ve seen in the workplace are absolutely bubbly, softies away from the office.
It makes me wonder about myself. Do I bring inklings of my work at home?
Does it matter? Probably not, though I’m curious. It can always be helpful to adopt other experiences to improve other things.
In terms of my work, for the past seven years I’ve worked as an enterprise architect. I took a liking to information technology in my first real job. Then worked my way up from being a system administrator, to a technical lead, to a project manager and business analyst. Then I guess the role which took most interest, was putting all of these things together in the enterprise architecture office.
For me, EA is effectively using all of the skills and experience I’ve gained in IT to make sure there is a good forward plan based on an assessment across the relevant pieces of the IT and business landscape. I always want to ensure any plan aligns with a deep knowledge of the environment, then we’re in good shape to make the right investments and changes. It is also involved in shaping solutions based on satisfying the different viewpoints that may exist.
Enterprise architecture is most useful where there are large investments, huge variety, or where a change of strategy is being introduced.
It seems a strange discipline to bring to personal life.
But I suppose, when I define it so generally, we all do this to an extent.
One thing that differs is the kind of tools that EAs often use. I have become quite the excel junky to create and maintain all sort of inventories/catalogues, and to conduct analysis or report something. I draw pictures (create models) to help understand the different components and how they fit together. And I do ask “Why?” so often it’s probably very annoying. And all decisions are checked to ensure they’re based on documented principles to guide the direction.
I’ve never felt the need to use “tools” to my home life. Nor do I worry too much about us documenting the future plan, then sticking to it through governance.
However, like most households we do often have competing perspectives. My kids just want to have fun, parents have a different set of needs. I feel I navigate these well, perhaps through having to deal with similar scenarios at work. We always manage to come to some form of agreement. Not that this is something unique to an enterprise architect.
Harvey Pekar suggests “Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.” However, I think it’s less of an issue to get to the bottom of our decision-making. We happily live the consequences.
The big omission in my life, when compared to my enterprise architecture activities, is having a strategic viewpoint. I’m doubtful though it’s something I really need to introduce to my personal life.
I do have goals, and each day I try to improve upon my habits – thanks to https://lift.do/. As a family we have only rough ideas of what we’ll do in the future, and when.
I think that’s enough.
Elle and the boys had two weeks holiday for Easter. So last weekend we headed up to UAQ Marine Club to go “camping” with some friends for a couple of nights.
We weren’t the only ones with a strange concept of camping. There were kids there with remote-controlled cars. Our friends mentioned, that form is better known as “glam-ping” – combining glamour with camping.
It’s not the kind of camping I remember.
In fact, I can’t even comprehend the advent of people bringing their own jet skis. Why do people go away to enjoy nature by powering along the top of the water as fast and noisy as possible?
Later there were other scenes more like what I was used to. An example was fathers passing a rugby ball to each other – trying to show they still have it. It may be the only reason why rugby balls get packed on holidays.
I really can’t judge people for attempting to relive their youth. I knee-boarded one day, water skied the next.
It was the first time I had tried skiing, and it was such a surprise to stand up on my third attempt. I was fortunate to get good advice, don’t think too much – which I found quite natural to do.
All the boys, except land-bound Owen, enjoyed the lovely warm water. Lewis particularly took to it on this trip. He even wanted to give kneeboarding a try, though decided against it after a few failed warm-ups along the beach. He was OK to miss it, there was more than enough fun riding on the boat, sitting on the donut being towed behind, having a fish, or just swimming.
Myles tried his hand at fishing, as he regularly does. Though he may be a bit hesitant to try it again. He was sitting on the back of the boat, feet in the water, casting the line out into the sea. Unbeknownst to him I had quietly slipped into the water from the front of the boat, and snuck around under the water beneath where he was sitting. Then I quickly pulled myself up onto the landing deck right in front of him and screamed. As he jumped about a foot in height, I’ve never seen his face so terrified. It would have been a different story if I happened to get a hook in my face, which I willingly risked.
