[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for you...
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Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of
quick-wittedness?
Slow thinking HN members, what are some strategies you've use to
overcome and compensate for the lack of quick thinking. E.g. I
found I'm great at analysis or putting together elaborate argument
but if I'm in a situation where I need to make a quick decision or
get in actual argument I lose all of that capacity and usually drop
to the level of IQ 85 if I/m to be judged by the outcomes.
Nevertheless a slow thinker does have that potential there he's jut
not able to tap into it if he falls into my category. In martial
arts, rehearsing overcomes a lot of that - what has worked in real
life for you?
Author : michalu
Score : 322 points
Date : 2024-02-27 11:16 UTC (1 days ago)
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Outside of emergency situations (many of which are also avoidable
| with analysis beforehand) most urgent decisions are not really
| important.
| sp332 wrote:
| Use asynchronous communications when possible. Ask for things in
| writing, which moves the conversation to email. Say you have to
| sleep on big decisions, or need to consult some information you
| don't have in front of you.
|
| Try to be prepared with a decision tree made in advance so you
| can answer the predictable stuff quickly. And you don't have to
| think of absolutely everything, but the act of planning will help
| you be more familiar with the options.
|
| Talk out loud. Take the space and time you need to make a
| decision, and don't try to hide it.
| Zambyte wrote:
| Related to keeping things in writing: use a writing system that
| you can easily recall information you want from in the future.
| An email client generally has a pretty good search, but one
| problem is that it's usually not possible to hyperlink to
| specific emails. I recommend a personal wiki / Zettelkasten
| system that you use with the intent of avoiding re-thinking the
| same thing. I am often surprised to find that when I go to find
| where I want to start writing a note in my org-roam, I have
| already worked through exactly what I was planning on starting
| to think about.
| scrapheap wrote:
| Decision making and arguing are two very different tasks. For
| decision making I find that asking questions around the subject
| helps clarify what you're actually trying to achieve with the
| decision, gives you additional information to work with and a bit
| of time to think while they're answering.
|
| Also a valid response to being asked to make a decision can be
| "I'll think about it and get back to you" (but always make sure
| you do get back to them about it)
|
| The best advice I've got for most arguments is to not bother. If
| you've reached the point of arguing then egos are involved and
| people won't back down even if they realize that they're wrong.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| 1. Prep.
|
| 2. Bluster while I prep. A lot of quick thinkers are not actually
| quick thinkers. They are quick responders, using far more words
| to say just as much, with the filler works frontloaded to give
| them time. For example:
|
| "Now, correct me if I am wrong, and I may be, and this is
| something to consider, what if we X?" buys you about 5 seconds of
| time to think. You can say those words in front of pretty much
| every argument.
|
| 3. Stop caring. Few quick decisions are actually needed. If my
| Product Owner is going to make me defend my approach, I just
| concede the argument and allow the other guy's approach, whether
| or not it has gaping security holes or will fail in prod. Haven't
| made a case for anything at work in two years and just make sure
| everyone whos who did make the screw up.
| lathiat wrote:
| "buys you about 5 seconds of time to think."
|
| Steve Jobs had that mastered, like in this clip:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeqPrUmVz-o
| latexr wrote:
| If anything, that clip proves the inverse. Jobs didn't blurt
| out meaningless words to buy himself time to think, he
| _stopped in silence_ to gather his thoughts and respond.
| lathiat wrote:
| I was referring to the part where he starts out with you
| know you can please some of the people, some of the time.
| You're right though he has a solid pause as well.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| Anki, believe it or not. Anki and sticking with the same small
| bag of tools.
|
| There are quite a few things which are best kept as "fingertip
| knowledge", even with the assistance of GPT-4.
| g7r wrote:
| Can you please share a couple of examples on how you use Anki?
| rticesterp wrote:
| I put in random facts and categorize them. Topic of reading
| comes up, I can never remember books I've read. I started
| making Anki flash cards of book summaries. I review this and
| other topics for 15 minutes a day
| feintruled wrote:
| I had an idea like this for helping introverts with
| icebreaking small talk. Flash style cards for each person,
| with info on what you spoke about last time, and a pre-
| prepared opener for the next time you bump into them. With
| the card info being updated each time you meet them.
| rticesterp wrote:
| Exactly! I've found I'm a lot more talkative and I appear
| to be more of a fast thinker with this approach. I have
| about 15 subjects (outside of coding - sports, wine, pop
| culture, national parks, current music, popular fiction,
| tv shows, movies) that I try to be knowledgable on and
| the flashcards help
| al_borland wrote:
| Sometimes what people think is quickness is actually extensive
| prep. I had a 30 minute meeting the other day to ask a team to do
| something I didn't think they would want to do. It ended up going
| really smoothly and they just took my word for it, but had they
| not, I spend several hours preparing for that meeting, gathering
| data, preparing charts to illustrate the data, thinking of the
| possible objections and responses to said objections.
|
| Many years ago my family was trying to see Letterman in NYC. I
| wasn't old enough, and we knew that going in. The night before,
| when I was supposed to be sleeping, I was going over what I
| thought I might need to know. When was my fake birthday, why
| don't I have an ID, etc. On the day, I was asked these questions
| by security and gave a quick and natural answer. Afterword my dad
| commented that I was really quick and good at thinking on my
| feet, but the truth was that I prepared.
| Desafinado wrote:
| Yep, in other words it's called true confidence, having genuine
| experience in the task at hand. It's something that can't be
| faked.
