Just Finished Reading: Fail Fast, Fail Often

Fail Fast, Fail Often, by Ryan Babineaux and John Krumboltz, is not quite as focused on failure as you might think. It's mostly about how to become less afraid of failure so you can do it more, thereby being able to succeed more readily. Having a beginner's mind might be a Zen way of putting it.

I want to remember this ratio: 3 to 1. That's the number of enjoyable, pleasurable experiences a person needs to have to balance out negative, discouraging ones. Three joyful moments for each sucky one. Makes me think I need way more fun in my life. Fortunately, the moments don't have to be big, you just have to notice and appreciate them. That balances out the pain and emotional stress involved in trying things and failing at them.

The benefit of this ratio and making time for rest and pleasure is that it keeps us in a creative, open, playful space, rather than a shut down, fearful mental space. When we fail a lot, it's easy to move into a scarcity mentality. We get kind of clamped down and less able to see creative (and often better!) solutions to problems. It's the fear in the limbic system shutting us down to only the most tried and true options. As a result, people are naturally more creative and open to risk when happy and relaxed.

Also worth noting is the idea of taking small actions instead of waiting and planning until everything is figured out before moving forward. Example: a guy grows up in a family that doesn't travel. In college he wants to go to Prague and starts planning out a year-long trip, but the planning gets overwhelming and eventually he gives up and never goes. Later in life, though, after he has some experiences with failure and travel, a friend invites him to China. He buys a plane ticket, and the rest of the trip starts to fall in line. Buying the ticket makes the rest of the trip necessary, but also sets a framework for deciding other things like hotel, transportation, site-seeing, etc.

Similarly, make prototypes people can give you feedback on, and ask a wide variety for comments on the cheap, rough version instead of spending tons of time and effort on something with a fatal flaw. Get it to good enough, then get feedback.

 

In a section similar to the Getting Things Done system - break projects down into tasks for less procrastinating.

Don't try to finish a whole project. Aim for half an hour of good, solid work on your most important priorities each day.

 

There are lots of other great tips - this one is worth reading for a bunch of different "life hacks" with a strong psychology/social science underpinning.