Observe before you analyze

Focus on maximizing your skills of observation, not your skills of analysis.

There are two reasons for this:

  • You are already quite good at analysis and it tends to come naturally
  • Observation is a more robust paradigm for achieving deep understanding

On the second point, remember that With the right representation, judgement is cheap, so it’s better to ensure you have the right representations of the situations you face before ruminating on the exact best next step or action to take. The best actions or solutions are often obvious once the situation is properly understood. Simply being able to accurately describe a situation is invaluable, and in many instances the process of doing so itself will illuminate nuggets of valuable information.


References

Reading Notes The Inner Game of Tennis

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