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| People fake it all the time though.
| Desafinado wrote:
| They do, but in most things the inauthenticity usually gets
| rooted out eventually when results aren't delivered.
|
| True confidence produces results.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Agree - I find that I never really have a good answer on the
| spot, but I often have already been thinking about the problems
| around the workplace for long enough that I at least have a
| hunch or opinion. That's not quick-wit, it's just pre-thinking.
| But it works well enough for me.
|
| One skill I learned during grad school was spending lots of
| time going over conversations or presentations or even upcoming
| meetings in your head. This "warms up" your cache, and helps
| you play out possible Q&A, so that you have more opinions
| ready.
|
| And another skill I learned was actually learning to control
| the meeting to a certain extent. I'd come in with something
| like a limited "choose your own adventure" conversation tree in
| my head, and then I'd try to present choices or questions to
| those I was meeting or talking with, so that I could at least
| have a fallback.
|
| And finally with experience comes wit. The 10th time you enter
| a situation you're much more likely to have something to say
| than the 1st time. And eventually, you'll start to recognize
| similarities in conversations.
|
| But yeah, lack of quick wit makes social and work situations
| more challenging. It's just hard to make myself have strong
| opinions on the spot usually.
| another-dave wrote:
| > Agree - I find that I never really have a good answer on
| the spot, but I often have already been thinking about the
| problems around the workplace for long enough that I at least
| have a hunch or opinion. That's not quick-wit, it's just pre-
| thinking. But it works well enough for me.
|
| I did debating in school and a lot of the prep was like this
| too -- once you have your position sketched out, you put on
| your 'opposition hat' and start to critique your own position
| for holes.
|
| Also, where in the HN guidelines it says -- Please respond to
| the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says,
| not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good
| faith. -- when you're prepping, you tend to do just the
| opposite: assume that someone _is_ going to attempt to
| respond to a weaker version that's easier to criticize.
|
| It can help you have a rebuttal on the ready if needed but
| regardless it also helps you to distill/reframe ideas in a
| way that's clearer from the outset (which is a good thing in
| & of itself, even if you don't have someone taking a counter
| position)
| theshrike79 wrote:
| This is exactly the reason all meetings should have an agenda
| posted beforehand. Not everyone is able to make decisions on
| the fly, they need the chance to prepare first.
| switch007 wrote:
| Agreed. IMO it's used as a tactic to catch people off guard,
| so the organiser can attend more prepared than anyone else,
| and get their way
|
| But the person who could enforce that all meetings must have
| an agenda probably also uses the lack of an agenda to their
| advantage, so the status quo continues
| swader999 wrote:
| Well most meetings should begin with a call to approve
| agenda with consideration for adding to it.
| c0pium wrote:
| That should be an email ahead of time.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| YEah, pre-caching is very much what I do.
|
| If you combine it with empathy skills: "What motivates this
| person", "What are their goals", "what are their
| interests/specialities" then you can work out a list of stock
| answers before hand, and alter them to suit the situation later
| on.
|
| You still need to listen, as there is a non trivial risk of
| your mental model being wrong.
| c0pium wrote:
| I loathe talking to people who rehearse the conversation
| ahead of time. They invariably don't respond to what I
| actually said but rather change what I said to line up with
| what they practiced in the mirror. Or they say some version
| of "I expected you to say foo, to which I would have
| responded bar". Cool story, but totally irrelevant.
|
| If you don't have an answer at the time just say so and
| follow up later. Waiting for your turn to talk is
| disrespectful and painful to watch.
| chris_wot wrote:
| "Waiting for your turn to talk is disrespectful and painful
| to watch."
|
| I'm not following... surely you don't mean interrupt the
| person speaking?
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Citizen asks a question, "Why are rents increasing so
| rapidly?"
|
| Politician sticks to his prepared talking points and
| riffs for fifteen minutes about something else.
|
| Citizen feels disrespected.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| Years ago I went to a thinktank event on drone policy,
| and the congressmen they brought in spent 15 minutes
| saying that we needed to start discussing the important
| conversation of beginning to plan our policy creation
| dialog.
|
| Nothing but hot air.
| Y_Y wrote:
| I think a lot of those think-tank guys have a policy to
| drone for as long as possible
| bluGill wrote:
| Many politicians over practice that. They need to have
| prepared talking points on everything. This often is
| different talking points on the same issue for different
| crowds: how you talk to religious fundamentalists about
| abortion is not how you talk to queer crowd - you will
| need to convince someone in one of the above crowds that
| despite one disagreement you are still worth voting for.
