I just wish we’d stop trying to project how we work onto others as a means of self justification of our own actions. If you discover a cool technique, by all means, please share it! But try to avoid presenting it as if it’s the only or best way to do things.
from Yaron Schoen's piece, 'Get off my lawn', published with Medium.
This is what I've been doing. And it's wrong. It's wrong for me to dictate from my keyboard how other people are working poorly and telling them how they could be improving.
But I do want to share more. I want to share a lot. Last year I discovered the joy of sharing how I work with people from the other side of the world. It was envigorating.
It's wrong of me though to keep giving people copies of "Getting Things Done" and expecting them to start developing their own system of todo lists that stops them being a disappointment to everyone.
It's wrong of me to tell people how to save files on their computer so they know how to find them again and don't have to call me when they've forgotten how to use their computer's search function.
It's wrong of me to explain that embarking on a project without planning a path to get to a goal is a surefire way of ending up lost and without any sense of achievement.
It's wrong of me to explain these things because everybody has a right to continue living their lives in the most infuriating way possible.
Meanwhile, I might just start sharing more about how I'm doing things and invite comments on what other people think. Can these things I do and the way I do them be improved? Have I discovered something that other people don't know?
Maybe we can share how we do things and learn to accept that we have different reasons for doing them the way that we do. Those reasons might include just a pure stubborness and refusal to see sense. But so what? Wouldn't that sense of self-awareness be the first step we're all looking for?
Namaste.
Josh
