I was thinking this month about ‘getting the job done’ and what it takes to do so. For me a lot of times I like to work under pressure. I like deadlines and I like the challenge. It’s almost like a game to me. A game I get paid for. It’s the old cliché about the college student who doesn’t start writing a paper till the night before it’s due. I was a little like that, but mostly it was because I was a little lazy. I’m getting off track though. My point is, I think it’s important to throw yourself in the deep end sometimes to keep your skills sharp.
This post came about after I read an article in the Wall Street Journal (via Gizmodo) about how Steve Jobs gave Apple engineer Greg Christie (and his team) a two-week deadline to produce some serious progress on a new product. That product was the iPhone and in two weeks Greg’s team had invented some of the ‘staple’ features of the iPhone:
Mr. Christie’s team devised many iPhone features, such as swiping to unlock the phone, placing calls from the address book, and a touch-based music player. The iPhone ditched the keyboard then common on advanced phones for a display that covered the device’s entire surface, and it ran software that more closely resembled personal-computer programs.
So what’s my point? My point is that sometimes you gotta throw yourself in the deep end to get anything done. Your job can get monotonous and boring. You can feel like you’re doing the exact same thing everyday and somehow, someway you convince yourself that something is going to magically change by itself. You know what that is? Insanity! As Einstein put it, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
I feel like Christie was in the same trap of just tinkering around with his stuff, until Jobs came in and threw him in the deep end. So it’s up to you to change the monotony of your job.
Conclusion: Throw yourself in the deep end!
