有关计划、危机意识、以及其它
June 2, 2008 7:29 pm GMT-0700 | In Life针对上次那篇 培养自制力,Eric Yu 同学来信说:
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我基本同意你文中的最核心的观点,即制定具体的计划,越具体越好。事实上我以前也是这么想的,不过我发现要做好计划是一件很难的事情,按照这个计划执行更难。
比如我计划今天早上8:30 – 9:30阅读Google Reader上的文章,然后完成功能A的代码编写,包括单元测试。但是即使是这么简单的两个任务,也很具体了,还是不能很好的执行。就比如我在读文章的时候看到你这篇文章,很有同感,忍不住要思考一下,然后就超过预期的时间了(如果你的文章有一些link,我又去看这些link,然后递归直到吃午饭为止都有可能),然后就会影响后面的计划,然后就恶性循环。我也尽力了我想,惩罚自己其实很难:-)。
所以我之前的结论是对于我,计划没有变化快,索性就不做计划了。
总的来说就是计划会出现很多意料之外的分支流程,这些流程有的还很重要,导致计划不能按计划执行。
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嗯,说得很好。我一直以来觉得真正的大牛不但会制定计划,而且会考虑到各类不确定因素和可能的问题,制定一个合理的计划。而像我等凡人,虽然也知道生活和学习要有计划,并且也或多或少有一些计划,但是却没有一个合理的计划,也就差不多等于没有计划。
另一个我一直觉得牛人和凡人的区别是,牛人并不是不犯错误,而是知道自己或者别人可能会在什么地方犯错误并提前加以防范。牛人在代码里放 assert,并不是因为自己的代码有问题,而是为了将来代码被人拿去乱改的时候防止一些错误。就像汽车保险杠,平时我们并不拿它来撞墙。事实上,工业界 fail-safe 的设计随处可见,可是具体到个人的工作习惯,却不见得人人都有这个思维方式。
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有关牛人善于防范错误,有人问过我一个有些关联的问题,你平时生活和工作是否有危机意识?
你熟悉住宅和公司的防火通道吗?
你周围是否有灭火器,是否熟悉它们在哪里,是否会使用?
你到了陌生的地方或者上了公交车和飞机,是否会首先观察一下逃生路径?
如果你居住在地震带,是否随时准备好了应对地震?
你知道离家最近的医院在哪里吗?
你是否熟悉 CPR(心肺复苏/人工呼吸)?
你是否随身携带证件以便发生意外的时候及时确认身份?
危机无处不在,麻痹大意就是对生命的蔑视。没有危机意识的人,在灾难中是最容易失去逃生机会的。我们不太去思考这些危机问题,有很多原因,比如,何必乌鸦嘴去说灾难?而且,一百个人里面,恐怕九十九个人一辈子也碰不到需要紧急处理的危机,即使碰到了,你也往往会发现你所准备的并不足以应对危机。好吧,说教固然无用,只能看各位自己的生活哲学了。
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另一个不太相关的问题,有人说过,科学家的思维方式其实和侦探很像,侦破客观世界奥秘,和侦探破案的过程大同小异。这一点在诺贝尔奖得主 Eric Cornell 截肢后的见面会上又有体现:
Question: In your work you solve physics problems. What was it like for you to be the subject really now of this mysterious disease that for many is still baffling?
Eric: It’s interesting to be a professional scientist and to be the subject of treatment and study. You look at the physicians and nurses who are trying to understand what’s wrong with you and make you better and you look at them as colleagues, you know, and you try to avoid second guessing them because they know much more about medicine than you do. But you also sort of see the wheels turning in their heads as they’re trying to rule this out and rule that out, let’s do this test. It’s a lot like what I do in the lab, it just matters more, or at least it did to me at the time.
Question: Did you find yourself getting involved at all in the treatment?
Eric: Yes. They’d say, “Well, we think this is probably an allergy and not an infection.” I had some little rash, which was a very serious thing because a rash could have been a symptom of the disease coming back. So they had to understand what the rash was. They were discussing in a scientific way among themselves and I wanted to chime in, “Well, have you ruled this out, ruled this out.” It would have been fun in a way, in fact it was fun in a way, since I wasn’t able to do my own research during that time.
物理学家,特别是实验物理学家,常常是用排他法在工作。拿精密测量来说,实验工作者常常耗费大量的时间来排查各类可能的噪声源,对于他们来说,知道某个噪声源的影响很小,其意义并不亚于发现真正影响他们测量精度的大噪声源。运营网站的人,总想找到服务器的性能瓶颈在哪里,一把揪住问题症结固然最好,但是如果知道某个模块的性能没有问题,这也同样会帮助解决问题。
Tags: physics, procrastination
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Comment by kisstar — June 3, 2008 5:20 am GMT-0700 #
I think the key is to have a strong interest and dedication on something. The desire matters.
As Steve Jobs suggested, find what you love. I think majority of people fail to do that because they thought they could not.
Comment by ji — June 6, 2008 4:46 am GMT-0700 #