Learning Outside the Box
Richard Branson said, “If you don’t let anybody build a box around you, then you will never have to think outside of the box.” The problem is that it’s often no one but yourself who builds that box around you. Sometimes on purpose, to fight distractions; sometimes out of laziness, to avoid discomfort.
Limiting yourself isn’t a problem in the short term. In fact, it might be even helpful in small doses to aid focus. Unfortunately, if you’re not careful, the walls of the box can creep up little by little. Before you know it, you’ve been swallowed whole.
This is exactly what happened to me. If you don’t count rare and brief glimpses outside (mostly on vacation), I’ve been sitting in a box for the last seven years. It was only recently that I managed to climb out. Looking back wearily, I realized how much I had isolated myself from the rest of the world.
Seven years in a box
For the last seven years, I’ve been working at a startup I co-founded. My two partners and I started as a small maker of Mac apps. Then, after two years, we became a mobile design and development agency, working for startups and big enterprises alike.
We’ve grown the team to an amazing group of 35 people and managed to win a couple of design awards, enjoying some successes and, obviously, some failures too along the way. Over the years, I’ve been doing development, project management, recruiting, operations, marketing, sales, and everything in between at one point or another.
Every growing venture, especially in the service business, requires insane focus on the short- and mid-term. Processes, projects, cash flow, business development, branding — when you build these from scratch, there’s not a lot of time to look around and see what others are up to.
In fact, I’ve seen a lot of startups die because of the lack of focus on their founders’ part. Many people mistake going to conferences and “hustling” in the startup community for working hard on their company’s success.
I had to keep my eyes on the ball all the time, obsessing over keeping everything running smoothly. But even then, the amount of stuff to be done in a growing company often made it difficult to decide what to focus on next. Scores of great ideas floating by don’t really help if you don’t manage them correctly (i.e. put them on a back burner) and focus on the issues at hand.
To make my life manageable, I had to basically cut off all the noise. New trends in tech, new methodologies, management ideas, design approaches, and growth strategies — I didn’t have time to keep up with any of that. If anything, I tried to stay on top of what was happening in our own industry. But to be honest, there wasn’t a lot of time to keep tabs on that part either.
Sure, our designers and developers were always keeping up to date with what was happening in their respective crafts and giving back to the community as much as possible. But the farther we got from the code, the less “looking around” we could afford and the more we had to focus on the execution instead.
I “outsourced” the innovation and improvement of the organization to my awesome colleagues, whose duties were a little farther from the next month’s revenue target. I focused solely on winning new business, ruthlessly classifying everything else as “noise.” With my development background, ignoring everything I thought was cool and focusing on the things I initially dreaded wasn’t particularly easy.
Looking back, it’s clear I closed myself tight in a number of boxes — one inside the other. The smallest one was labeled “Execute sales above all else.” The next one, slightly bigger, was “Sales strategy”. The progressively larger boxes could be named “Company,” “Native mobile,” then something like “Technology,” and so on and so forth.
I built up this focus deliberately to avoid being distracted by anything that wasn’t directly in front of me, and it felt like putting horse blinders on. I avoided checking out general tech news, spent relatively little time reading books unrelated to the industry, and didn’t meet many people outside my sales and business development activities. I felt like I only interacted with the world to the extent necessary, peering through one little hole in my box that seemed to look out on the side that the business was most often coming from.
I don’t think it’s only entrepreneurs who are at risk of “hyperfocusing.” If you’re trying hard to become a specialist in your field, you’re at risk too. I’m not saying everyone should be a generalist, but being at least a little bit aware of adjacent fields of interest may be beneficial to your specialty.
Are you a hardcore iOS developer? Check out what’s new in the Android world or see where React Native might lead us. Want to be a serious front-end developer? Don’t forget to learn about devops stuff every now and then. Growth hacker alpha? Figure out what the new developments are on the AI front. Interested in Ethereum? Read up on chatbots too.
We all know that the most interesting things happen at the unexpected intersections of seemingly unrelated fields. That’s where the best ideas come to life.
Brave new world
It’s only now, as I’m transitioning out of my old role, that I’m becoming aware of the huge cost I incurred by this unyielding focus on execution. Fortunately enough, I’ve been keeping a list of things I wanted to learn about when I had the chance. The years flew by, and only now am I able to pull this list out of my back pocket and, with the little time I finally have available, go through it, learning as much as I can.
