It’s not so easy. So there are two fantastic aphorisms which hold a lot of water in my life. The first is “Work Smarter, Not Harder”. The second is “Stop Thinking, Start Doing”. These both hold a lot of power. Either can be wildly unproductive if not used properly. They can also both yield awesome results. There is a trick and balance to using them in conjunction which may not be so obvious.
When I was working as an app developer, creating iPhone apps for insurance appraisal, sometimes I was faced with coding which I felt was a little out of my league. I would sit there and think, and think, and think about how to achieve a certain goal, and so I made a little sign for my wall: “Stop Thinking, Start Doing!”. It actually helped me out a lot. As I would sit there, and try to look at my problem from every angle, when I finally decided to get down to work, and just tackle the darn thing from any given side, I found that I was able to achieve my goal in a very reasonable amount of time. I let this be my motto in times when I was feeling burdened by overthinking. One day, I walked into my office to find that my sign had been replaced by one that said “Work Smarter, Not Harder!” This was my boss’s clever way of trying to encourage me. It was borne out of a wonderful place, and the work smarter not harder mentality had always been one that I had embraced, up until that moment when I found it replacing my other motto. It was at this moment that I finally had a realization. My boss had a mentality that these two sayings, and approaches to work are fundamentally at odds with each other. If I stop thinking, and start doing, I will be wasting lots of time cranking on problems that in a clumsy way that will yield me mediocre results, if only I had thought more! You can apply this to your next physics test. Imagine just reading the problem and starting to work without any discernible strategy. Just 15 seconds of pondering might illuminate pathways that cranking on a problem will never get you to. Consider the flipside: your grade on your test is 100% dependent on whatever you write down on the test paper. If you wheedle away all of your time thinking about the best approache, especially in a timed setting, there won’t be much to show when it comes time to grade your test.
The real talent, like with most things in life, is finding the balances between these two extrema. For me the breakdown was something like this: many of my physics tests were 4-5 questions, with 2 hours to complete. That gives you something like 20-30 minutes per problem. It’s actually not that much once you really start diving in, but it is a big chunk of time, if you know where you’re going. In this situation, I normally took the first 15-20 minutes to just read through each problem, taking in the problems, and understanding exactly what they’re asking of me.
What topic from class is this question really trying to ask? What will my initial strategy be? How many parts are there in this problem? I might jot down some initial ideas on scrap paper, just so I don’t forget. While the rest of the class is feverishly writing away, I would be sitting, thinking, and making some attempt to work smarter, not harder. When you’re writing your mind is full. As much as most people don’t like to hear it, there is no such thing as multitasking. Either you’re thinking about what you’re writing down, or you’re thinking about the other problems. There’s really no in between. If you’re thinking about your other problems, you’ll be making mistakes on this problem. If you’re thinking about the problem at hand, you cannot be thinking about anything else on the “back burner”. Leaving some space to let the problems settle into your mind, and not jumping into action will really give you a chance to do a good job.
After I have my initial strategies ironed out, working smarter is over. It’s time to stop thinking, and start doing. After all, they want to see writing on the paper. It doesn’t matter how well you’ve thought it out. So get to work! So with this in mind, even in a multiple choice type setting, I usually block out 12-15% of my time to work smarter, not harder, and the other 85-88% of the time to stop thinking, start doing. Believe it or not, most of the time I’d finish early. With homework, it’s a little tougher, because you feel like you have all the time in the world. Sometimes it’s useful to constrain yourself. Give yourself 2 hours to finish. Treat it like a test. You’ll be in good shape when exam time comes around! Try the 12-15% of the time to absorb the questions, then get to work! Pace yourself, and stop thinking, and start doing. That’s where all of these step-by-steps come into play. If you can think of the problem as being a sequence of step by steps during your work smarter period, the stop thinking, and start doing time will be a breeze. You’ll be going through the motions.
Balance is critical. You need to understand what works for you. This guideline worked very well for me. You may need to tweak it a little to get it just right for you. But, going in with a strategy will give you a much better chance at a good outcome than just scrambling through your test. Remember, work smarter, not harder!
