Knowing Thyself = Knowing How to Succeed

I am a creative person, which often surprises people that assume that a person working in networking would be analytical by nature.  I believe, however, that creativity is essential for being able to think beyond current constraints and for being able to visualize that which really isn’t visual.  Troubleshooting a juicy network issue is much like unraveling a knot, which requires an ability to see beyond just a tangle of threads.  The best network engineers I know are ones that never take anything for granted and instead are able to see beyond what is to what could be.  That is creativity, baby.

To that end, I find a lot of advice geared toward endeavors more traditionally considered creative is relevant and helpful in my world as well.  I have several websites I wander through each day as part of my habits, generally when I’m procrastinating starting something new or stuck on something I’ve begun.  A lot of the advice I read has to do with knowing yourself.  You would think that after living with myself for 31 years, I’d be an expert at who I am and how I function, but the truth is, I don’t think any of us, no matter how old, are completely in tune with ourselves.  It has taken me almost this many years to figure out exactly how my brain learns new information and come up with the best ways to get new information into it.  I’ve also discovered, grudgingly, that I’m really much smarter in the morning than as the day wears on…by the time I hit the sheets, I’ve gotten almost to reality TV levels of intelligence.  This has forced me, against my will, to become a “morning person.”  I’d rather stay up late, but staying up late leads me to be a moron, so I wake up early while my neurons still fire decently and get to work.

To that end, I found the following blog fascinating, describing the routines of great writers.  Each of them had to develop their own way of approaching and structuring their day so that they could be productive.  It’s led me to look at my own routines and think about how I might tweak them to fit more with how I work best…within the confines of my working hours and my humble cube, of course.