Hello everyone,
I'm back for this week!
Recently, I've been thinking a lot about problems and how to solve them, and I think the biggest piece of advice I can give for facing issues in the real world is: defining problem dynamics.
What I mean by that is that problems often have many attributes, but frequently, there are fundamental categories you can fit different problems into which allow you to decide what kind of work you'll be doing.
For example, buying a house is fundamentally about filtering information and optimizing benefits and constraints.
- On the information side, there are so many houses to choose from and you likely need to decide what advice to follow, get a read on different cities, and organize all the information you've gathered.
- In turn, you also need to decide what benefits and drawbacks to consider when choosing where to live like safety, your immediate surroundings, public transport, etc.
But, these tasks aren't unique to buying a house. For example, buying a car entails a similar process of filtering information and balancing benefits (features) and constraints (price). So, you may use the same tools to buy a house as you would to buy a car (guides, spreadsheets, etc).
However, other tasks, like academic research, will have different dynamics. In the case of research, often there isn't an abundance of information, but scarcity - meaning researchers have to learn how to search for leads and get information from papers that aren't on their exact topic. As a result, researchers will be (in the beginning) less selective about what papers to read (skimming papers close to their topic that could have relevant information) until they have an abundance of sources to filter.
The point I'm making is that by defining the dynamics of the problem, you can often change your behavior to your benefit.
For example, here are some common problem dynamics and how they may define your behavior:
- Abundance of information = Problem of Filtering
- You may be more selective with the information you find. You may also use guides from trusted sources to get second opinions on what should matter to you.
- Scarcity of information = Problem of Finding Information
- You may be less selective with the initial information you find, seeing if any of it leads you to something more helpful.
- Balancing Benefits and Constraints = Problem of Optimization
- Makes it very important to define what features or specs you care about - often you can't have everything.
- Problem of Effort and Scheduling - ie. working on personal projects.
- Very important to create a schedule or a timeline that is feasible and motivating.
- Problem of Competition
- Important to think about both what you can gain yourself and what you can deny from your opponents (denying resources is often more important in a 1 vs 1).
- Problem of Cooperation or Communication
- Important to think about your feelings and what the other person is feeling.
- Finding the Elegant Solution or the Exact Solution - ie. Chemistry or Physics
- Important to experiment with different orders of operations.
- You may try to figure out why something works through observation and experimenting to learn how to do something more useful.
- Like learning why an atom splits to create a bomb.
- Finding a Solution - ie. Brute Force
- More about collecting materials or finding a solution that simply makes progress than learning why something works.
Finally, one notable thing to remember is that your brain will make these categorizations automatically, but it isn't always right. Sometimes you must consciously define problem dynamics and may find that you've confused one problem for another, especially if you have strong feelings about the topic.
For example, people often confuse problems of cooperation or communication with competition because they are angry. Sometimes you think you have a scarcity of information, but there is an elegant solution in front of you, and you need another person to point it out because you have a bias towards your own viewpoint.
So, when in doubt, define the problem and its dynamics first, then change your behavior accordingly.
That's all from me. Have a great week!
-Ethan