Reflection: Thinking about Thinking
As I started thinking about the way I think, I realized I don’t think about the way I think a whole lot. So here I am trying to figure out how I shape my thoughts and how they lead to my actions.
Let’s go back to my day and what I’ve done so far. I left the house around 3 PM to work on this blog, to go pick up a package, to go to the bank, and to drop off a jacket at the dry cleaner. To answer the question of why I did those things, I realized I had to go back to what I was thinking, or why I have to go to these places. It’s clear that I made those trips with a clear objective in mind. I had to leave the house at 3 PM because I had planned to hang out with my friends at 8 PM, I am working on this blog on this specific Sunday because it is due the next day, and I went to pick up my package because it had arrived recently etc.
It’s evident that I am an objective oriented person that acts with the endgame in mind. I believe this is a very important aspect of my mental model because it is the basis that shapes the who, what, when, where, and how of doing what I do. Subsequently, I dive into planning how I will achieve these objectives, so I know exactly what I need to do. For example, in the case of going to the dry cleaners, once I figure out why I’m going there (to get a stain off my jacket), I would start to answer other questions like who is going? How I get there? What will I need? This narrative allows me to execute the action that I want to take because it’s just like checking off tasks. In addition, I will usually have several narratives in mind so that in case my best course of action doesn’t turn out successful for some reason I can easily switch to my next best alternative. With that in mind below is a simple mental model of mine.
As you can see from the model, I believe I have a relatively more structured mental model and it definitely works for most things that I accomplish on a day-to-day. On the other hand, I believe I was only able to structure my thought process because there are “concrete set of predictable processes” that help me execute such actions without much thought (Tjendra, 2019).
So how do I think in a given situation where everything is new, like building my own company or learning how to code?
Well, I don’t, would be the best answer.
The sad truth is that I had been paving my own path to failure.
Lack of flexibility and ignorance in my planning stages are reasons that have led me to numerous failures in attempting new things when no concrete path exists. My structured mental model has conflicted with the ability to go back, modify plans, and resume to achieve my initial goals (aka prototype). The same can be said for businesses that fail to innovate by terminating projects when things don’t go right the first time (Although financial constraints can be a big issue).
Furthermore, I believe the crucial thing is to ask questions about “why the proposed plan didn’t work?”. For example, it is very common for my boss to reduce my target sales after several bad weeks. While it definitely gives me another goal to look to, it doesn’t ask the necessary questions that need to be addressed, “Why were my sales so low?”, “Is it a technical problem or is it a personal problem?”, “Are my daily tasks unrealistic?”. Delving deeper into a problem by asking questions, fixing a problem by thinking outside the box, modifying plans and setting tasks to finish. These are some of my takeaways from briefly looking at design thinking as I start to think of my life through the eyes of a designer.
References
Kuang, C. (2015). Why Good Design Is Finally a Bottom Line Investment [Blog]. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/1670679/why-good-design-is-finally-a-bottom-line-investment
Tjendra, J. (2019). The Origins of Design Thinking [Blog]. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/04/origins-design-thinking/
