This isn't actually some sort of personality defect. Thinking is quite hard work. Not acknowledging this is essentially not designing a system for humans. There's a reason why Steve Krug's usability book is called "Don't Make Me Think".
So what do we do? We want to reduce cognitive load to make things easier for people and yet we also want people to think for themselves in order to improve.
What we want is not continuous reflection but something more like a Just-Do-It - Reflect cycle. We'll set aside some time to think about what we want to do, which is hard work, but then we'll just do it... and then based on a trigger and/or a set time, we'll reflect and adjust.
If you're familiar with Test Driven Development, this is essentially the approach taken. When you are working on getting the test to pass, you don't confuse issues by worrying too much about refactoring. That step happens after. The same strategy applies for process improvement.
So Just-Do-It - Reflect in 3 steps:
Step 1: Design your approach to the level that we can just do it without having to think constantly. This could be a standard, a procedure, a pattern, etc. This should also include what trigger we'll use to indicate when we need to reflect (e.g., daily, weekly, when a problem is detected, etc.)
Step 2: Just do it.
Step 3: When the trigger happens, repeat Step 1.
So what do we do? We want to reduce cognitive load to make things easier for people and yet we also want people to think for themselves in order to improve.
What we want is not continuous reflection but something more like a Just-Do-It - Reflect cycle. We'll set aside some time to think about what we want to do, which is hard work, but then we'll just do it... and then based on a trigger and/or a set time, we'll reflect and adjust.
If you're familiar with Test Driven Development, this is essentially the approach taken. When you are working on getting the test to pass, you don't confuse issues by worrying too much about refactoring. That step happens after. The same strategy applies for process improvement.
So Just-Do-It - Reflect in 3 steps:
Step 1: Design your approach to the level that we can just do it without having to think constantly. This could be a standard, a procedure, a pattern, etc. This should also include what trigger we'll use to indicate when we need to reflect (e.g., daily, weekly, when a problem is detected, etc.)
Step 2: Just do it.
Step 3: When the trigger happens, repeat Step 1.
I find the Pomodoro technique to be quite useful for instigating this cycle in my personal work.
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