I've been leafing through Richard Feynman's amusing Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!—a pseudo-memoir that's amusing, if a little slight, for the author being one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century. But there are plenty of tasty nuggets sandwiched between silly, self-aggrandizing anecdotes. (There's a very brash, American 'tude to much of the … Continue reading On your personal “toolkit”
Tag: skills
On not being handy
Oh, that I were born handy. Some people are, I want to think, even as I know they are not. There may be innate tendencies toward handiness—but there’s no a priori knowledge. No one leaves the womb knowing how to hold a hammer. So I can’t lay the blame for my lack of handiness on … Continue reading On not being handy
On the possibility of explaining your job away
Because we're expecting another baby in a few weeks, my wife and I have been preparing for a boring but important inevitability: Someone else will have to do our jobs for a little while. One way we've preparing, aside from directly on-boarding colleagues in meetings, is by writing stuff down. In doing this, we wondered: … Continue reading On the possibility of explaining your job away
Accumulating skills instead of knowledge
Knowledge is relatively easy to accumulate quickly, but it also depreciates quickly. Skills are hard to win, but keep their value a little longer. David Maister Knowledge is easy. Crack open a book, peruse your New York Times app, hop over to Wikipedia—all you need is attention and retention. Easy enough! In the workplace, though, … Continue reading Accumulating skills instead of knowledge
Taylor Coe 