When I first realized that I had time to learn stuff that was out of my reach in recent years, I was paralyzed by a few questions:
- With so much to learn (I had ~70 things on my list), where do I start?
- Will I really be able to learn about things like AI or neuroscience?
- How deeply do I need to go into every subject to feel like I’ve “learned” it?
- How can I learn most efficiently?
What to learn first?
I just started rather randomly. I was playing with some startup idea and needed to figure out the technology stack to be used, so I picked one of the related subjects from my list and went with it. In general, I’d say follow whatever excites you the most now, to generate learning momentum.
When is “learning” finished?
As far as the second and third questions on my above list go, I quickly realized that I’ll “feel” when I’ve learned enough. My fears about having to do weeks of pre-research on complex subjects were insubstantial. In my “box days,” I was intimidated by AI and deep learning, but a weekend turned out to be enough time for me to learn what they’re all about. I obviously barely scratched the surface, but hey — I’m definitely going to play with them more when I feel the need.
Step 1 was to simply demystify these terms and see the road ahead to learn more about them. It’s okay to stop there for the time being and move along to next subject if there’s anything else more exciting. After all, we’re not talking about mastering any subject, but rather getting familiar with it to the extent we wish.
Learning accumulates
It’s good to keep in mind, however, that the more you know, the quicker you learn, especially if you understand the foundation principles. Once you’ve built some branches on your knowledge tree, it becomes easier to add new leaves. Let’s say you’ve nailed Spanish, and now you’re studying the basics of French. How much easier is learning going to be this time around? There are concepts you can relate to. The dots to connect are already in you. The same goes for any other subject.
Not surprisingly, learning about new stuff leads to uncovering even more subjects to figure out. So as I put check marks by some items on my list, I’m also adding items. But that’s good. There’s no finish line at the end of learning; you just keep on going as long as you like.
The longer you’ve sat in a box with little contact with the outside world or the scary universe of things you don’t understand, the more difficult it is to break out. The good news is that if you truly enjoy learning, it very quickly becomes easier and easier. Soon enough, you can’t wait for more.
Looking back
The more I learn now, the more I wish I had branched out a long time ago, even at the cost of not executing the short-term perfectly. The ability to sustainably think about the long term is key. But there definitely are times when I feel like I’m reflecting leisurely on a book while the house is on fire.
I could have made much better decisions from my box if I’d only known what I know now. Learning about unrelated matters seemed like a waste of time. Reading non-industry news seemed like slacking. Meeting people who didn’t directly contribute to the development of my business seemed unjustified. Playing around with new tech stacks while there were sales target to reach? Highly irresponsible.
The truth is that if you want to execute your main goal effectively, you need to invite some creativity, randomness, and serendipity into your work. Otherwise, you’ll burn out. The stuff you do will either fail in spite of “perfect” execution and laser focus, or succeed in an inevitably limited manner due to poor decisions and ineffectiveness.
How to avoid boxes
Even though I’m not a specialist in any particular field, I can imagine how comforting it must be to truly master one subject. Being an expert in something must do wonders for confidence, but at the same time, it might lead to a false sense of entitlement in the area of expertise. It might lure you to defend your position as an expert and the box you’ve chosen to be in. But don’t fight for your box. Fight the box.
Granted, it’s not easy to avoid if you’re ambitious. Here’s the list of things I think are worth doing to avoid getting surrounded by the box. Some of these things, I do already. Others, I’m yet to experiment with, but they already seem to be the way to go from where I’m sitting.
Maintain a list
Keep a list of the things you wish you knew or topics that seem to be worth learning about. The best lists are the ones you always carry with you, as you never know when you’ll stumble upon something interesting. Pretty much every productivity tool out there features an accessible inbox or custom list you can add stuff to quickly.
You don’t need to prioritize your list or make it look pretty. What’s important is that you start it, keep it updated, and review it regularly. After all, in your busy schedule, you only want to learn things that really are interesting and exciting for you at any given moment. Don’t worry if you have things on your list that you don’t care about anymore.
Here are some of examples of my items:
- Rust
- Werner Erhard
- Ethereum
- Material Design
- Vapor
- Theory of Constraints
- Facebook ads
- Coloring sketches in Pixelmator
Make learning a routine
In my experience, routines are the best weapon against the laziness of our subconscious and lame excuses. Start with a simple, regular learning schedule that’s easy to remember and keep to initially. Set an upfront duration for your study sessions, and be sure to plan the next session at the end of your current one so you always start with a clear vision of what you’ll be doing.
