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Managing Complication

It’s an old joke that you can put five librarians in a room together and in ten minutes you’d have three associations, one task force, a wiki and two committees.
It sometimes seems like we can complicate a cheese sandwich.
knife.jpg
Therefore I was glad to see this short post:
3 Good Reasons to Stop Thinking So Much, And How to Do It
By Henrik Edberg on Success
How to stop thinking so much
Be aware of the problem.
Set deadlines for decisions.
Be present.
Stephen

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Posted on: July 15, 2008, 10:02 am Category: Uncategorized

5 Responses

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  1. Hmmmm, I’d argue that overthinking is better than underthinking. We could use a little more overthinking in the executive branch of US government.
    This seems like a rather dangerous proposition.
    Doug

  2. Thanks for this, very useful!

  3. I don’t think that is the problem when librarians complicate things. They are all looking to serve their patrons and each of them have about five ways of doing that. Every detail is covered, every “what if..” is covered. It goes on until the project is deemed impossible because of all the possible problems.
    I say if you put three librarians in a room, you get seven different opinions.

  4. Being a newbie to the “library system” your comment was hilarious…and unfortunately sooooo true! Totally agree and thanks for the laugh!
    And I especially like this line from the post you link too:
    “This may sound a bit wonky, but if you just do things while being present you may discover that the results are often better than if you put in a lot of thought. Like the tennis player, you know what the right thing to do is and how to do it well from years of experience and practise. You just have to let go of all that thinking that can cripple you. And have trust in your capabilities.”
    I know when I play any sport and overthink I stuff up. I also coach basketball and I tell my players over and over again just go with your instinct when you get the ball – don’t think! All those drills I run at training will ensure you make the right decision a majority of the time 🙂 And if you make a mistake, what’s wrong with fixing it up and learning from it? The world isn’t perfect!

  5. I’m forming a committee to look into this. Check the wiki for details.