| Of course everything is impossible and you will offend
| someone (I used abortion as an example where you cannot
| win and so will want to skip), so it is tempting to avoid
| that: many politicians have plants who are asking a
| prepared question, always avoiding the hard issues while
| making a big deal about something small.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Sometimes you can tell that someone is not listening and
| thinking about what you said, but has their own statement
| ready and is simply waiting until they have a chance to
| say it.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Yeah, this is where empathy comes in. You need to read the
| person/people.
|
| I should have been more clear, its more of a template, than
| a stock answer. Having a cache of information is not the
| same as "not listening". You still need to listen and
| respond to the subject at hand.
|
| For example, you are having a meeting about door handles.
| You know there is a problem about the placing, but also one
| person is keen on changing the material because they like
| brass more. However brass is more expensive, so the team
| needs to agree a threshold at which it becomes practical to
| change to brass.
|
| Now, if you had fresh in your cache a list of reasons why
| brass might be useful, and why its not, you can be prepared
| to counter or boost "that one brass Guy"'s point of view.
|
| You don't go in and say "brass is shit yo" the subject
| might not come up.
| jghn wrote:
| > I should have been more clear, its more of a template,
| than a stock answer
|
| That and also there's no rule that says a person who is
| generating responses ahead of time has to stick to
| exactly one possibility. When preparing for conversations
| it's important to walk down multiple paths at multiple
| branch points.
|
| To the point you've been raising in this thread it is
| about being prepared to be sharp in a conversation, not
| to railroad the other person and/or come across like a
| politician on the Sunday AM talk shows.
| electrondood wrote:
| > You still need to listen
|
| I think you missed this part of the parent comment.
| recursive wrote:
| I think you loathe talking to people who do it badly.
|
| Doing it well is like playing live jazz. You can practice
| the song, but if you don't listen to what your bandmates
| are doing, your awesome rehearsed solo is going to be bad.
| swader999 wrote:
| This is so key. Ridiculous amounts of preparation is the only
| way I've mastered these critical conversations. I had to
| convince a bunch of cranky ski coaches to run a race in minus
| 30c weather at a team captains meeting before the race. I was
| able to recite the weather, time of sunrise, the exact time on
| the t bar, distance to the course, distance back to the lodge
| and so on.
| matwood wrote:
| 100%. Preparation is key. I never walk into a situation that
| matters without going over a ton of different paths the
| conversation could go. Even if the conversation goes down a
| path I didn't prepare for, the preparation was still helpful.
| Preparation looks like quick thinking, but it's not. It also
| very valuable at keeping your emotions in check, avoiding one
| of the common reasons conversations go off the rails.
| asciii wrote:
| My favorite line lately is: "Fail to prepare? Prepare to
| fail."
|
| Nothing against failing as both outcomes are good learning
| scenario, though I think, def favor preparing for the most
| interesting failure is probably the best outcome.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| Fail to plan, plan to fail.
| brudgers wrote:
| The reason to rehearse martial arts is to get in fewer fights.
| You spar to drive home the point that a fight entails the other
| person landing punches and all you will walk away with is some
| bruises.
|
| Nobody likes you more because you won the argument. "Yes, and..."
| is much better tool. Even when dealing with socio-paths because
| saying one thing and doing another is also useful.
|
| What I mean is that what works for me is to realize that my
| deficit is social skills. The solutions are negotiation and
| forbearance, not violence.
|
| Good luck.
| rcarr wrote:
| It's funny that you mention "yes and..." here because I've been
| going to as many improv lessons and jams as I possibly can over
| the last two months and my ability to socialize, memorise
| things and general mood has improved exponentially. I've
| literally had suicidal thoughts for years - all gone. I
| genuinely think modern society is really fucking us up and
| improv is the antidote. You're just allowed to be silly, have
| fun and be in the moment. It's all the social rules and fear
| that makes you withdrawn and slow. Improv helps you get rid of
| all that sludge.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > You're just allowed to be silly, have fun and be in the
| moment.
|
| That's still allowed outside of improv!
|
| > my ability to socialize, memorise things and general mood
| has improved exponentially
|
| But that does sound like a good outcome of your improv
| experience, definitely.
| brudgers wrote:
| HN introduced me to Yes-and. I've never done improv.
|
| Using it instead of the the-problem-with-that-is I was raised
| on has improved my life as well.
| codingdave wrote:
| I work at both extremes. I can make decisions on the fly, or I
| need time to think and analyze. So I just say where I'm at for
| any specific question. I'll tell people that I want to take some
| time to think about whatever the concern is, and most people are
| respectful of that.
|
| If you have a culture of async communication, that helps.
| thiago_fm wrote:
| It's a skill you can train, people that deal with customer
| service or sales tend to have it more developed.
|
| It is trainable because I was HORRIBLE at it, and now I can say
| I'm average/good, and I deliberately practiced.
