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Why Are You Reading All That News? | 43 Folders
When I wrote about my method for controlling RSS overload a couple weeks ago, 43 Folders user terceiro left a comment that put me in my place:
You’re feeling stress about your RSS feeds? Talk about self-created problems. The real solution to managing RSS feeds is to stop reading RSS feeds. It’s simple … when a purely optional “convenience†technology is causing stress, it’s time to re-evaluate at a pretty fundamental level.
I read this and thrashed and spluttered like Yosemite Sam for a while before I admitted it: he’s right. It is a self-created problem, and I need to understand what makes me feel the need to consume the equivalent of a Carnegie library every day, instead of just finding a more efficient way to choke it down.
When I read discussions about managing RSS and information overload, I tend to see three justifications for why people “need†to subscribe to 842 news feeds:
I want to stay informed about the world - Meaning, I never want to be one of those idiots on Jay Leno who can’t name the Vice President. I identify with this impulse the most strongly.
I need to for my job - Particularly for IT folk, usually along the lines of, “I need to stay on top of developments in programming/web design/cat herding so I can advance my career.â€Â
I need to for my blog - As in, “I need to follow all these different feeds to find interesting stuff to pass along to my readers.†Everybody wants to be Jason Kottke or John Gruber.
After thinking about my own motivations and admitting that I’ve uttered all three of those at some point as well, my answer to every one would be, “Really?†Are you really going to miss that promotion if you didn’t hear about the JDK update the second it was released? Are you really going to lose readers if you don’t link to that third Boing Boing post? And are you really going to turn into a sheltered, mouth-breathing Epsilon if you happen to skip the news cycle one day?
For me, it’s always been a matter of identity. I like to view myself as an informed, plugged in, man of the digital world, and to be this person, I think I need to see all the latest news, comment on the hot blogs, post things on del.icio.us. That’s all fine and dandy if that’s the person I want to be, but within reason. I should know by now from experiences with other jobs, other vocations, and other vices, that if they start to cause me this kind of concern, something needs to change.
“The world won’t end without you knowing it. Trust me, your mom will call.â€Â
This isn’t to say that we should all chuck our newsreaders and smash our TVs, but that we should, like terceiro said in that comment, keep a little perspective. In terms of those first two reasons above, we don’t give ourselves enough credit for being the smart, inquisitive people that we are. Even if you shut down the RSS reader for a few days, you’ll still know everything you need to know to do your job right. The fact that you possess such a powerful thirst for knowledge will cause you to absorb it passively wherever you go, from snatches of overheard conversations, TV, and radio. It will be enough until you have more time and energy to read it yourself. And the world won’t end without you knowing it. Trust me, your mom will call.

Solving problems outside your comfort zone | 43 Folders
Solving problems outside your comfort zone

Merlin Mann | Oct 10 2007

I sometimes think that one factor in success as a business or as a human being has a lot to do with what kind of problems you’re comfortable solving  and how you get better at addressing the stuff that falls outside that comfort zone.

History is littered with revolutionaries who couldn’t run the country they’d overthrown, Generals who’ve insisted on re-fighting the last war, talented programmers who were promoted to becoming ineffective and very unhappy managers, and, of course, there’s the countless companies that just couldn’t make the leap when technology or cultural change rendered their comfy old business model moot.

Seems like there’s a thread here that’s worth thinking about.

How do you get better at knowing when you’re trying to solve the wrong problem?

It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately as I take what had been mostly a hobby and try to “Go Pro†with it. For me, that’s meant a lot of stumbles around moving from being a one-man show into what may eventually become a small company who knows?. I’m finding it really challenging to stop solving the problems I’m comfortable solving, and to ask for and accept help with the stuff I suck at or that doesn’t represent the best use of my time.

I think this applies to almost everybody, from the time they’re born, right? You figure out a few things, you do some informal experiments with reality, and then you try to suss out the patterns that won’t get you hit by a car or carted off to jail. But the old patterns almost always stop doing the trick at some point or in some unexpected context. For example, that bawling and tantrum-throwing that got you a hug in kindergarten may not endear you to your company’s board.

The best advice I’ve gleaned so far is to try and stay cognizant of diminishing returns. Just because I know how to do basic sysadmin work doesn’t mean I’m the best person to work on it. And conversely, just because I loathe the idea of becoming a “manager†doesn’t mean I can afford to put off learning the skills forever.