It wasn’t the only fun we had on the water. All six of the big boys went out on kayaks one day. I was with Lewis, and out in the open water we spotted a few pieces of rubbish. It was a good opportunity to teach Lewis about doing our bit for the environment and fishing them out to put into the bin later. It was a little disconcerting though, when we made it to a secluded beach to take a rest, that there was a rubbish tip spewing hundreds of bottles into the ocean. It seemed to make our two pieces of litter we collected seem quite pointless. We sadly didn’t take any photos of Lewis & I out in the double kayak. Though just try to imagine me kayaking against the current, and five year old slacker in the front holding his oar horizontally the entire time.
Our two evenings were quite enjoyable – often playing hide & seek tag with the boys, despite an apocalypse of mosquitos or sand flies taking a real fancy with me in the dark. It’s a bit of a “sore” point. My wife is usually the one who gets eaten alive by insects and they leave me alone. I joke that it’s the reason I married her. This time however, unbeknownst to me, she cheated and applied repellent. So I was getting eaten for a change. When I shared this story at work, my Egyptian colleague could relate to it while staying there, though he had a far more interesting description, saying the bites caused him to truly hate his life.
It’s a lovely place to stay for a couple of nights. We happened to be there at the same time last year. Perhaps we’ll be there at the same time in 2015 also.
Maybe we’ll see our compatriot Keith Urban:
Yesterday my family and I went to Kite Beach in Dubai, our former local. It reminded me of the time 18 months earlier when I lost my wedding ring there.
Probably not surprising, I remember it quite vividly.
It was just Myles, Lewis & I.
We went for a swim, walked up and down the beach fossicking for interesting shells, and then we played a bit of rugby along the beach. One of the boys threw a poor pass which I had to stretch down to catch in front of my feet. As I did this, something felt unusual. I was pleased to catch the ball before it hit the sand, and ran a few more steps. Then I realised, the unusual sensation was my wedding ring was no longer on my finger.
I’ve lost a bit of weight in the ten years since my wedding day. As a result, my wedding ring has become quite loose on my finger.
Hindsight has 20-20 vision. While at the beach I really should have temporarily moved the ring it to my middle finger which is a tighter (and more safe) fit.
I checked and saw no ring on my finger, and rushed back the few steps to where it would have dropped. It was where the waves were hitting the shore line – a terrible place to lose it. I frantically dug into the sand and water, but found nothing. I got the boys to help me, and after a few frantic minutes and increasing desperation I increased the search zone.
I made a mental note of the landmarks, while I thought of where I could get a metal detector, and whether I should report it to authorities. In fact there were a lot of worries going through my mind, including what kind of coverage we had for such loss of personal property.
What made things worse was Elle happened to be out of town. She had flown back to Australia on a short trip. Losing your wedding ring while the wife is away seems so much more suspicious than while she’s there. In fact, I suspected my ring had some kind of GPS sensor that would already be sending alerts to her back in Tasmania the second it came off my finger and she’d be shortly calling me, asking what was I up to.
I tried to think calmly, and not show my utter fear of losing the ring.
After a good 10 minutes of digging, the three of us had covered the whole area where I suspected the ring would be. But with no luck. It was gone.
I decided to clear my head and perhaps enter into the wonderful world of denial. The three of us went back to passing the football again. The whole time I was still numb with worry about the lost ring, and talking nonsense that it didn’t matter.
After some lacklustre passes, it was clear our minds were elsewhere. So after around 10 minutes we decided to head home.
I figured at that point, why not have one final look at the area – you know, just in case.
I walked over roughly to the area, lined myself up with the landmarks I previously noted so I was standing in the right position. And just as I looked down, right there, directly in front of me, on top of the sand literally between my two feet, my ring just got washed in from a wave. It was the same sand which the boys and I were furiously digging earlier to no avail. It was completely surreal. It seemed like my eyes were clearly playing tricks on me. Though I didn’t dawdle. I snatched up the ring along with the sand beneath it. I opened out my fingers, looked in and lo and behold, there it was, my gold wedding ring safely in my grasp.
It almost seemed like a scene from Lord of the Rings, me looking into my palm with the ring glistening in the sun, almost animated with shine. I avoided a slow motion raising it up above my head triumphantly – like from a movie. Instead I put it straight onto my wedding finger, clinched it in a fist, and covered my left hand tightly with my right.
To be honest, losing something of such sentimental and financial value had made me feel completely sick in the stomach. This feeling washed away completely with feelings of just how fortunate I was to find it again and have it back on my finger. This emotion was no doubt intensified after almost giving up on it and wondering how to break such news to my wife.