|
| Also, if you are in management, you must exercise this more.
| Sometimes, you must make decisions quickly, and postponing them
| has consequences. One example that comes to mind is if a report
| misbehaves, you can't just let it go, you need to let them know
| about it (in private) quickly.
|
| One tip that helps is to think strategically: what are the first
| 3 steps? Or the most important 3 steps you could think of?
|
| Of course, your answer will have plenty of holes, but a good
| enough answer is typically good enough for those situations.
|
| You can train this daily with your other or family; talk with
| them, and instead of saying what is comfortable (the next token
| in your brain LLM), you try to say something better or more
| enjoyable.
|
| That will prompt you to think fast about a new solution.
|
| Like with blitz chess, if you want to improve at it, you need to
| play more using the fundamentals you know from the "slower"
| chess, which is what you already do now. It isn't as complex as
| you think, just more practice practice.
| aristofun wrote:
| I'm in the same shoes.
|
| I just avoid people and organizations that doesn't understand the
| value of deep vs quick thinking.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| Some of it is practice and training. I was always a "slow
| programmer" in the short term. Before I ever practiced
| algorithmic coding I could do say, fizzbuzz and two sum, but it
| might have taken me a good ten to fifteen minutes to really think
| it through, write out the code, and identify any bugs.
|
| After I decided to really dive into DS&A and do some interview
| prep, I really focused on speed and I got _so much faster_.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| Avoiding situations in which I need to think on the fly. If I'm
| playing a game, I play a turn based game, not a real time game.
| Why do what you're bad at and will never be great at?
|
| Sadly one of the places where quick wittedness is most essential
| is face to face social interaction so at some point you just have
| to bite the bullet and do things you're worse at than others.
| Zambyte wrote:
| > Why do what you're bad at and will never be great at?
|
| To find better between bad and great.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| > Why do what you're bad at and will never be great at?
|
| Because being good at things is not the be-all and end-all.
| Leftium wrote:
| Slow thinker here.
|
| When asked a question, I can give a great answer 10 minutes; an
| hour; a day later. It's not a full day of active thinking, but
| time is needed to "stew" in my mind for a while. So I give my
| best answer in the moment (which might be "I don't know"). Then I
| follow up with my awesome answer whenever it comes.
|
| Slow thinking makes conversation more difficult. Anything beyond
| 1:1 conversation usually means the conversation flies faster than
| I can think. I'm OK with that and just enjoy listening to the
| conversation and occasionally contributing. On rare occasion this
| makes other people uncomfortable. However I have generally
| surrounded myself with people who accept my quiet nature.
|
| Also slow thinking comes with its advantages. Embrace those.
| Despite being a slow thinker, my client repeatedly tells me that
| I deliver high-quality output really fast. He's always asking how
| I come up with these amazing ideas.
|
| ---
|
| Derek Sivers says he's "a very slow thinker:"
|
| > When someone wants to interview me for their show, I ask them
| to send me some questions a week in advance...
|
| > People say that your first reaction is the most honest, but I
| disagree. Your first reaction is usually outdated. Either it's an
| answer you came up with long ago and now use instead of thinking,
| or it's a knee-jerk emotional response to something in your past.
|
| > When you're less impulsive and more deliberate like this, it
| can be a little inconvenient for other people, but that's OK.
| Someone asks you a question. You don't need to answer. You can
| say, "I don't know," and take your time to answer after thinking.
| Things happen...
|
| HN discussion:
|
| - https://hw.leftium.com/#/item/35039358
|
| - https://hw.leftium.com/#/item/17694306
| digging wrote:
| > People say that your first reaction is the most honest, but I
| disagree. Your first reaction is usually outdated. Either it's
| an answer you came up with long ago and now use instead of
| thinking, or it's a knee-jerk emotional response to something
| in your past.
|
| This is a very good point that's worth, uh, pointing out.
|
| Being able to quickly reply is not necessarily a good thing.
| I've caught this in myself - making some witty response to a
| situation and then immediately realizing, "I haven't examined
| that opinion in years. I don't like it or believe it anymore. I
| wish I hadn't said that."
|
| But without vocalizing that introspection, it may just appear
| that I'm witty and, depending on the listener, a bit of an
| asshole. Actually I'm less of an asshole than I used to be, but
| sometimes you're getting old data which hasn't been cleaned up
| yet.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| The way I've heard it phrased:
|
| "The first thought that goes through your mind is what you have
| been conditioned to think, what you think next defines who you
| are."
| __lbracket__ wrote:
| At work, you can buy reasonable time: "let me get back to you"
|
| Outside work, people remember/invite people who are empathetic
| and/or fun to be around, not those who win arguments. In fact
| argument winners tend to annoy people more.
|
| There are very few high-stakes situations where quick thinking is
| crucial. What most people mistake for quick thinking (say
| averting a mishap during airplane landing) is trained muscle
| memory, which comes from long prep.
