Preparation

Preparation includes learning, training, research, investigation, observing others, periods of quiet study. Anything to prepare for the task at hand. In sports and music, we practice skills required for competing and performing. In software development, we master the computer languages, editing tools and debuggers required to develop an application. In hosting a party, we invite guests, buy food and drink, clean the house and select the music.

What happens if you skip preparation?

You lose the game, your performance is a flop, your app is bug-ridden and your party is a disaster! However, preparation takes time and is often tedious and difficult. We are tempted to come up with reasons other laziness why we don’t need to spend time on preparation. Two of the most popular: “We don’t have time” and “We can get by on sheer talent”. We tell ourselves that we can skip preparation and still come out OK. Such hopes are sadly misplaced. Here are a couple of stories from my own experience:

The manager who didn’t believe in preparation and lost his job

I once worked for a manager who believed that all design work could be accomplished in meetings. He didn’t believe that anybody needed to do any preparation before the meetings: no research, no analysis, no carefully thought-out options to present for discussion. He also didn’t believe that anybody needed time to ponder and reflect on the ideas presented by other engineers: no follow-up research or investigation, no synthesis, no chance for second thoughts.

As you can imagine, his design meetings were singularly unproductive. Eventually his manager noticed that his project was two years over schedule and had cost overruns in the tens of millions of dollars. She nudged him “to pursue opportunities outside the company”.

Note: For a discussion on effective design meetings, see Leading a Design Meeting

The client who didn’t get his money’s worth

For many years I worked for a consulting engineer. He was brilliant, knowledgeable, pragmatic and hard working. With this combination of talents, he quickly gained a good reputation and had no trouble lining up clients. One day he met with a prospective client to discuss a project. This man stated that he didn’t want to pay us for “just thinking” about the project. He only wanted to pay for the time we spent actually doing it. My boss assured him that if we took on his project, we wouldn’t put any thought into it. Did he notice that we were making fun of him? I’m not sure. In any case, we never saw him again.

Doing

This is the performance of the actual task – the match, the performance, the application, the party.

Your Doing will be more effective if you balance it with Preparation and Not Doing. Working weekends is generally NOT the best way to complete a task more quickly!

Not Doing

Not Doing is a period of rest after Doing. There are many ways of Not Doing. Here are mine; yours will be different:

• A good night’s sleep
• A nice long walk outside
• Having lunch or dinner at a restaurant with a friend
• Working on something else completely unrelated to the task
• A long hike or ski trip in the mountains with a group of friends
• A vacation – even just a day trip out of town
• A nap
• A bicycle ride up the canyon.

When is it time to Not Do? When you have completed the task, of course, but also whenever you feel stuck. Whenever you feel yourself losing focus, becoming less productive. I set a timer for 50 minutes to remind me to take a break.

What happens after Not Doing?

You return to the task with a fresh mind. You often have new insight into what you are doing. Solutions to problems that had been blocking you just seem to pop into your mind. It’s a cliché that people have their best ideas when showering after a good night’s sleep, but it’s a cliché precisely because it happens so often.

What happens if you skip Not Doing?

Burnout. Loss of creativity and joy. Feelings of drudgery. Diminished effectiveness. Here are a couple of stories from my own experience:

The Engineer who Restored his Creativity after a Trip to the Mountains

This story has a happy ending! After spending months working long hours to develop a process control system, we finally installed it at the factory and got it running smoothly. I immediately began working on the design of the next project. I got nowhere. None of my designs were any good.

After several weeks of spinning my wheels, I took a five-day backpacking trip to the spectacular Wind River Mountains in Wyoming sponsored by the Wasatch Mountain Club. Strenuous physical activity with a group of like-minded people in a setting of spectacular natural beauty reset my brain. When I returned from the trip, my mind was clear and refreshed. I could design again.

The Boss who lost his job because he didn’t practice not doing

This story is a cautionary tale. I once had a manager who did not believe in Not Doing, either for himself or for his employees. He seemed to work every waking minute and would call us at any time about anything that popped into his mind. He called me one Sunday morning, upset about a report that he thought I should have completed months ago.

The next morning, we talked to the engineer who needed the report. He confirmed that it wasn’t due for several months. All that drama for nothing! This episode set in motion events that got him banished to another department and, eventually, laid off.

He was a very smart guy, but by neglecting Not Doing, he lost perspective on his work and became a completely ineffective manager.

Successful Not Doing

Our culture discourages and devalues Not Doing. We reward working long hours and being available 24/7. We ignore the toll it takes on our personal health and happiness. We don’t even notice that skipping Not Doing results in less effective work.

We used to be better at Not Doing. After graduating from college back in the 70’s I got a job at a small start-up company. We worked long hours developing software that was at the very leading edge of what was possible at the time. It was intense! But if snow was in the forecast, we’d bring our skis to work, take the afternoon off and head up to the ski resorts for some fun in the powder. We always seemed to be extra creative the next day. It has been three decades since I worked at a company where this kind of Not Doing was even conceivable.

Other cultures are better at Not Doing. I spent a semester abroad in Italy when I was in college. Traditional Italian culture splits the workday with a long break for a delicious mid-day meal with family or friends, followed by a leisurely nap. This schedule ensures that Italians have twice as many opportunities for the insights that come upon waking. I think this is one reason why Italy, to this day, excels at all kinds of design work.

Further Reading:

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck. This book contains many insights into how we learn and master new skills.