April 2025 – Keep Calm and Refactor

Photo by Yan Krukau: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-teacher-and-a-boy-in-front-of-a-computer-8199610/

“People learn the most when teaching others.” – Peter F. Drucker

In his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, Steven Covey recommends listening to a presentation or reading something as if you were going to teach it to someone else. It will help you to pay closer attention, and take better notes, and ultimately remember more.

This comes from his chapter on “Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood”. The point is to develop influence with others, they have to know that you care about them. “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” So as you look at something from the other person’s perspective, you develop trust and are able to have a greater influence in the world around you.

I have tried to take this approach throughout my career. I try to work with others – even (especially) the new people, as I can always learn something from a new perspective. And sometimes I can share a tip or insight. But I always come away learning at least as much as I teach.

As a speaker, I’ve learned the phrase, “Conference-driven learning.” Someone needs to learn some new technology, so they propose a session on it at an upcoming conference. Now they have a hard deadline to learn the new technology well enough to talk about it and take questions! It’s very effective!

When you have to learn something to use it, you only learn the parts that you need to solve your own problem. That is useful in getting some small task done. But if you have to teach someone else how to use this tool or technology, you need to consider their potential needs and concerns.

It’s like the difference between writing a quick script to solve a problem for yourself, and shipping a product for general release. You don’t care about the bugs in your little tool, and it may leave some things undone. But a released tool has to consider all sorts of edge-cases and security concerns, etc.

In the same way, you just have to know that much more when something is going to be made available for a broader audience.

If you need to learn some new technology, give this a try: Schedule a lunch-and-learn session at your work (or just with a few friends) where you will explain how something works. Estimate how long it will take and schedule it that far in the future. Then start researching and preparing for it. See how quickly – and deeply – you can learn this new technology! Let me know how it works for you!

Burning cigarette in front of a broken skull.

“The only way to break a bad habit was to replace it with a better habit.” – Jack Nicholson

Do you have a bad habit that you just can’t overcome? Maybe it’s procrastinating, or scrolling social media too much, or gossiping. You know you shouldn’t do it. You know your life would be so much better if you could just stop falling into that bad habit. But… you just keep doing it! It can be discouraging and frustrating.

But what to do?

As our friend Jack says above, you have to replace it with a better habit. But what does that look like? I mean, procrastinating means I’m NOT doing something I should. What do I replace that with? Something else that I WON’T DO?

Ok, smarty pants! What should we do about procrastination? That’s a tough one. Why do we procrastinate? Because we’re afraid of something. Fear of failure, or success, or doing it poorly, or maybe you just don’t want to do the thing! Fair enough. The only way to break a procrastination habit is to take some action. Some small action. Some action so small, that ANYONE could do it. So small that you’ll feel silly NOT doing it. What is the next tiniest step you need to take to do that thing you’ve been putting off? Maybe it’s take out the Turbo Tax CD so you can install it. Maybe it’s to put one small cup in the dishwasher. Maybe it’s to fold one shirt. You can do that!

So make an appointment with yourself to do one small thing every day. One teeny tiny little itty bitty thing. So small you’ll feel silly for NOT doing it! Set an alarm to go off to remind you to do it. Then just do that one little thing. Put one fork in the sink.

Then celebrate! YOU DID IT! You kept that one promise to yourself! You took an important step on the road to personal integrity! Celebrate! Do a dance! Give yourself a high five or a fist pump! Your work here is done! The celebration is the important part. You are telling yourself that you deserve to be celebrated for keeping a promise to yourself. This will motivate you to take action again!

But what about the rest of the dishes or the laundry or the taxes? That wasn’t part of the agreement. If you want, since you’re already there, you can go ahead and do some more. But if you don’t do it all, no big deal. You never said you would. You’re a winner no matter what!

Now set an alarm for tomorrow when you’ll do ANOTHER small thing. Just one. And do it. Then CELEBRATE! Congratulations! You are on the road to replacing a bad, unbreakable habit by replacing it with a new GOOD habit!

What about those other things? Social media or eating too much, or gossiping? What would distract you from doing those things? If it’s a real problem for you, you need to take direct action. You could delete Facebook or Snapchat or whatever app from your phone. That or move it to a folder on the third page so you have to go looking for it. Add some friction. That gives you time to say, “Ah, maybe later.” Then do some small good thing instead. One pushup. One squat. One walk around the room. Pick up a good book.

Replacing a bad habit with a good one, gives you the same good hit of dopamine, and the extra boost of knowing you’re doing something good for yourself! Give it a try and let me know what works for you!

Month: April 2025

To Learn Better, Teach

Break Bad Habits