Coping or Deliberate

A few years ago I listened to Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono on audio cassette. I picked up a used copy recently and have slowly been working my through it.

One of the first concepts Mr. de Bono puts forward is that there are two kinds of thinking.

There is the walking-talking-breathing type of thinking that we do all the time. We answer the telephone. We cross the road. We switch in an dout of routines. We do not need to be concious of which leg follows which when we walk or how to manage our breathing. But there is a different sort of thinking that is for doing better than just routine coping. Everyone can run, but an athlete runs deliberately and is trained for that purpose.

I am no longer a runner, but I can translate this to other things. I cross country ski quite poorly. To improve, I have had to study video footage of world class athletes, read, and practice. Slowly I am gettting better but only by deliberately working on form.

I bike and am better than average at that, but I deliberately pay attention to muscle usage, breathing, drinking, eating and timing.

As a professional, I write software and I see way too many people "coping". They learn one way of doing something and never change. They don't look for alternate ways, sometime worse and others better. Some of the ways you can be more deliberate in software include defensive programming, test-driven-development, refactoring, self analysis for common failures you create, becoming aware of the cost of using libraries and certain activities.

Where can you think deliberately today? Take your eyes off the routine reactionary responses and exercise your brain. It is fun!