Letting people know what you have done for them is so much more impressive than how you did it.
View in Sanity Studio2024-11-15
I find it too easy to get distracted. More often than I’d care to admit, I find myself falling into a repetitive loop:
Cmd+W to close the tabCmd+T to open a new tabtw” which autocompletes to twitter.comReturnIt’s no way to live. But for whatever reason, it’s how my brain is wired.
This grade of thoughtless distraction is all too easy when it comes to problem solving. To get drawn into solving the wrong problem or get fixated on something other than the value of the solution.
I often consider this when creating educational content, from within product marketing. Perhaps the most important skill I can refine is framing a problem clearly and ensuring the solution is well-defined and relevant.
When people engage with the content I create, they’re looking for help and lacking varying amounts of context, imagination, or understanding. I do my best to ensure that the solutions I present are well-defined and focused on addressing their current challenges.
Learning something new often sucks. To be met with vague definitions or misdirection only make the experience worse.
That’s why I aim to go beyond explaining how something works. I ask the reader to consider the broader context—the people affected, the organizational impact, and the relevance of thing you're learning.
The value of what you can do is so much more valuable than how you do it.
Learning to code or use a new tool is good for your job, but understanding its impact in a broader context is good for your career.
I thought about this a lot after the filming of an upcoming Christmas episode of Jason Lengsdorf’s Web Dev Challenge. I had the opportunity to watch four super-talented developers approach the same brief in their own way, each using a different framework.
Their approaches varied significantly, but they all equally demonstrated the ability to define a problem, build a solution, and articulate it clearly.
While the episode was designed to entertain, it underscored the importance of these skills. Tools and frameworks come and go. Problem solving skills are forever.
Bickering all day about the choice of language and framework online is entertaining for some. But I'd recommend honing the evergreen skills of the ability to put a box around something. To define, solve, and describe the problem and its solution.