| rightbyte wrote:
| When trying to be funny, quick thinking is crucial. I think
| that is about it.
| holografix wrote:
| Knowing this about yourself and accepting it is already a great
| win.
|
| Lots of good advice here so won't repeat it. Only thing I have to
| add is, allow yourself some time to think in front of people. Be
| ok with a long pause and be assertive in making other people wait
| for your answer.
|
| In a slightly competitive or confrontational situation, typically
| at work, I go as far as telling people: "hang on a second, let me
| finish." Or "you're bouncing around so much I don't know what's
| actually important" because often someone will keep pushing their
| agenda and/or cut me off and win social credit from onlookers. So
| I rebalance that power dynamic.
|
| But a softer approach also works of course. "That's interesting
| and I have lots to say about it, let me get back to you"
| perrygeo wrote:
| I've found that people who appear quick-witted are either
| external processors (they like to "talk out loud" and steer their
| thought process by group reaction) and/or they are deeply
| prepared for this exact challenge from past experiences. It's
| exceedingly rare to meet a true polymath who can contribute
| quickly and meaningfully on just any random topic.
| annie_muss wrote:
| I have taken a properly administered IQ test. I scored 135 in one
| area and 89 in another. My main issue is I have very poor working
| memory. Luckily, we have technology to compensate for our
| deficiencies.
|
| * I write everything down on calendars, to do lists, planners
| etc. * I have a smart speaker in every room so I can capture
| pieces of information as soon as I know about them. * I use many
| different kinds of timers to remind me of tasks, or to switch
| tasks from one to another. * I use checklists to help complete
| daily processes.
|
| The best thing you can do is acknowledge your weaknesses, reflect
| on situations where you struggle and find specific techniques or
| processes that improve the outcome for you. It won't happen
| overnight. Good luck!
| orng wrote:
| The only insight IQ tests can give you is that anyone who gives
| them any merit is either a moron or uninformed.
| tasuki wrote:
| Why?
| erinaceousjones wrote:
| This is quite a dismissive stance, and I understand the
| context behind it: IQ was devised to measure broad population
| academic performance for schoolkids and has big flaws in how
| it measures that.
|
| But it still has merit as another psychological test battery
| you can do to determine areas in which you may struggle to
| process information.
|
| My working memory sucks [compared to the standard for my age
| range and demographic]. I've had access to stuff like RBANS
| (Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological
| Status), through psychologist friends working in memory
| clinics. IQ tests correlate that finding, and are much more
| readily available (ie. free and not locked behind
| institutional firewalls).
|
| Sure, the most thorough IQ tests are paywalled, but as a
| concept it's readily available online, though tests will
| yield you huge variation in scores.
|
| We can choose not to treat IQ as a tool to compare ourselves
| to other people, but rather as a tool to identify our own
| strengths and weaknesses within different areas of the test.
| Ignore the single score at end of test, think on what felt
| hard, and performance in the score breakdown.
|
| I would love to see more (better designed, statically
| rigorous) neuropsychological assessments become open and free
| to access. It would definitely have helped me growing up as
| an unknown AuDHD kid, to understand I really wasn't "a bright
| kid just making excuses for things I don't want to do".
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| That's the only insight IQ _scores_ can give you. But each IQ
| test tests for _something_ , and IQ being a bunk concept
| doesn't invalidate that.
|
| Reading comprehension tests test end-to-end ability to
| process that test and those questions in this circumstance.
| What comes next? tests test your ability to understand and
| solve a particular set of puzzles: they're a decent proxy for
| pattern-recognition skills if you share cultural context with
| the test author and can handle the administrative overhead of
| that style of examination. And so on. It's nonsense to give
| yourself some overall score at the end (though this _can_
| make sense for populations), but that doesn 't mean the
| _tests_ are worthless.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| > IQ being a bunk concept
|
| It's not.
| iraqmtpizza wrote:
| If IQ was a bunk concept then the US military could save
| tens of billions of dollars a year by admitting people
| who don't meet the current threshold. Imagine the
| promotion you'd get for saving tens of billions a year,
| every year, in perpetuity.
| cdrini wrote:
| I recently shifted my opinion on IQ tests a bit after
| watching a recent Veritasium video. He goes into the
| background/history/controversy of the test as well as some of
| the concrete impacts of the test and places where it's used.
| For example did you know the US military has an IQ minimum
| cutoff? And furthermore they have a second 'soft' cutoff,
| where only 20% of the military can have an IQ under a certain
| value. In the past they tried removing this second
| restriction, but had to reinstate it after seeing increases
| in casualties/indicators of reduced efficiency! So are IQ
| tests everything? No. But do they have no merit? Also no.
| It's somewhere in between.
|
| Would highly recommend a watch
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=FkKPsLxgpuY
| faeriechangling wrote:
| IQ tests being invalid is more politics than science. Among
| other things, rejecting the existence of cognitive
| inequality is necessary to justify systemic racism via the
| continued existence of Asian quotas (Affirmative Action).
