Comments on: Problems expand to fill available space

By: The Betacantrips Travelogue » Problems expand to fill available space

The Betacantrips Travelogue » Problems expand to fill available space — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:54:40 +0000

[...] Seen on Planet Debian: an article for those of us who are always working on something. At times like this (if I’m aware and realize that it’s happening), these are some of the things that help me recenter myself: [...]

By: What’s the Problem? :: learnsigma

What’s the Problem? :: learnsigma — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:25:35 +0000

[...] Problems expand to fill available space (mdzlog.alcor.net) [...]

By: Todd Troxell

Todd Troxell — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:56:48 +0000

I’m quite familiar with being overwhelmed by an infinite number of eternally growing problems. I’ve had little luck recovering thus far, I think primarily because I’ve been too focused on problem #1 to think about the big picture

This makes a lot of sense, particularly reviewing progress– that’s made me comfortable with this situation in the past.

Great post– I took notes!

By: Jonathan Carter

Jonathan Carter — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:42:58 +0000

I work with projects all day long every day. I enjoy the challenge. I take on bigger and bigger projects, and I become more and more comfortable dealing with bigger and more complicated problems.

Every now and again though, it bites me in the ass. I find myself in a situation where I have several large problems and there’s simply not enough concentration span to give any one of them the attention they deserve. At times like that it feels like I’m spending 100% of my time providing people on updates to these problems rather than actually solving. It’s stressful and frustrating. I end up trying to prove myself and I try to hard and eventually end up with (at least a mild case of) burn-out.

I’m not sure if you know the story of the professor who told his class about the stones that he put in a glass jar, and that if you put the biggest rocks in first you can add the smaller ones easier and end up filling the jar better, the conclusion in the story is that life is easier if you solve your biggest problems first. I think that story is wrong.

For most of my life, I used to prioritise my problems according to their size, difficulty and complexity. If a problem was really big, it had top priority above all else. What happened? I neglected more /important/ problems. Sometimes a problem that is extremely tiny in complexity and difficulty outranks all other problems in terms of importance, and I let many important things slide because I favoured the bigger and meaner problems.

I learned that obsessing about big problems take up a huge amount of time and doesn’t always result in progress. I’ve found that it’s best to vary my problems. Working on small problems and getting them solved does a lot to motivate me on the larger problems. Often, fixing a problem gives me insight into the larger problems, and it seems to “open” up my brain to thinking more laterally.

Sorry for the blabbering, good blog post, I’ve been enjoying latest blog entries.

By: Zac

Zac — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:47:04 +0000

Life is one big problem. :) Solve one, then another comes along, then another, ….. :) Anyway, as they say, it’s all relative. I think the song ‘The Streets of London’ by Ralph McTell is a good one to listen to.

Solve Bug#1, and I’ll be a happy chappy.

Take a break from your problems, and make the world a more accommodating place. Cheers!

By: Matt Zimmerman

Matt Zimmerman — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:32:52 +0000

That’s a good one too.

By: Michael Hudson

Michael Hudson — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:08:09 +0000

Another thing that helps me sometimes is recognizing how lucky I am that my #1 problem isn’t “where is my next meal coming from”.

By: LaserJock

LaserJock — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:07:55 +0000

Does it help at all to think of them not as problems but as solutions waiting to be made? I wonder how much the negative spin that “problem” has effects our thinking of our todo list. I know I get very problem-focused in Ubuntu. I see *all* kinds of problems and forget about all the solutions we’re creating on a daily basis.

By: Matt Zimmerman (mdz) 's status on Tuesday, 06-Oct-09 13:55:03 UTC - Identi.ca

Matt Zimmerman (mdz) 's status on Tuesday, 06-Oct-09 13:55:03 UTC - Identi.ca — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:55:08 +0000

[...] short blog post on amateur psychodynamics of problem solving: http://mdzlog.alcor.net/2009/10/06/problems-expand-to-fill-available-space/ [...]