Question the question
After spending 30-minutes resolving a problem, a colleague pointed out a more fundamental issue: the problem didn’t need to be solved.
They said stared at the solution, took and step back, and asked “why did this need fixing in the first place?”
It didn’t.
It doesn’t hurt to question the premise — to question the question — if only for a moment before choosing to jump in and solve it.
At best, you save yourself a lot of energy that you can put somewhere else.
At worst, you’re building an invaluable critical thinking muscle.
In many cases the things we think we need to solve for don’t need solving, or at least are not worth solving right away at the expense of addressing more immediately important aspects of a problem.
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About me:
I'm a second-generation Taiwanese American trying to find life’s greatest sources of meaning and make the most out of it