How To Make Overwhelm Obsolete With This Simple Skill
The final Design Thinking principle to supercharge your productivity (part 5)
Design Thinking is a creative problem-solving approach that helps you understand people’s needs, think creatively, and produce innovative ideas. It’s like putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, exploring a problem from different angles, trying out new ideas, and learning as you go.
In this last article of five, we will explore another key principle and how you can apply it to make yourself more productive.
On to today’s article!
Packing sucks.
I’m the odd one out of my family when it comes to packing for holidays.
I know I need to gather everything up and get started sooner rather than later, especially now with two young children in tow, but instead I always get side-tracked.
I make lists of things to take, I lose those lists, I make more lists, and eventually end up clearing out my whole closet and buying new clothes. Not exactly the optimum packing process.
Before I know it, it’s the day before travelling and I’m frantically throwing clothes into suitcases.
When it comes to big tasks like this, it’s easy to get distracted, discouraged and end up putting off the work until the day before it needs to be completed.
Of course, when you work in this way, you’re unlikely to do your best work - (my husband will confirm that my packing skills are terrible).
This is often because your brain hasn’t had the time to work on the problem behind the scenes, but also, your energy may be zapped because of the all-nighter you might need to pull to get it done.
Not to mention the countless hours of sleep you’ll lose all week, worrying about that thing you haven’t done yet.
It’s the perfect recipe for overwhelm.
Thankfully, I’m much better at tackling work tasks, than I am at packing.
Let me share with you how I tackle bigger tasks, without overwhelming myself, using the design principle of evolving thinking through iteration.
What is iteration?
Iteration is about applying repetition to get closer to an answer, solution, or discovery.
It’s the simple idea of making something better through small gradual improvements. Human development is iterative. It’s all about trial and error.
Each time you work on something you make progress towards your end goal, and continually gain insights that help you improve what you’re doing.
You can use this way of working to:
Improve on an idea and make it better;
Fail fast to get to a better outcome more quickly;
Understand what good looks like;
Learn as you go and develop your understanding about what works and what doesn’t; and
Assess your work from different vantage points.
Iteration works so well because each time you repeat design cycles you introduce different perspectives to add depth or breath, which gives further life to your existing idea, or allows you to try out new ideas.
It also gives your subconscious mind the chance to work on the task in the background, allowing you to improve on each iteration easily and quickly, the next time you sit down to work on it.
Where did it come from?
Known originally as Iteration and Incremental Development (IID) and developed in the 50s, it’s been widely used to create some of the world's most complex systems.
An early and striking example of a major IID success is NASAs primary avionics software system, which was developed from 1977 to 1980 through a series of 17 iterations over 31months, averaging around eight weeks per iteration.
By applying an iterative approach NASA were able to:
accelerate the development of the system;
accommodate a vast number of changes in each iterative cycle;
use their resources in the most efficient way possible;
collaborate with each other more easily in real-time; and
manage risks more carefully.
But Selda, isn’t iteration the opposite of being efficient? Surely, it’s better to get things right first time, and not spend multiple hours working on something that you could do in an hour. Right?
Wrong.
As a big believer in personal efficiency, I struggled with this concept for a while.
Iteration can sometimes feel inefficient because you’re spending time re-working something you’ve already done. However, we can’t just look at speed when it comes to creating optimum outputs – after all, delivering a shoddy piece of work, isn’t going to look great on you.
Being productive shouldn’t be at the expense of delivering top quality work.
In design thinking we encourage people to ‘play with the problem.’
Creativity and play go hand in hand – there’s a reason the learning curve of toddlers is so steep, and that this curve naturally flattens out as we go through structured school systems and into adulthood.
With play, you can solve problems more quickly and easily.
Making time in your week to ‘play with the problem’ is an essential part of performing at your optimal levels.
How do you do it?
Firstly, step out of the perfectionist mindset.
Perfectionism easily leads to inertia – where nothing is quite right, so you don’t do anything. For iteration to work effectively, move from the mindset of ‘right first time’ to ‘well, let’s see what happens if I do this?.’
Ensure you have a clear outcome in mind and let go of any pre-conceived ways to get there.
For example, if you want to renovate your house for more space, it would be wise to consider many perspectives. As someone who currently lives in your house, your end outcome may be restricted to your own limited perspective of walls that exist right now.
Whereas an architect, on the other hand, would view your house with many different lenses, moving walls and staircases to create the optimum layout.
The result could be much more space and far more pleasing than you could have ever imagined.
Allocate enough time in your weekly plan – Big tasks will require several rounds of iteration, it’s important to plan these cycles into your week.
For example, if you have a presentation due on Friday, block out time on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, AND Thursday to work on it in small time blocks, not just blocking out the whole of Thursday to do it. This way, you’ll give yourself the best chance of creating a solid presentation, and you won’t pile pressure on yourself to get it done last minute.
This style of working is particularly impactful when you have pockets of available time here and there in your diary. Have an hour before your next meeting and need to draft a report? Rather than checking emails, give yourself 45 minutes to have a first go.
Use outlines to guide you - Create a high-level outline that you can fill out additional parts to later. Think of artists that draw real people: they create the outline of the person and then fill in the details as they go. Here’s an example of how you can draw an eye using the process of iteration:
Image created by author using iteration (and a pencil) Work on the task – (Iterate) as many times as you need to, to get to the end answer. Set yourself a time limit and do whatever you can on the topic in that time.
There’s no need to sit there for hours crafting the perfect piece.
There’s also no set number of iterations to aim for. For some 2-3 rounds will work best, others may need seven. It depends on what work you’re doing, how much time you have, how much input you need from others, and how costly the iterations will be.
The takeaway
Iteration is a wonderful concept that can help you to not only be more productive, but also enjoy being productive.
It unleashes your creative side to bring about the best quality outcomes, whilst at the same time making you more productive by utilizing your time more effectively.
No more procrastinating because you’re not sure where to start or staring at the screen for hours at a time, lost in how to proceed next.
Give yourself a break and play with the problem.
It’ll be more fun, and by the end of the week, you’ll be surprised just how much you’ve gotten done.
What do you think? Are you willing to give iteration a go?
If you’re already iterating, what challenges do you come across when using this approach?
Have a great week everyone.
-Selda
P.S. If you’d like to learn more about how to build a life you love, here are a few ways I can help you:
Personal guidance and coaching to find more hours each day:
Double your productivity and do more of what matters to you:
🚀Supercharge Your Productivity: Take the stress out of your week and juggle all of your jobs without working yourself to death
⚖️7 Proven Strategies to a Better Work Life Balance: Spend less time at work and more time on the things you really want to do
I like this. Just like lean product development. Iterative work is key to ensure you don't waste time and money in developing a product. It's also a great way to move forward with confidence.