I’ve been practicing being kinder to myself recently. For me this means I’ve been trying to move at a less frenetic pace, making time for daily walks, being less present on social media and focusing on prioritising. Which means attempting to ‘do one thing at a time’, rather than switching between the 127 tabs and windows I have open at any one time. We’ll see how long it lasts.
The other day I was reminded of ‘How to Work Better’ from the art duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss. It seemed quite fitting for my current state of mind.
Not only is it a great code of conduct for life, but also for doing any kind of strategy work. Identifying the problem you’re trying to solve, learning to listen, and asking the right questions are both fundamental to creating good relationships and getting to good work.
To ‘distinguish sense from nonsense’ is an art in itself — defining what is actually useful, or meaningful, and what is a red herring. When to keep going, and when to refocus your attention someplace else. As so often in the early stages of a project what at first seems nonsensical can become revelatory the more you scratch away at the surface.
Accepting ‘change as inevitable’ helps with this. If not least to help with resisting the urge to control all variables. But also to open your mind to new and unexpected routes. ‘Admit mistakes’, adapt and move on.
But ultimately to communicate a complex idea with clarity and simplicity is, to me, the true marker of success. As I wrote about last time — there’s an art to the edit.
So often we overcomplicate, overthink or expand our output to fill the time available. Oftentimes these go hand in hand. The more time we have to complete a certain task, the more time we have to overthink and overcomplicate the output. In practice this means shorter deadlines can produce great results, simplicity outsmarts complexity and sense overrules nonsense.
And on that note, I’ll leave it at that.
Until next time 👋,
Harriet