Sometime back I went for an interview for the job profile of Quality assurance executive. My job was simple - Watch movies, Find the digital audio/visual errors in the DVD (If there are any) and Log it. In simple terms, I was going to get paid for watching movies.
It was a simple job to do and to acquire the job I had to appear for a test, where they would show me few clips and I was required to find errors in them. It sounds very easy and in fact it was very easy till I started using my brains. I wanted to catch all the errors which were present on those clips. So I started using all the NLP principles i knew - peripheral vision, overlapping of audio and visual to synchronize it with my mind, relaxing my mind - here is the best one - Let my conscious mind take over because I knew conscious mind can take only 2 bits of information at a time while for the test I needed around 6 (It was my calculation). While I used all these principles I lost focus from detecting errors to using all the knowledge I had about NLP. The result was obvious - for the first few clips I was hardly able to finds any errors. It was just, in break, when I asked myself a question which totally changed the way I saw the next few clips.
If I didn't have some of the knowledge I had, would the test have gone better?
The answer to my question was undoubtedly 'yes'. In the process of detecting all the errors that the clips had, I ended up finding almost nothing. The tools and techniques I knew made the task more complicated inside my head than If I would have not know certain things to produce the same results. I believe without the knowledge I would have surely done much better.
As soon as I realized this, I told myself - 'if I want to detect all the errors there is only one thing I can do - Not know all the tools and techniques I know and GET back to the basics.
I am not saying knowing those tools and techniques is bad or not useful. Knowing those techniques are certainly useful - but we need to get aware of the times when knowing some of the things that we know are actually coming in our way to get results or deliver some outcomes. Also sometimes we tend to use our knowledge and skills as an excuse for not doing something.
Sometimes just by sticking to the basics and keeping it simple can make most of the difference.
Here is the Exercise for you
Step 1: - Take a piece of paper and list down the goals and outcomes you need to achieve in next 2 months.
Step 2: - Put down the list of things that you need to 'not know' to achieve these outcomes and goals easily?
Step 3: - When you get aware of the things that you are not suppose to know, just park them in some place of your mind where they are not lost, at the same time not coming in your way to achieve your Goals and Outcomes. (I call this place Parking Zone)
Step 4: - Get the total Focus on your goals, while at the same time be aware of your Parking Zone. Whenever you need something out from your Parking Zone, just get back to that location of your mind where you have established your Parking Zone and pull out anything the things that you require.
If these things come again, all you need to do is be aware of them and park them in your parking Zone.
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