Fortunately something was on my side that day, and it never came to that. And while I’ve still not resized my wedding ring, without fail I always move it to the safety of my middle finger if there’s any risk that the activity could cause it to fall from my finger.
I had a work trip last week to Chennai, India. Being on business, I travelled without the family for a change. Altho I considered packing 11 month old Owen when he immediately fell asleep in my arms when I took him for a final quick cuddle in the morning.
The journey from Dubai started nicely in the business lounge – after purchasing a small duty free bottle of whisky (for purely sterilization purposes you must understand).
Boarding became a little less glamorous when next to me sat an Indian gentlemen whom I think muttered something about his backside being unwell. He went on to break a few other passenger etiquette points, and I imagined someone bolder than me asking to be moved as the guy doesn’t cover his mouth when sneezing in my direction.
It’s always a little bit of a worry when before the plane takes off for its destination the cabin crew walk through releasing the contents of several cans of fumigating smoke. I held my breath and wished the poisons the best of luck.
Later on it was a relief when my neighbour motioned for me to fill in his declaration form. He clearly knew no English, so he wasn’t talking about his butt afterall.
The flight went quick – being 11 hours quicker than a trip home to Australia, it’s no surprise it felt quick. I then had a completely pain-free journey through customs and getting my baggage and ride to the hotel.
Outside the airport, I knew I was in India. This was something different to anything I’ve seen before. Even as we were landing it was clear this is a city with lots more people than I’ve ever seen before. As far as the eye could see there were apartment blocks.
I’m probably used to areas with lots of people. This is a complete metropolis of many areas, all with lots and lots of people. That’s a very different scale.
Outside of the airport you can just hear a rabble. That’s the constant sound of lots of people.
The ride to the hotel was interesting. The paint segregating lanes of traffic were clearly not ambitious enough. On each side we felt squeezed between a constant barrage of cars and scooters and motorbikes with a family of four all on-board. I saw three clearly painted lanes, and to the left and right of our car I counted seven vehicles. And each motorbike probably had an average of 2.9 people. I thought, gee those small kids can really hang on for dear life. Then I sighed as I realised that’s literally what they were doing.
I thought the use of car horns in Dubai was excessive. It is NOTHING in comparison. From every direction there is constant noise. It’s not surprising, most trucks and buses have signs saying “Sound Horn”. I heard a couple of theories behind these stickers. One is sound the horn to wake up the driver, in case they have actually fallen asleep. And the other suggestion is that it’s to inform the driver that there’s someone behind them, so they should consider applying the brake. So it’s saying something like “Please sound horn if you don’t wish me to squash you”.
Work was like work anywhere, more or less.
At lunch time we even called for pizzas delivery. It was just like in any other office pizza lunch, except here the pizzas had just as much chili as any other topping ingredients. Though this was not enough, my colleagues were compelled to still sprinkle several sachets of chili flakes on top. Amazing.
Our hosts drove us out for lunch one day. He talked about the terrible traffic he endures each day, and that he’s considering swapping his fancy car for a bicycle. It was easy to sympathise. His impressive car can travel 0-100km/hr in just over 4 seconds, yet the car’s computer showed his average speed over the car’s lifetime was 29km/hr – even with long drives in the country away from traffic.
Without the family with me, I enjoyed a selfish morning ritual of hitting the gym. But I really wanted to go out for a run, and properly experience the streets of India. The night before I made a simple Google Map. I printed two copies – one to carry just in case I took a wrong turn. The other I gave to my colleague in the adjacent room. If I didn’t come back, at least they know where to begin the search. Likewise I gave quite a bit of thought to what identifying information I should carry in case something bad happens. My colleague was also thinking of the worst, when he shared that at least I was running along a street called “Dr” Kalaignar Karunanidhi Salai.
I started away from the main roads, running through quite rural estates. When running, especially in a new place, some people worry about where to find a bathroom in case something more than a simple stop is required. I figured I may have no problems in this regard, when I casually looked to my right and saw a field full of guys all taking a dump. There was a lesson learned right there, don’t run first thing in the morning.
