Avoiding Single Points of Failure — Lessons in Relying on Earplugs
I have been dealing with sound sensitivity for some time now. Before getting earplugs though, there was difficulties in getting work done or doing anything which involved much concentration. After getting earplugs, I did not feel as much frustration and greatly approved my ability to concentrate. This then led to way more being accomplished in a day. Overtime, I forgot how it was before earplugs, and got used to the safeguard against sound.
However, at the start of the year, the ear tips for the earplugs fell into my ear twice. This led to carefully using tweezers to get them out of my ear. The first time it happened, I thought it to be a freak occurrence, and thankfully no major issue came of it. After the second time though, it became more serious and it was decided the best option would be to switch to headphones. At that time, it was confusing why this was happening, but I did not want to take any more risks.
After that event, the next few days were difficult. I did not remember how hard it was to concentrate before using earplugs, but this gave a wake-up call. Thankfully, it was the first week of the semester, which led to not much work being done this week. However, there was a noticeable decrease in productivity for me, and led to some activities being deprioritized, like writing.
While this was a challenge for me, it allowed me to gain important lessons which I will share below
This challenge allowed me to have a real-world reason of the importance of antifragility. Antifragility is a concept when stressors, shocks, volatility, attacks, or failures are used to thrive instead of struggle. Instead of worrying about academics or work, I could have used this time to take a break and explore new activities or socialize with those I know. This would act sort of as a mini-vacation that allows me to recharge.
Secondly, this event allowed me to see that I had one single point of failure within my daily workflow. A single point of failure is where one component of a system could lead the whole system to collapse without it due to interdependencies. If I became aware of this ahead of time, I could have planned ahead instead of postponing adding noise canceling wall panels, along with not postponing finding an alternative to earplugs in case I lost them again. If these issues were solved ahead of time, I could have had another system to fall back on, and not have days where my use of time was inefficient.
I’m reaching the end of this time of the complete collapse of my system, and it has allowed me to see there are more things which I wish to change, as there is not a single point of failure, but many points of failure. I will leave you with this thought: Is there an essential part of your workflow that could change everything if it fails, and what could you do to have a system to fallback on?
PS: Later on, I discovered XXS ear tips are not compatible with the Loop Quiet. The headphones I got did not work, so I decided to switch back to Loop Quiet, but using XS ear tips this time. Hopefully this is the end of this story.
References
Pillay, S. (2022, June 17). Building an antifragile mindset to flourish — Managing Your Post-pandemic, Anxiety-Triggered Brain [Video]. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/learning/managing-your-post-pandemic-anxiety-triggered-brain/building-an-antifragile-mindset-to-flourish
