> Finally, do your best to avoid situations where a "quick decision" is needed; this is good advice even for "quick thinkers". Fast decisions are often poor ones - the counterpoint to that is dragging something out over many weeks or across many meetings - but putting yourself in a situation where the unknowns become knowns or the scope of the landscape and weight of the decision can be properly assessed is important. What's better is that you will likely be able to have a better paper trail for this.
If you have to make a 'quick decision', one of the pieces of advice I've heard is to try to make the smallest possible good decision that will move the ball forward. Often getting started is enough to provide more information needed to make a better long term decision, but making the best possible, smallest decision will rarely get you into trouble.
This seems like it is tapping into the same risk management strategy as in Agile methods? Essentially allowing for more frequent course correction. I assume "small" here blurs together cost and latency .
The tradeoff of this kind of incremental planning and execution is that it becomes more reactive and myopic. You can end up stuck at a local maxima or worse, just executing a random walk.
I think a large part of becoming "quick" in an effective way is to improve your triage skills. This is a meta-decision process where you quickly estimate the time-dependent risks and priorities.
It's a fair point but I'd caution that making the "smallest possible good decision" really needs emphasis on good and not smallest or this results in just delaying. And there's a ton of people that cause delays. Especially in the corporate world.
I think delaying is the point. You delay the “immediateness” so you can form a nuanced opinion without urgency.
I know we can’t always change the world we live in, but we can at least acknowledge it. In the corporate world people really like to pretend there is a fire, when few things are truly urgent. If you can keep the sky from falling down with a quick and small scoped decision, you free up time to make big and long term decisions slowly.
Wonder if you really "have to" make that decision "now". Sometimes you may have to get the ball rolling because of time constraints there specifically but the decision itself can wait. For example it might be fine to get funds moving so they are ready, even if the later decision means they are not needed anymore.
As another Nashvillian(sp?), I definitely understand the difference between how a city is viewed by tourists and by locals. I don’t mostly hate Nashville, but I basically hate Broadway, 12 south, basically everything everyone thinks of as Nashville
Location: Nashville, TN, US
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: Depends on the opportunity
Technologies: MEVN / MERN
Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyledredding/
Website: https://kyle.red
Email: contactme@kyleredding.com
I've been the first engineer hired after YC (https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/smartpath) but I'm most impactful as a people leader. Technical enough to be dangerous, but also empathetic enough to explain technical concepts to laypeople.
Location: Nashville, TN, US
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: Depends on the opportunity
Technologies: MEVN / MERN
Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyledredding/
Website: https://kyle.red
Email: contactme@kyleredding.com
I've been the first engineer hired after YC (https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/smartpath) but I'm most impactful as a people leader. Technical enough to be dangerous, but also empathetic enough to explain technical concepts to laypeople.
Me too! It's only been 14 years years for me but I can still make it through most of it, especially given a little help. It is one of the few things I can remember, even compared to poems I might want to memorize to make myself appear "cultured"
I wonder why that is? Fear of failure produces a stronger memory response than simple desire?
If you're having to actively shape your real life to accommodate your work life then you should be compensated (Not attending events / bringing your computer with you to dinner, etc). Do firefighters only get paid for the amount of time actively fighting fires?
Again, I didn't say that you shouldn't be compensated-- just that you shouldn't be compensated at the rate if they were having you actively doing work the entire time (else, why not just have you actively do work the whole time?).
> Do firefighters only get paid for the amount of time actively fighting fires?
I believe firefighters tend to do 24 hour shifts, where they actively work 8 hours and are paid full rate for that (during which time they have responsibilities in maintenance, etc)...
...and are paid a reduced rate for the other 16 hours they are on standby. (Here, in my jurisdiction, it's 10 hours + 14 hours). During this time they hang out at the firehouse, but may be eating, watching TV, sleeping, etc.
I don't think it is quite the same and I don't have any hard data to point to, but it seems players are being judged by the number of game speed minutes on their legs more than they have in the past. IE, a 26 year old who has been playing since he was 19 might be a star, but will not be worth as much as a he might have been 10 years ago when it was assumed he was just entering his prime.
This necessity of eating after you overate but mis-treated is one of the worst feelings in T1. You know you screwed up and you know you're going to pay for it, because you'll probably spike later and you don't know if it is the big meal you just ate or the snack you ate to keep from going low first. I love pizza, my body hates pizza
I always have 4 or 5 glucose gels in my car. My diabetes kit has a couple more. You learn pretty quick you need to be able to treat at least a couple of hypos by yourself
If you have to make a 'quick decision', one of the pieces of advice I've heard is to try to make the smallest possible good decision that will move the ball forward. Often getting started is enough to provide more information needed to make a better long term decision, but making the best possible, smallest decision will rarely get you into trouble.