July 3, 2012

"Here’s a visual for compartmentalization..."

"... pretend as if everything you’re dealing with in your life is a room where you have to walk in and solve an equation on a white board."
You have a countdown clock with less than an hour to get the problem solved, or take a single step in the right direction, and then shut the door and go into another room equally as important. You spend your entire life going from compartment to compartment.

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

so much for thinking outside of the box

ZING

chickelit said...

That's kind of how Max Planck solved the Black Body Radiation problem, ushering in 20th century quantum mechanics.

On the other hand, compartmentalization just reminds me of how the Titanic sank.

Henry said...

Does Anne-Marie Slaughter know about this? It sounds like something she needs to stop.

bearing said...

I was with him up to the point that he suggested one might usefully shut up one's religious beliefs (and by extension we might include other philosophical ethical principles) in order to go on doing things that we know are wrong.

I guess that is probably accurate, though. I am sure many people do.

Michael K said...

Do you think he boasts much ?

traditionalguy said...

The compartments you are using rig your outcome. Lawyers do that thinking exercise for a living.

True categories let you reason to true answers. False categories cause you to reason to false answers.

It would be so nice to find the true categories set down in a book like it was...the Word of God.

Hmmm.

Sydney said...

That is what my work day is like. I walk into a room and I have 15 minutes to solve a problem, then I get up, close the door and go to the next 15 minute problem.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

This way of thinking and solving problems sounds completely normal to me. The most important step is #5 Say “no” to things that don’t deserve a compartment.

If you don't pay attention to #5 you are going to be distracted, spinning your wheels and unable to close out or solve the other compartments.

a doctor who is religious, but has to separate her belief system from her practice at a women’s health clinic;

"I was with him up to the point that he suggested one might usefully shut up one's religious beliefs (and by extension we might include other philosophical ethical principles) in order to go on doing things that we know are wrong."

Well then, both of those things are in that compartment and you need to solve whether the ethical principle outweighs the practical (you have a job). Let them duke it out in your "box" and decide who wins.....or maybe you can decide that the concepts CAN exist in separate compartments. The winner then goes into another compartment perhaps labeled. Occupation income/versus lifestyle.

kjbe said...

Do you think he boasts much ?

I was thinking that, too.

ndspinelli said...

Why do so many of these articles really fit the general title, Common Sense? I reckon it's because common sense is becoming increasingly rare.

Rabel said...

Forbes gives this a nice platform for promoting his ViSalus pyramid scheme.

Get in early

David said...

Unless you miss the door and keep running into the wall.

David said...

sydney said...
That is what my work day is like. I walk into a room and I have 15 minutes to solve a problem, then I get up, close the door and go to the next 15 minute problem.


Then you're not an American politician. They don't have to actually solve the problems.

Paddy O said...

I need a snack.

David said...

This also needs a bullshit tag.

Compartmentalization is great until you encounter a situation where the technique is breaking down. This happens to many people, including very effective ones. That's the real test. What do you do when the thing that has always worked for you starts to fail. That's not so easy to fit into a tidy marketable little list.

edutcher said...

Sounds like dealing with The Blonde when she's having a bad day.

Anonymous said...

Life is not that neat; problems come in waves. You don't necessarily have the time to deal with them in an ordered series. In the slower periods you have to prepare by anticipating problems and having ready made solutions. This solution only applies to non-urgent but serious problems.

ndspinelli said...

The Vineyard folks are sad because the Obama vacation there wass just cancelled. Bubba could compartmentalize and knew when and when no[election years] to vacation on the Vineyard. Looks like Obama is also learning.

Actually many folks on the island aren't sad because it's a huge pain in the ass when he's on the island. Not many roads and a lot get closed.

Garage, another source outside Madison!

bagoh20 said...

The problem is that one compartment I have that contains other people's compartments, and their invitations to visit.

Seven Machos said...

Ed -- I want to take a moment to hijack the thread and apologize to you, if you are here. I misread a comment of yours a few days ago -- stupidly getting the exact opposite out of it that you meant -- and I was a jerk to you.

I need to read more carefully in the future.

paul a'barge said...

You know, when people describe life and they leave out G-d, I pretty much know right then and there that these people are full of shit and I invoke the tl;dr and move on.

Most especially so in this case.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
paul a'barge said...

Or, let's put it this way ... when you walk into one of these rooms, in which room do you drop to your knees and pray?

Eli Blake said...

