Week 6
Joensuu, Finland

Ooooh My!  In this week, I almost did not cross items from my TO DO list.  Instead, the list got more items. What does this mean?  Because according to toggle this week I worked over 47hrs, then what did I do? Probably, my more honest answer is:  thinking takes time.

Thinking is critical to whatever we do. I have several students who are impatient, and when I push them to think I can see how painful is for them.  Well, in this era we are mainly consumers and my impression is that we are always in the rush.  How was in early XX century or XIX century, no idea, but my assumption is that it might have been more relax because at least the influx of information was not as massive at it is nowadays.

Today, at least in the worlds I live in (academia and entrepreneurship) the sentence one listens often is: it is for yesterday. E.g. we need to submit the application tomorrow, the publication must be submitted today, you need to send over the specification for the development now, publish in social media, respond emails, remember we need to be the first ones doing this, ….

* Sight * I might be old fashion, but things need time. Additionally,  I get blocked when I feel overwhelm.

To my students I often tell them: knowledge is for our brain as food is for our stomach, it requires digestion time to get into our system. Once you read something it does not mean you will understand it all, you will need to work through it, let it settle in your head, questioning it, recall, etc. and one day you will understand it and you will be able to use that information and build upon it. Growing takes time, and it is a painful process (in my humble opinion). It  takes time for a seed to germinate, for a baby to learn to walk or to grow her teeth.  The time when apparently nothing happens, is a time where we must nurture ourselves the most so we are ready for the blossom time.

In my case, some decision can be painfully “slow” to take. I do not have all the answers, then I need to think. However, I must be aware to do not freeze myself and do not move. One MUST do something at some moment.

Then, I heard about planning fallacy, first proposed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky and it let me thinking. Planning fallacy is a problem of our human race. Examples are plenty as we can read in this article. In Spanish we said: mal de muchos consuelo de todos ( English equivalent might be: Two in distress makes sorrow less).

However I want to do something about this. That is balance a natural optimistic nature with a my memory of how much it takes to do stuff. I insist thinking takes time!!! [as it does writing 🙂 ]

(Note: I start to write the post on 2.2. but it was finalized and published until 16.2.)