Unlearning day

I’m a spaz today. This is not a good day to answer phones or return emails. I’m unlearning. Questioning everything. Thinking about my own thinking. I believe this unscheduled unlearning day was triggered by the reorganization of my iPod playlists last night.

When is the last time you’ve broken out of the box that you have created for yourself at work? Not literally “the box” that is the cubicle. I mean the box full of your behaviors – what you do, not what you say or say you’ll do. The box that makes you drive to work without thinking about driving. The one that makes you fire up the desktop authoring tool and open the template without thinking about design. I’m talking about not even realizing you’re doing that.

For instance, at work, why do you use subject matter experts (SMEs)? Presumably because they have made 100 mistakes in a specific area of their work. I’ve loved many SMEs- really I have. But what about the person who made just 99 mistakes? 75? Together, they’ve made 174 mistakes. They are collectively more expert than Bob. So why are you calling Bob? Why not Thing 1 and Thing 2?

Why PowerPoint? Why not an interpretative dance video to tell a story?

I strongly recommend taking a day to unlearn. Stand back and look at your work and think about it. Today I’m unlearning how to work.

And my son is unlearning how to ride a bike with the guy below at a training camp. So, I’m also unlearning how to parent.

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