| Since lots of people benefit from this racism, there's a
| huge interest in denial. In western countries, when there's
| a few billion people in Asia, and you let a tiny amount in
| gatekeeping them on the basis of education/wealth/skills,
| it isn't really all that much of a shock that they and
| their children are smarter then average. The only way this
| could NOT happen is if Asians were LESS intelligent than
| other groups on average.
|
| IQ tests are hilariously predictive of success if you're
| doing a task which is similar to taking an IQ test like
| academics. They strongly indicate certain mental disorders.
| Low IQ is more predictive of success than High IQ. Maybe
| people take the difference between scoring a FSIQ of 110 vs
| 140 entirely too seriously, but the difference between
| somebody with 60 vs 90 is staggering.
| indigoabstract wrote:
| > Low IQ is more predictive of success than High IQ.
|
| I'm curious what you meant by that. Could you please
| explain?
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| A very low IQ has a very clear and predictable effect on
| life. A very high IQ does not.
| indigoabstract wrote:
| Ah, I see. Ever the optimist, I was imagining the low IQ
| folks had maybe found some unexpected ways to compensate.
|
| Thanks.
| timfsu wrote:
| Not OP, but I understood that to mean any difference in
| IQ below average (100) has a high impact on success, but
| differences above 100 have relatively less impact
| Bagged2347 wrote:
| I think their point is a low IQ nearly always means low
| success, but a high IQ doesn't always mean high success.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| IQ tests are weakly predictive of academic success,
| especially on the high end (1SD+). In general, it only
| predicts 8-25% of variance, even when looking in both
| directions. That's pretty bad, an average exam does a far
| better job.
|
| Additionally, the IQ of second generation Asian
| immigrants will revert to the mean. Not only that, but
| the advtange decreases rapidly as they age, while the
| academic advantage grows. And the advantage to begin with
| is very small - average Asian IQ is only about 2.5 points
| higher than for Whites, even looking at all generations
| together.
|
| Given the impact of early childhood environment on IQ,
| and the huge disparity in academic effort across
| cultures, esp. those that constitute Asian immigrants,
| it's pretty clear that the idea that the disparity in
| Asian achievement cannot be explained by an inherited
| intelligence advantage. All the data is much more
| consistent with a culture that just drives students to
| study far harder.
|
| This does make the argument that affirmative action is
| harmful even stronger, actually. There is no need to fall
| back to terrible science to do it. The idea that IQ isn't
| terribly useful is because it isn't terribly useful,
| except in very rare cases for diagnosis. The current
| scientific consensus is consistent with an even stronger
| argument that AA unfairly discriminates against Asian
| students.
| tordrt wrote:
| Not happy with your results eh?
| dang wrote:
| Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? Comments
| like this break the guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| You're welcome to make substantive points thoughtfully, of
| course, whatever you're for or against.
| cromulent wrote:
| > I have taken a properly administered IQ test. I scored 135 in
| one area and 89 in another. My main issue is I have very poor
| working memory.
|
| This correlates with ADHD.
| ParetoOptimal wrote:
| Do you have very good spatial memory? I find working memory is
| low for me unless its something spatial like a route I've run
| once 20 years ago.
| mrangle wrote:
| If you are smart yet "slow thinking", you may have a minor
| cognitive difference (disability). It's common. Consider that
| this supposed "slow thinking" instead could be "slow audio input
| processing" or similar. Do you have trouble understanding
| conversation when there is background noise like other
| conversation?
|
| As others have mentioned "pre-thinking" or preparation will be
| the solution whenever possible.
|
| If you suspect a language processing issue, get it confirmed so
| that you can plan around it.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| I ask people to email me about the topic, then I spend a while
| thinking about it before answering.
|
| Also, I try to never fire off a reply to an email without 1.
| writing a first draft, 2. thinking about something else, then 3.
| revising my draft.
| Alifatisk wrote:
| I don't know how I ended up as a slow thinker but here I am. I
| compensate my lack of quick-wittedness by preparing, other times
| I just ask people to send me the stuff they need and want
| instead, that way I can take my time and have everything in
| control.
|
| I hope this is something I can train away though, because
| thinking slow in-front of others is kinda embarrassing.
| osullip wrote:
| Don't speak.
|
| People fill voids and awkward situations by saying stuff, even if
| that stuff is wrong.
|
| It's OK to be quiet. It's also OK to say 'Let me think about
| that'.
|
| Lose some arguments.
|
| And unless the situation you are in that requires a quick
| decision is life or death, it probably doesn't need one.
| matwood wrote:
| > Don't speak.
|
| Great advice. Nothing shows confidence more than asking a
| question and then waiting for answer. Let the awkward silence
| sit.
|
| And when you do speak, keep answers short and to the point. It
| also conveys confidence.
|
| Anytime I see/hear someone rambling in email/on meeting, I know
| they are not confident in what they are saying.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| > Let the awkward silence sit.