I finished my water bottle and decided to get another drink from a corner store. The bottled water trick in the movie Slum Dog Millionaire had me a little paranoid, so I got a coke. The guy behind the counter, I think showing he had a sense of humour, told me in Tamil it’s called “Cocku” – either that or he got away with insulting me.
As per my plan, I made it to the coast and saw the ocean.
Along the way I saw many stray dogs. You could say they all looked like they had character. Another way to say it is they were malnourished, and treated poorly.
I only encountered a couple of humans begging. I didn’t give them money, though it was a pleasure to buy a few breakfasts with even the small amount of emergency money I carried.
The streets were easy enough to navigate, and I made it safely home without incident. Well, almost without incident. I did see a guy walking towards me looking quite erratic and aggressive to people as they walked past, and here I was heading straight for him. I deviated slightly away, though it wasn’t enough. He jumped in front of me and shouted something, though it was a little comforting that I thought it sounded like “Good Morning”, so I just kept on moving.
While getting ready for the shower it seemed completely unfair that the room I was staying in, all on my own, was larger than some of the homes I saw complete families living in.
My Indian week flew by. Before I knew it we were checking out of the hotel and heading to the airport for the trip home. I dropped into a souvenir shop, and paid probably way too much for a few items for the kids and wife. I feel you’ve negotiated poorly when they say with a smile “You drove a hard bargain my friend”. You’ve done much better when they’re crying, or too angry with you to speak.
The flight home had quite a lot of turbulence, something my colleague’s never experienced on his countless trips to Chennai over the years. I wondered if it was inappropriate earlier to share with him that we were on an identical aircraft to the Malaysian Airlines plane that went missing flying on MH370 a few days earlier.
It probably goes without saying, we did make it home safe and sound.
Thank you beautiful India. My colleagues made it a very enjoyable trip. I know I’ll be back.
A tragic event rocked our new year. On New Year’s Eve, a dear family friend’s son took his own life.
It still seems like a bad dream.
There was no prior warning, there were no signs. There seems to be no reasons.
An army of friends banded together to show the family their support and help. Though our help seems pretty trivial in the face of their heartache wondering why – perhaps a question they’ll have for the rest of their lives. And we could offer no help to alleviate the pain that had cut so deep, none of them have eaten or slept in the four days since it happened.
We could really just let them know we’re there.
Myles’s picture of his friend. He wants to make it into a card for the family
The boy was friendly with my two sons. They both loved his sense of humour, and were drawn to his charisma. So I felt it was right to tell them what happened, though I first Google-d to confirm the experts recommend it also.
It was a terribly tough conversation to have with the boys. The web advice was quite helpful. We obviously avoided sharing any specifics. There were useful messages about suicide being an illness, that the stress & unhappiness makes people forget there are always people to talk to; and that their actions were just an attempt to feel better when they thought there was nothing else they could do. It’s a very sad, but important lesson. And it was upsetting to see my boys learn it so intimately.
I thought my five year old may be too young to understand. It was clear though he knew exactly what we were saying. When we took them to visit the family the day after, he asked if the boy was there in a grave. And on the way home, both my boys were asking really good questions about what could they do. My nine year old has practically made it a mission to be there and check on all of his friends at school regularly.
In terms of my own feelings, I still find this very difficult to accept. How could things grow so overwhelming for a 15 year old that it comes to this? To his close family and friends, it makes no sense. To an outsider, it makes even less sense.
We already knew he was popular and well-liked. His Facebook page lit up with an overwhelming number of posts from his friends, all sharing how highly they thought of him, and how much they’ll miss him. He couldn’t have known the level of support he had. He could not have realised how many people felt broken at his passing.
The day after we heard the news, not by specific plan, I had my weekly run in their suburb. It was a lovely cool, upbeat morning, with lots of positive thoughts. Without even truly realising where I was, a solemn feeling swept through me as I came close to their neighborhood. I suddenly had to stop, walk off course toward the entrance’s security gate. Then my mind filled with visions of him on his bike on these same streets. Usually with friends, most often making jokes and hearing his distinctive laugh, laughing hysterically. And here I am in the dark silence of morning, almost fittingly cold and empty. I was overwhelmed with the thoughts of his demise. His family still wide awake in the villa, feeling crushed by their loss. I turned back, felt the pure tragedy and became quite a blubbering mess.
