Follow the Rules v. Get Shit Done
Hey friends,
When you have a choice between getting something done quickly or taking your time to follow the rules to get it done correctly, which one do you usually choose?
Sure, it's a false dichotomy. You can cut some corners, but not all of them. You can act quickly, but not rashly. Trusting your gut instinct and experience isn't incompatible with following the rules. But sometimes it is. What do you do then?
From observing the people I interact with on a regular basis I feel they tend to skew one way or another. Some of my friends are more methodical and analytical, others are more biased towards action. There are benefits and drawbacks to either of these approaches. Bias towards action means getting shit done faster, but also getting shit wrong more often. Bias towards analysis means making fewer mistakes, but also making less progress.
The most successful people I know are either heavily skewed towards one of these approaches or can adjust their bias on the fly. I'm biased towards action, which is a blessing and a curse. I've gotten to where I am mostly due to saying "yeah let's do it" to too many things too quickly, but I also made most of my mistakes this way.
Are you a "yeah let's do it" person or a "let me think about it" person? Or both?
Have a productive week,
Martin
A few thoughts
The common cold is really common. More than 200 different viruses are known to cause common cold symptoms. Kudos to our immune systems for ensuring we only feel like crap due to cold a few times a year, not permanently.
(Para)social interactions. Where's the line between parasocial and social when you get a chance to experience a friendly interaction with a media personality? And was the interaction you experienced actually genuinely friendly?
Enjoyed this
Artificial Intelligence Could Finally Let Us Talk with Animals "In collaboration with outside biologists, the Earth Species Project plans to test playback experiments, playing an artificially generated call to Zebra Finches in a laboratory setting and then observing how the birds respond. Soon “we'll be able to pass the finch, crow or whale Turing test,” Raskin asserts, referring to the point at which the animals won't be able to tell they are conversing with a machine rather than one of their own. “The plot twist is that we will be able to communicate before we understand.”"
Getting Too Good at the Wrong Thing "My fellow newsletter & Twitter intellectualati will bristle at this claim, but we must be honest with ourselves. How many newsletters have you printed out and put on your bookshelf? How many articles from five or ten years ago do you still go back and read? Or recommend?"
The fun part
Roses are red violets are red ladybugs are red and my ol' bike is alive and red and so are many other good things in life ❤️🍎🍒🔻🔺🟥⭕❤️
