Read on Twitter
""23 things I didn't learn in college / grad school":
#14: Strive for clarity
.
#14: Strive for clarity
.
As you plan your next project, a body of work for a quarter or a year, ask yourself:
do I know what I'll be doing, why I'll be doing it, and how I'll do it?
Focus especially on the 'how' -- do I know how the numerous pieces of that puzzle will fit together?
do I know what I'll be doing, why I'll be doing it, and how I'll do it?
Focus especially on the 'how' -- do I know how the numerous pieces of that puzzle will fit together?
If the answer to any of these questions is a 'No', stop and think again. I've found -- both from personal experience and by numerous observations -- that in an overwhelming fraction of failed projects, muddled thinking is the predominant reason for the failure.
When you plan a project -- a software system or a mathematical proof or a presentation or writing a book -- do you see what the components are and how they work with each other?
Can you explain your project at both levels -- at higher levels of abstraction and from first principles?
Can you isolate the core idea that makes or breaks the project?
Can you state your assumptions precisely and completely?
Can you isolate the core idea that makes or breaks the project?
Can you state your assumptions precisely and completely?
Achieving clarity takes tremendous effort and honesty. Effort to visit and revisit ideas to test if they fit together, if they hold up. Honesty to isolate assumptions and hypotheses and unknowns and then revisit and verify or solve them.
A good test for whether you've achieved clarity in your thinking about a project is to see if you can describe it in 2-3 sentences; in a paragraph; in a one-pager; in a two-pager; in a four-pager, etc., in greater and greater levels of detail.
