Ask before Doing

May 19th, 2024 (5 months ago) • 1 minute

This is a follow up to Ask/Negotiate More.

Do you realize that asking question in school is often punished ✊ and doing the work without asking is often rewarded 🎁?

But bringing the habit of heads down just do that is rewarded earlier punishes you later in life.

All of this because time is finite, as do your energy. You have to pick what you want and can do (even if you don't know). As such, one tactic I do often is ask a bunch of question before doing anything. Clarify whether is this even a problem or a problem worth solving

Some of the questions I like to ask

• What's the problem you're trying to solve?
• Who needs the solution and what's the use case?
• Do you need it by this date or can we push it back?
• Did you do any prior research on this already so we can get more context?

p.s In hindsight, early stage school might be a bit authoritarian (?).