|
| I'd argue its far better to say something like, "Good
| question. I need to think about that for a minute" rather
| than just sit there saying nothing at all after being asked
| something. I know a few engineers who do that and while their
| answer is normally fine, the awkward silence makes me and
| others question their social skills. Not their intelligence.
|
| I know other engineers who do the same thing but say, "Let me
| think about that for a minute" and I've never heard of anyone
| questioning their ability to think quickly or social skills.
|
| What you are suggesting is not wrong, its just a bit.. rude?
| awkward? Why impose that feeling on others when a clarifying
| sentence can prevent it?
| NegativeK wrote:
| I've seen an interviewer react negatively to a CISO
| candidate who wanted to actually think about our question.
|
| Nobody paid attention to that interviewer, but they're
| probably not the only one in the panel to have that (wrong,
| in my opinion) reaction -- just the one to voice it.
| matwood wrote:
| I said when you are the question asker, give the person
| time to answer. Too often, particularly in challenging
| conversations, the asker will not wait for an answer.
|
| When you are the answerer, yes, do what you suggest but try
| not to ramble.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| This is the best advice.
|
| The best impromptu speakers, who can carry debates and thrive
| on off the cuff arguments, in my experience were full of
| shit. When I critically look at what they said, it usually
| boiled down to: (a) if you're not with us, then you are
| against us (b) you just need to believe, work harder, and
| stop complaining.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| >Anytime I see/hear someone rambling in email/on meeting, I
| know they are not confident in what they are saying.
|
| Well then you are dismissing people unfairly. You won't hear
| a peep out of me if I don't know the answer. On the other
| hand, if I have mountains of data that proves my point, or if
| the problem is nuanced, you'll hear all of it.
|
| I'm working on getting better at distilling that data into
| short, actionable points for people like VPs (because I'm now
| at the level where these people read what I write).
|
| But if you were to assume that I'm not confident, based on my
| inability to boil it down, you'd be drawing the wrong
| conclusion. You should listen to me because I'm nearly always
| right, and when I'm wrong, I'm usually the first to identify
| that fact and provide a solution.
|
| Also I am autistic, which certainly impacts my communication.
| electrondood wrote:
| This is the correct answer, and actually addresses the
| question.
|
| I tell people "I don't make decisions on the spot," or "I need
| to consider it, I'll respond by end of day," etc.
| reportgunner wrote:
| I would say two things:
|
| - stop thinking of yourself as slow thinker/fast thinker
|
| - decide if you want to be able to think fast or not and either
| avoid situations where you have to think fast or seek such
| situations to practice and get better
| jmkni wrote:
| Something was said...not good...
| ergonaught wrote:
| Depends on the context. I'm slower than I used to be (aging I
| suppose), but, uh:
|
| 1) Prep/rehearsal
|
| 2) Delay ("I'll have that for you on [later]")
|
| 3) Snark ("If it doesn't matter let's just flip for it")
|
| 4) Silence, then spend the next 8 weeks mentally rehearsing and
| regretting and beating myself up
|
| If it's literally just "quick wit", sometimes I have it,
| sometimes I don't, my wife always destroys me and I can only
| acknowledge greatness.
|
| For myself, outside of prep/rehearsal, I generally only have
| "quick answers" if it's a situation where I either have a
| heuristic I trust ("Budget for that department needs to be 20% of
| top line revenue in most situations"), or a value that makes the
| decision for me ("We can 10x our profits if we poison these 17
| children, should we do it?" has a quick "No").
| acidpanda wrote:
| There's advantages to slow thinking. Great for strategy and
| problem solving because you'll have the patience for it, but
| lacking in the improvisation dept.
|
| Then again all you can do is practice.
| topbanana wrote:
| I'll get back to you on that
| dijit wrote:
| This is something that's easy to have an opinion on so you're
| going to get buried.
|
| I'll do my best to make a high-signal comment here, but it will
| be drowned by all the other replies, which also likely touch on
| these points.
|
| First, "slow-thinking" is really just a different way of
| expressing your thinking and you should begin by leaning into it
| rather than leaning away. Take time, allow yourself to pause to
| collect your thoughts. People often interpret quietness (not
| filler) as intelligence and maturity (because usually it is).
| Alternatively _not_ answering is also valid.
|
| Second, as a person who is generally regarded as quick-witted and
| sharp, most of that sharpness comes from either having a few pre-
| known responses to ideas or anxiously revising situations in my
| head ahead of time. This is, generally, a _bad thing_ because it
| means I have made decisions on how I will respond to things
| without all of the information (as some will come over during
| conversation). Methodically thinking things through, fresh, is
| probably the only realistic way to be open minded.
|
| Finally, do your best to avoid situations where a "quick
| decision" is needed; this is good advice even for "quick
| thinkers". Fast decisions are often poor ones - the counterpoint
| to that is dragging something out over many weeks or across many
| meetings - but putting yourself in a situation where the unknowns
| become knowns or the scope of the landscape and weight of the
| decision can be properly assessed is important. What's better is
| that you will likely be able to have a better paper trail for
| this.