At the end of a long morning run, I generally feel wonderful to be alive. That morning I felt more reflective on how lucky we are, and that we have a duty to make the most of our time.
Because, for whatever reason, some people aren’t here to enjoy this opportunity. May they now rest in peace.
At a recent interview I was stumped by the common question about what I feel are my weaknesses. I knew it was a standard question, and did prepare for it at some stage, though when it was time to respond I almost drew a complete blank. The question followed in order from what I thought were my strengths. So perhaps I had not quite finished being in “beat my chest” mode. Or perhaps the answer I thought I’d go with didn’t really resonate well enough.
When I’m nervous or feel awkward with a silence I often lead with a gag. I guess I was nervous or felt awkward, cause my first statement was along the lines of “I should give you my wife’s phone number, she can share a long list of my weaknesses”. It’s not even true, though critical wife gags are quicker to devise than a thoughtful self-analysis.
There was a bit of a pause to give me time to think, and I did fumble through with an answer which seemed OK, though definitely not great.
So I realised, I was very weak at describing my weaknesses!
The benefit of things going less than ideal, it leads me to contemplate on a better answer.
I thought I’d get this down, and perhaps review it over time.
Perhaps posting such a topic to a blog with open comments is a way to crowd source better answers – or just trolling.
Most of the research suggests the question is used to test whether the candidate is self aware, and mature enough to realise short-comings, and whether they have made adjustments to become more effective.
I’ve certainly thought for long enough about my short-comings, and this is a good enough place to consider what adjustments to become better.
For quite some time, mostly with my own work I’ve had a desire for things to be perfect. My preference would be to work on things forever, to prevent passing it on for people to identify faults with it. Being a perfectionist is apparently something I inherited from my father, and he inherited it from his father. Though, I’ve been intent on breaking with the tradition. I’ve seen value in getting stuff out there, and have even made it into a habit to share early drafts, to the point where I get a buzz with quantity of documents & revisions, rather than the quality.
I’ll still pick the eyes out of my work, and other things that have been handed to me. Though I recognise, the value addition of a perfect piece of work is too low to warrant the amount of time it takes to make one.
In the past, such as my university days, I was tremendously poor at being organised. It was a bit of a curse how I could crunch many weeks effort into a single evening or two and still get through with flying colours. Because I was such a gifted scrambler, it almost encouraged the behaviour of not staying on top of deadlines or where things were up to. As I got older though, and the stakes become higher – such as having a family, I realised how stressful these situations are and that things would get missed. It made me recognise the need to change significantly.
Many people talk about dull books that change their lives. My eyes usually glaze over when I hear this. For me, that one book did change my life in terms of my organisation was Getting Things Done by David Allen. I’ve read many management and productivity books, think they’re useful, then very soon after I’d regularly, and quite happily ignore the advice. The “GTD” system though, is something I can continue to use every day, since reading the book quite a few years ago. Thanks to recognising that I was making things unnecessarily tough, and missing out on opportunities, I knew I could become far more organised with life and work. And having a good system has really put far more focus on the proactive tasks, and reviews that I now enjoy.
So, while I managed to get by quite well without being organised. I feel I am living life far better now because I’m staying on top of things thanks to a change in my behaviour and trusty processes I live each day.
Perhaps related to Weakness #1 about being a perfectionist, I have noticed I tend to prefer to base some of my decisions and actions on theories of what is right or wrong – in place of feelings, experience, or hearsay. In some respects, this is what university equipped me with as a strength. However, in different roles and situations I’ve learned that this is not terribly useful at times.
Having a theoretical base is useful, as the thinking work and path to success is often done for you. Though, some audience or personality types are repelled by such assertions. I could argue why that’s the case, though it’s not useful here.
Regardless, I do see a purely theoretical approach as a weakness. My career has always included some level of practice or experience, and over time I see I’m moving away from my ideals about what the best theory may be, and I’m often leading now with what I see are the practical and pragmatic approaches. They will support a theory, but they’re not a theory alone. That would be terribly weak.
This was the end of my initial list of thoughts, if I was able to answer the interview question over again.
It probably goes without saying I am still trying to perfect the response in my head. Though please note, I have blogged my Weaknesses before it’s all perfect. So I am certainly making progress.
