One of the things people spend most of their time doing with their computer is troubleshooting. For instance, I have been having some trouble with this new theme constantly switching back to the old theme. I don’t know why it is doing that so I have been wrestling with the stupid website to get it to work. In this situation I’m going to guess that you do one of two things.

1. You pick up the phone and call everyone that you know who would even be remotely related to the problem. For instance I have at least three different companies involved with this website which I could sort out in order of relevency. Since I don’t understand the problem, which is a common thing, I could call everyone related and spend my time making their lives miserable.
2. You spend endless hours trying to fix the problem yourself. You will likely realize that you spent too long working on the computer when it starts getting light out again — if you know what I mean.

Thankfully, there is a third option.

You take a step back. In a book that I am reading for school the author puts forth the idea that a large amount of the energy expended in an average day is spent trying to identify what is wrong with ourselves, what we do, who we interact with, and what they are doing. We spend so much time on the wrong that we don’t have enough time left for the right. I could wrestle with this website overnight and possibly get it fixed, or I could find a good temporary solution until I can sort out the problems with the new theme. The question is: does what you are doing about the problem ethically fit in with the goals that you have in mind? Should I make someone else’s life painful because my website isn’t working perfectly? Should I spend all night trying to fix it at the expense of my time tomorrow? No. All I need for this website is a way to get what I write about computers sorted out and sent to you. Thats it, no problems to overcome. Heck I could leave it how it is and still be ahead in the game. It isn’t something to lose hair over….yet.

So to be most effective at troubleshooting I need to give it a little bit of time so that I can focus on a solution instead of focusing on the problem.

Do the same and you’ll make yourself and a lot of people around you happier about working with your technology.

God Bless,
-Daniel Kolansky