The Sunjay Times

A good question to ask yourself.

I’ve been reading many books on various subjects lately, everything from coding, business, to self-help. My argument on having so many “open” halfway-read books is this: After getting tired of reading (for 8 hours straight) on coding with a new framework, I switch to business. After getting tired of reading on business, I switch to .. (wash, rinse, repeat, you get the idea). After spending a few hours on the same topic, my ADD self wants to do something else. Hence, I quickly pickup another book.

The first thing I do after I receive a new book I purchased online (in the following order):

1. Unwrap and breathe in the new fresh book scent
   
2. Write name on first page
3. Write purpose of the purchase, what I want to get out of the book (just below name)

Step 3 is the “why”. After a while, I forget why the book I have not finished reading is sitting there on my to-read corner. I am quickly reminded when I flip to the first page. While I read the book, if I start getting bored .. I flip over to the first page and remind myself why I bought the book and why I am reading the book, and recharge my interest to read that book.

I find this technique extremely useful, in refocusing my efforts.

Example: One of my open books is Getting Things Done : The Art of Stress-Free Productivity and my 1 liner “why” on the first page is this:

To better optimize my time, reduce waste, & being more disciplined.

If I don’t achieve the above stated after I have finished reading the book, then the money spent on buying that book has been lost. And I don’t lose.

Technology is something I am deeply passionate about. WordNet defines the word “technology” as:

1. The practical application of science to commerce or industry
2. The discipline dealing with the art or science of applying sceintific knowledge to practical problems.

Being in this ever-changing landscape in a sink-or-swim industry, innovation is key for survival and succe$$. I have a degree in computer science with an emphasis on mathematics. I love applying all the geeky techno theories and hypothesis to everything I come to touch in my everyday life. Much like how I know the number 42 is the answer to life, I just realized today how deeply I (and many like me) have been ingrained to believe that there is exactly 1 answer to everything. Very much like the movie “The Matrix“, I think in terms of equations and attempt to balance out the left hand side (LHS) equation with the right hand side (RHS) equation.

That works fine for math (mostly). And computers, since computers are just deterministic machines implementing mathematical theorems. Not good, because you stop looking once you find an answer. In theory, 1 answer is great, but in the “real world”, life is messy and things don’t always “conform” necessarily. For example, if a judge was provided all the facts by each side (plaintiff and defendant), why do we need lawyers to add fluff argue the case? Is it the drama? If all the members of the jury were presented the same truthful facts, why don’t they always agree on the same verdict? Instead, we take the “average” or “majority” answer for things.

That’s the reason why the emerging social-networking trend is so powerful. The smartest person in the room, is everybody in the room. But I digress. You can read more about the term Tim O’Reilly has coined as “Web 2.0″ here.

The punchline of my post this time is this:

Instead of attempting to find 1 solution to a problem, it’s often best to come up with multiple solutions, and then picking the best one from the list. By throwing out ideas (no matter how far fetched) on a whiteboard, it is easier to “mix-n-match” by coming up with hybrid solutions, that may serve as a stepping stone to yet another different approach. The end result is the best option possible.

Sure, that sounds like a no brainer. But people don’t always do that. In this business, innovation is the name of the game.

The one way to force yourself churn out another idea, is to be your own devil’s advocate and ask yourself the following question after you have come up with a solution: “Great idea! Now, besides that, what else can I do?”

It takes a while to get into that habit of asking yourself for an alternative answer, because you’re usually emotionally committed to the first answer, and are too lazy to think of another. I myself, am guilty of that occasionally.

Another way I can describe this in a geeky way is to attribute anything without a single perfect answer to statistics (Ha!) – but this post is too long already. I’ve been fighting to keep my posts short. The value of writing is in being short and concise. Anyone can babble on forever (like what I just did), but it takes considerable effort and skill to be short and concise.

Viewing things as an “optimization” problem as opposed to “a single solution to a single problem” also helps. You then create algorithms not to solve it directly**, but to approximate the best trajectory that will approach the best answer.

** I used to TA physics, and yes – the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line. If you asked why not take the obvious straight line; it’s because you don’t know what that “straight line” is yet. The best possible answer is relative to what you have tried, because by definition – you don’t know the outcome of what you have not yet tried. As of today, the best solution to get to Mars is by strapping yourself to a rocket. Tomorrow, maybe a teleportation device that will bend the space-time continuum? If that works, then the definition of the “straight line” just changed.