This is a book I bought several years ago and left unread, but when I read it, the content really resonated with me. Being highly productive doesn’t mean you can complete tasks faster than others or handle a large volume. Time (and many other things) is finite, so identifying the right problems to solve is important. You can’t become a highly productive person by working to your limits or competing on work hours. It’s important to work on core problems where both the degree of the issue and the quality of the solution are high. You can also leverage the knowledge of veterans and colleagues in this area. Once you identify the issue, repeat issue division, hypothesis and storyline setting, and verification.

What’s important here is:

  • Even at the hypothesis stage, think through to the storyline (a consistent flow of story from background to conclusion). Don’t rush to verification. Rather than waiting for data from verification/experiments, think through your own conclusions based on hypotheses beforehand. Of course, it’s okay to be wrong here.
  • Continuously verbalize without neglecting it.

After that preparation is done, move to verification and experiments. Then reflect those results in the hypothesis and storyline settings of the next cycle. Run this cycle at high speed.

About verbalization. Eliminate ambiguity by clearly stating subjects and verbs. Set issues in the form of Where/What/How rather than Why. When setting with the premise of providing answers, these expressions often emerge.

About setting deliverables. When papers or presentations are the output, boldly draw the storyboard before all data is collected. Here too, it’s important to proceed ahead of data. By drawing boldly, you can avoid being constrained by verification/experiment methods. Impactful results often come with proposals for new experimental methods. One graph should explain one thing. This is probably the same for document structure. Assume the audience follows Delbrück’s teachings.

I often unconsciously do the opposite of what’s written here and take detours. If I’m about to get stuck in a rut, I want to get out early, and I hope I can digest these as a natural way of proceeding. The end.