Copied from the 'three questions' on the right (which 'oppose health ruling' outnumbers 'favors' by 85-9%, so apparently this is reflective of Ann's blog (leans conservative) rather than the public at large:

Demographics by age:

1% Under 18
3% 18 - 24
3% 25 - 29
4% 30 - 34
15% 35 - 44
26% 45 - 54
30% 55 - 64
18% 65 or older

which is mildly surprising to me. What age are the law students at UW? I'd think there'd be a substantial number in their late 20's-early 30's

Eli Blake said...

Paul:

"Or, let's put it this way ... when you walk into one of these rooms, in which room do you drop to your knees and pray?"

Depends. If you are a Buddhist then you believe this is what life is anyway.

edutcher said...

Seven, I don't even remember, so it's OK.

Pastafarian said...

I think a better visualization for me is:

Pretend everything you're dealing with is a bathroom stall, where you have to walk in and clean up the shit and vomit left by a 400 pound Norwegian sardine-boat sailor on a 6-day drunken bender.

You have less than an hour to muck out the stall, and then shut the door and go into another stall equally foul.

You spend your entire life going from stall to stall, with occasional respites during which you visit the Althouse blog, where the hostess tells you that you should be pleased that Nancy Pelosi is finally embracing personal responsibility by nationalizing health care, and that it's wonderful that John Roberts changed his mind as whimsically as a teenage girl choosing a nail polish.

Christy said...

Isn't the correct choice to divert the rivers until the stables are mucked out?

chickelit said...

Hey, Eli Blake is back!

Welcome!

Mumpsimus said...

"equally as important" deserves a (sic).

Chip Ahoy said...

No. I will not play this reindeer game.

But now that you mention it, that room, that real room, is a bit of a mess now. I looked at that and thought, later.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

... my cofounders and I the second largest shareholders inside a public company (NYSE:BTH).

Just so you know.. every compartment has its own fragrance.

BTH Profile

Blyth, Inc., designs and markets home fragrance products and decorative accessories, as well as weight management products, nutritional supplements and energy drinks
.

ricpic said...

Is life a problem to be solved?
How thoroughly linear and boring.
Rather call it mistakes that are absolved
On the way to paradise by way of whoring.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Perhaps it's just me, but I do not see WFB agreeing in his book Nearer, My God with the views of much psychology.

Take this gem:

"DAVID GERGEN: Good. In your new book you say, "There is something about the modern disposition that compels even those who believe in God to keep all such matters tidily secluded in their own tent." Tell us why you’ve come out of the tent.

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.: I felt an obligation. I’m a writer, and I was asked to write this book. I put it aside after one year, one writing year devoted to it, on the grounds that I simply couldn’t handle it. It was too big a subject. But then I felt that itchy feeling that I guess conscience is the best word for it, saying, I shouldn’t do that to God. I think he’s done a lot of things for me. I mean this quite seriously. So I thought, well, now I got to go back and do it. But I did feel that the reader ought to know that there is that natural reticence that I feel, being a non-preaching Christian, how much convinced I am as a Christian.

DAVID GERGEN: Can you tell us--I don’t mean to invade your privacy--but can you tell us a little more about what your faith has meant to you personally, whether you--

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.: I grew up in a devout Christian Catholic family, ten brothers and sisters. My mother was conspicuously devout and my father was devout also. We always simply assumed that God was the patron of human life. Now, when you run into the kind of nonchalant and cheeky secularism that you run into at Yale, for instance--I wrote a book about it--you all of a sudden recognize there are a lot of people out there who think that this is a superstition. We’ll go ahead and let people indulge in it because some of them have a good time. I set out to show in this book, I don’t think it is a superstition. I think very bright people feel--believe in God and that God does something for us by giving us perspectives that make life tolerable, especially in very sad moments.

DAVID GERGEN: Much of your book, it’s quite striking because it’s so unlike what’s out there about religion today, it is a serious struggle to understand and to come to grips with Catholic and Christian doctrine. Have you come to believe in both, Jesus, the historical figure, and in the resurrection, itself?

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.: Well, yes, I do. I think that’s absolutely central to Christianity. St. Paul thought so, and so does everybody."

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/gergen/december97/buckley_12-24.html

Guildofcannonballs said...

"David Gergen, editor-at-large of U.S. News & World Report, engages William F. Buckley, Jr., editor of "National Review," and host of public television "Firing Line." Buckley’s latest book is Nearer, My God, an autobiography."

Oh.

My.

God.

Original Mike said...

Sounds like my life. Is there another way?

Guildofcannonballs said...

Without a belief in God, how could one give oneself a God dingus?

The Crack Emcee said...

I think very bright people feel--believe in God,...

If they're adults, and haven't discovered their feelings don't make beliefs real, they can't be that bright.

I'ma go now, as picking on Buckley isn't one of my favorite things to do,...