a true philomath — a lover of learning. he loved problems. Instead of avoiding them or trying to solve them as fast as possible, he would seek interesting problems, keep them in mind, let them simmer, and constantly try to connect his everyday experiences to these big questions. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps.

Feynman’s favorite problems

Questions are the engines of intellect — cerebral machines that convert curiosity into controlled inquiry.your favorite problems become a curiosity engine.Creating a list of favorite problems offers many benefits:Turn stressful situations into intriguing problems to exploreFilter information based on whether it relates to one of your favorite problemsConnect with fellow curious minds who are interested in similar problemsFocus your attention on ideas that arouse your curiosityNotice relevant patterns and potential solutions across seemingly unrelated topics

Through the looking glass

1. Make physical and mental space for self-reflection.  2. Explore potential areas of inquiry. 3. Turn areas of inquiry into questions. Take the areas of inquiry you identified in the previous step, and rephrase them into questions by using one of the following structures:How do I…?How can we…?What is the best way to…?What is the relationship between A and B?Why is X a certain way?

How to create a curiosity engine

Once your list of favorite problems is ready, save it into a note, and pin it to the top of your home screen for easy access. You can even share it publicly, whether on your blog or on social media — this is a great way to spark conversations with people who are curious about similar problems. start collecting ideas that relate to these problems, whether these ideas come from an article you read, from a conversation with a colleague, or from something you watched. Practice mind gardening by connecting these ideas together and generating your own original ideas.

Your favorite problems try to aim for at least five questions 

What if we learned to fall in love with problems, to see our favorite problems as puzzles to play with, a lens through which we see the world?

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

health

Health

problemsolving

Problem Solving

How to turn problems into a curiosity engine

The short-lived relief of putting things off saddles you with stress, and even guilt, about an undone project later. On the other hand, you can push through the discomfort and bask in the satisfaction of conquering a difficult task, but as exhilarating as that experience can be, without boundaries, it soon leads to burnout.If you ever find yourself struggling to feel motivated at work or know others that do, you’re not alone. A Gallup study revealed that only 15% of employees worldwide feel motivated, or “engaged.” Such a lack of drive can lead to absenteeism and poor workplace retention.

THE CATCH-22

How do we awaken our internal motivations? First, in true Tucker fashion, give your brain a rest.AI researcher Max Frenzel, PhD, writes, “Spending more time resting and less time actively engaged in work not only boosts creativity and happiness, it also makes the time spent on work more efficient.”But let’s face it:, at work, we’re expected to, well, work. And once the vacation is over and the mental health break is through, we need to find approaches to the work itself that stimulate us.

AWAKENING MOTIVATION

Marketers often use stories to get attention and influence behavior. As a professional corporate marketer myself for more than a decade, I’ve discovered that by tapping into the story of your work, you can shift behavior and identify critical next steps to move stagnant projects forward. If you’ve ever been particularly unmotivated by a certain task, are struggling to get your team on the same page, or are just feeling stuck all around, use these storytelling fundamentals to get moving again.  3Ps

FINDING YOUR SECRET KEY

Every good story has a problem, and we encounter a ton of them trying to get things done at work. When you hit a roadblock, it’s important to clearly articulate the issues you are experiencing. Ask questions like:What am I confused about? What have I tried already that didn’t work? What am I feeling?

Problem: For Cinderella, it was her intolerable stepmother. For the Avengers, it was Thanos’s obsession with those darn infinity

Your work might be focused on the pursuit of raising profits, boosting impact, or building connections in some way. The key to getting inspired by these goals is:Clarity: Sometimes, our big overarching goals are too vague to induce action. Challenge yourself to identify and communicate the specifics of a project’s end goal before you start so that all parties are aligned from the get-go. Time: Think: What activity can I complete in the next 15 minutes that will put me closer to my goal? Use these quick-win activities to build momentum, even if it’s just sending an email.

Pursuit: Stories are built on the pursuit of a goal. 

Breathe new life into your work by developing pictures that clearly signal your next steps. Find examples: Other projects you’ve worked on can illustrate the output you’re after. Seek input: Colleagues who’ve tackled similar projects can help you create a list of action items based on their insights.Get creative: Look outside of your company or industry to get inspired by how others have met similar goals. You might not always feel like working, but as you dig into the story behind the work, mixed with some rest and recreation now and then, fresh motivation awaits.

Picture: Stories create powerful imagery in our minds that represent ideas. 

Tackling complex projects is hard. Staying focused long enough to finish them is even harder. 


productivity

Productivity

habits

Habits

timemanagement

Time Management

Push through or give up? A simple framework to find the right motivation to work

Usually in school, combined with instructions from our parents, we cobble together an understanding that allows us to move forward through the school years until we matriculate into a job. Then because most initial learning comes from doing, less from books, we switch to an on-the-fly approach.A failure As we layer our social values on top and end up with a hot mess of guilt and fear that stymies the learning process.Learning is necessary for our success and personal growth. we can’t maximize the time we spend learning because our feelings about what we ‘should’ be doing get in the way.