When I was researching ES6 and React, for example, I bought a couple of Udemy courses on these subjects. My routine was to always spend at least an hour each Saturday morning after breakfast studying. At the end of the hour, I determined exactly which course or lesson I would work on the next Saturday. Many times, I’ve gotten so excited that I studied longer or more frequently than I planned to, but the initial setup was key.
Also, I find habit stacking to be particularly helpful way of introducing new routines.
Experiment
Once you have some regular time secured for your learning workout, try to experiment with your material as often as possible. If you’re learning how to code, figure out the smallest possible project you could work on. If you’re researching some new marketing technique, figure out a way to test it in the wild and see how it works in practice. If you’re learning about some interesting design approach, think of the things you could quickly rework by using it. If nothing else, write a blog post about what you’re learning. If that’s too much, just keep notes to review the next week.
Meeting people
Meeting people is great for many reasons, including learning. In fact, expanding your knowledge is a great reason to have a coffee with people you wouldn’t have spent time with otherwise.
Think about someone who should be really knowledgeable in one of the areas on your list. Ask them about it. Pick their brain about what’s the best way of going about learning about it. See if they can connect you with other people interested in the subject. People like to share what they know, and most of us really appreciate being asked about stuff we know a lot about
Talking to new people also facilitates more frank discussion and surfaces honest opinions and predictions that can truly be priceless and difficult to find otherwise. If you’ve lived in a box and seen meetings — especially ones without super-clear goals attached to them — as a waste of time, think again and learn to appreciate the learning aspect of human contact.
Example: When I was relearning Javascript, I struggled to figure out which frameworks were worth a deeper look, due to the sheer number of them that had popped up recently. I set up a quick meeting with a JS expert from my network and learned his opinion on the subject. One that would have been pretty difficult to formulate without being immersed in the community for years.
Finding someone in your network who knows more about the subjects you want to learn about inevitably requires going out of your comfort zone to some degree and admitting that you know less. While I’m used to not being the smartest guy in the room, I’m sure it’s not easy for a lot of ambitious people to humble themselves. But it’s definitely worth it. Ask questions that seem stupid. Listen to the answers. Thank people for sharing their hard-earned knowledge with you.
Interacting with people, however, is a two-way street. Try to reciprocate what you learn from others. People will ask questions you likely haven’t expected, which in turn will force you to flex the muscles in your brain a bit more. Teaching people is actually one of the best ways to make your newly acquired knowledge stick.
Meeting new people can be turned into a habit as well. I try to keep having a coffee with someone I don’t know, haven’t met in person, or seen for a very long time once a week.
Pick an online course
Online courses are a fantastic investment. Some sites will charge you $15 or so for many hours of hands-on learning material. Granted, many instructors aren’t professional teachers, but they very likely are professionals in the field you’re looking to learn more about. Most MOOCs offer reputation systems, reviews, download numbers, and other mechanics that make it easier for you to figure out which courses are worth buying.
With video courses, you really can take your learning anywhere. Waiting in line with your phone in hand? Quit Facebook, put your headphones on, and watch the course. Or browse for one you’ll learn from next time. If you don’t want to spend money right away, look for video recordings of conference talks or meetup presentations about your topic of interest. More often than not, hosts of these events publish videos to watch for free.
Books
Sometimes, putting headphones on doesn’t fit your social situation, but actually reading a book might be okay. Do it. While blogs and other freely available material don’t cost you money, researching bits and pieces of information from different sources does require a time investment. You may end up with material of varying degrees of quality. Good books are consistent and complete, so you actually save money by spending on them.
Example: I try to read as much as possible in the evenings on my Kindle. But when I’m out somewhere and need to wait for something, I fire up the Kindle app on my iPhone and continue there. When I’m running or driving, I listen to audiobooks on Audible.
No pressure
It really doesn’t matter how little time you have on a daily basis to learn new things. It’s okay if you stray from your routine. It’s not a problem if you don’t always keep notes or if your thoughts drift off when listening to a book.
Don’t worry if you haven’t learned anything for a week or two because you simply weren’t in the mood. Don’t beat yourself about it. After all, it’s important just to keep exposing yourself to new and unexpected stuff as much as possible. It will simmer slowly inside your head and seep through your subconscious to your thinking and decisions.
Do all you can to make learning exciting, interesting, and fun. If you let it become a burden, you’ll become frustrated and demotivated, and you’ll give up on learning altogether.
