The Buzzard Method

I've been thinking about how I solve problems. Read tonight:

You want to be optimistic and skeptical about two different things. You have to be optimistic about the possibility of solving the problem, but skeptical about the value of whatever solution you've got so far.

People who do good work often think that whatever they're working on is no good. Others see what they've done and are full of wonder, but the creator is full of worry. This pattern is no coincidence: it is the worry that made the work good.

If you can keep hope and worry balanced, they will drive a project forward the same way your two legs drive a bicycle forward. In the first phase of the two-cycle innovation engine, you work furiously on some problem, inspired by your confidence that you'll be able to solve it. In the second phase, you look at what you've done in the cold light of morning, and see all its flaws very clearly. But as long as your critical spirit doesn't outweigh your hope, you'll be able to look at your admittedly incomplete system, and think, how hard can it be to get the rest of the way?, thereby continuing the cycle.

To that, I'll add what I'm calling "the buzzard method". Circle around the problem. Start high, go low. Fly back up, dive down. Go back to square one. Revisit. Don't get bogged on a detail. Turn around and nibble on a pixel. Take a break. I find the strangest connections when I do that. Top down, bottom up, all around, inside out, outside in.

I was a born problem solver. It's a sickness.

A note on passion and intensity of which I'm consumed sometimes:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

- Yeats