2 How do we learn how to learn in the traditional way?

means retaining information, processing it, being able to use it when needed. More knowledge means better instincts; better insights into opportunities for both you and your organization. You will ultimately produce better work if you give yourself the space to learn. Yet often organizations get in the way of learning

1 The benefit of "learning better"

To many, working means sitting at your desk for eight hours a day. Being physically present, mental engagement is optional. It means pushing out emails and rushing to meetings and generally getting nothing done. We’ve looked at the focus aspect of this before. But what about the learning aspect?

4 What does this have to do with learning?

and embrace what seems counter-intuitive?Thinking and talking are useful elements of learning. And what we learn in our ‘play’ time can be valuable to our ‘work’ time, and there’s nothing wrong with moving between the two (or combining them) during our day.When mastering a subject, our brains actually use different types of processing. Barbara Oakley explains in A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (even if you flunked algebra) that our brain has two general modes of thinking – ‘focused’ and ‘diffuse’ – and both of these are valuable and required in the learning process.

5 Can we change how we approach learning, letting go of the guilt associated with not being visibly active,

is what we traditionally associate with learning. Read, dive deep, absorb. Eliminate distractions and get into the material.  “the focused mode involves a direct approach to solving problems using rational, sequential, analytical approaches. … Turn your attention to something and bam – the focused mode is on, like the tight, penetrating beam of a flashlight.” is not the only one required for learning because we need time to process what we pick up, to get this new information integrated into our existing knowledge. We need time to make new connections. This is where the diffuse mode comes in.

6 The focused mode

is what happens when you relax your attention and just let your mind wander. This relaxation can allow different areas of the brain to hook up and return valuable insights. … Diffuse-mode insights often flow from preliminary thinking that’s been done in the focused mode.Relying solely on the focused mode to learn is a path to burnout. We need the diffuse mode to cement our ideas, put knowledge into memory and free up space for the next round of focused thinking. We need the diffuse mode to <a href="https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2017/01/krista-tippett-becoming-wise/">build wisdom</a>. So why does diffuse mode thinking at work generally involve feelings of guilt?

7 Diffuse-mode thinking

We are trained by our modern world to organize our day into mutually exclusive chunks called ‘work’, ‘play’, and ‘sleep’. One is done at the office, the other two are not. We are not allowed to move fluidly between these chunks, or combine them in our 24 hour day. Most of us don’t nap at the office in the afternoon, likely because we have to worry about what our boss was going to think. And now in the open office debacle we can’t even have a quiet 10 minutes of rest in our cubicles. We have become trained to equate working with doing. Thus the ‘doing’ has value. We deserve to get paid for this

3 what we ‘should’ be doing

go to the gym, walk, play a sport, go for a drive, draw, take a bath, listen to music (especially without words), meditate, sleep. Um, aren’t these all things to do in my ‘play’ time? And sleep? It’s a whole time chunk on its own.Most organizations do not promote a culture that allow these activities to be integrated into the work day. Go to the gym on your lunch. Sleep at home. Meditate on a break. Essentially do these things while we are not paying you.

 8 ‘diffuse-mode activators’

If something doesn’t directly contribute, it’s not valuable. If it’s not valuable I need to do it in my non-work time or not at all.  our leaders would rather see us do less than trust in the potential payoff of pursuits that aren’t as visible or ones that don’t pay off as quickly. The ability to see something is often a large component of trust. So if we are doing any of these ‘play’ activities at work, which are invisible in terms of their contribution to the learning process, we feel guilty because we don’t believe we are doing what we get paid to do.

9 We ingest this way of thinking, associating the value of getting paid with the value of executing our task list.

Guilt is insidious. Not only do we usually feel guilt, but then we feel guilty about feeling guilty.How? Be kind to yourself.we are greatly impacted by our compassion to ourselves.In order to manage and overcome emotions like guilt that can prevent us from learning and achieving, we need to treat ourselves the same way we would <a href="https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2016/03/journey-of-self-discovery/">the person we love most in the world</a>. “We can direct our attention to inner images that evoke feelings of kindness, understanding, and support,” writes Tirch.

10 How do you let go of the guilt?

is based on research showing that some of the ways in which we instinctively regulate our response to threats have evolved from the attachment system that operates between infant and mother and from other basic relationships between mutually supportive people. We have specific systems in our brains that are sensitive to the kindness of others, and the experience of this kindness has a major impact on the way we process these threats and the way we process anxiety in particular. “a sensitivity to the suffering of others, with a commitment to do something about it,”

11 the compassion focused model

So the next time you look up from that proposal on the new infrastructure schematics and see that the sun is shining, go for a walk, notice where you are, and give your mind a chance to go into diffuse-mode and process what you’ve been focusing on all morning. And give yourself a hug for doing it.

12 summary

Most organizations promote a culture that runs counter to learning and playing, encouraging visible short-term actions that inspire guilt in employees who want to learn.

How to turn problems into a curiosity engine

Push through or give up? A simple framework to find the right motivation to work

Let Go of the Learning Baggage - Farnam Street