|
| One absolutely final piece of advice: Avoid using the word
| "slow", use "deliberate" instead.
| paulsutter wrote:
| "I'm a disappointing person to try to debate or attack. I just
| have nothing to say in the moment, except maybe, 'Good point.'
| Then a few days later, after thinking about it a lot, I have a
| response" - Derek Sivers (https://sive.rs/slow)
|
| This sounds very admirable to me
| 10729287 wrote:
| Phenomenon also known as Esprit de l'escalier :
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier
|
| I suffer from it myself and i'm definitely better at
| answering by email than in an oral discussion when i'm
| overwhelmed by thoughts and can't focus on one.
| eastbound wrote:
| Finally enough, the French expression is "presence
| d'esprit".
|
| Only few people in France know about this sequence
| involving Diderot and the king, and I only know about it
| because I've lived in... California.
| lqet wrote:
| Just this morning I listened to a radio interview with
| pianist Igor Levit. It was excruciating. He had to think for
| seconds before every third word in a sentence, creating
| awkward pauses, and when he had finally finished an answer,
| he had only transmitted trivial content. I am sure that if
| they had sent him the questions a few days earlier, he could
| have prepared much more interesting and eloquent answers. I
| felt very bad for him, because I recognized myself. If you
| ask me a question I haven't thought of, I _usually_ have an
| answer ready immediately. The problem is that I either don 't
| like the answer, or don't know if the answer is correct, and
| I would like to have time to refine it, think about it, check
| it.
|
| Major problems then arise if I have already started to
| _answer_ the question to avoid an awkward pause, and realize
| several words in I don 't like the answer. Finding a way out
| of the words you have started then feels like texting while
| driving along the road with 100 km/h.
|
| I have been in several interview situations in my life
| (including two on national radio), and the ones that went
| well were usually the ones where I either knew the questions
| beforehand, or in which I was asked questions I had already
| thought of and memorized an interesting answer.
| specialist wrote:
| Yes and: I would expect a show's producers and editors to
| fix those pauses.
| erehweb wrote:
| Interview might be live. But yes, ideally producer would
| have caught this before a live interview.
| lqet wrote:
| It was live. But I would've expected that they had a
| conversation discussing possible topics / questions
| beforehand (large and established radio station with over
| 2 million listeners). These awkward pauses would've been
| spotted then already. Maybe they had, and he was more
| relaxed and eloquent there, or maybe his schedule didn't
| allow for a pre-interview meeting.
| bluGill wrote:
| Even if there wasn't time, he should have practiced
| interviews before and so been comfortable even if the
| exact topic is new.
|
| He should always be prepared to talk about his first
| interest in music. His first time touching a piano. Why
| he choose piano (which may have been his parents forcing
| it at first). What other instruments he plays. What is
| favorite music is. Details about whatever piece is
| performing now (maybe spoilers on what he is practicing
| but not yet performing). Ideally he should listen to
| modern music so he can connect to kids by talking about
| something popular today (maybe even play a piano
| arrangement of it).
|
| Those are the basics that he should have an easy time
| talking about. If he unexpectedly wins an award he didn't
| expect to be in competition for he might be speechless,
| but for the above the answers should be easy.
| digging wrote:
| ... _if_ he _wants_ to be good at giving interviews. He
| can also be happy being a pianist who isn 't good at
| giving interviews.
| bluGill wrote:
| But then he shouldn't have granted an interview in the
| first place. He should also expect that because he isn't
| self promoting like that he is soon passed over for piano
| playing positions (despite how good he may otherwise be)
| and has to find a non-playing job (teaching is common).
| His current job requires him to be good at interviews. If
| he wants to keep this job he needs to get good at it fast
| - it may already be too late.
|
| Now if he decides giving interviews isn't what he wants
| to do and thus switching to a different job where he
| doesn't have to give interviews (and also will not play
| publicly much) is the right choice I will not fault him
| for that. It is his choice and his alone.
| digging wrote:
| > His current job requires him to be good at interviews
|
| I see. I had no idea that was a requirement of being a
| professional pianist. This all read as incredibly
| pointless with me thinking that interviews were a side
| thing for a pianist.
| bluGill wrote:
| Politicians do mock interviews all the time to prepare.
| Everyone else expecting to be interviewed should as well.
| If you put some effort into it you can think up 98% of the
| questions you might be asked - the only question is what
| order they will ask and how much detail they want. So you
| practice someone asking those questions and you responding
| - sometimes they will ask clarifying questions, sometimes
| not, but again you know the topic and you have rehearsed
| everything you want to say. In the end for a 10 minute
| interview you should have 2 hours worth of answers
| rehearsed. Not memorized, but rehearsed. You should change
| the exact words you use, but the ideas you are trying to
| say are already in your mind and so easy to do.
|
| Remember too that you can redirect questions. They might
| never ask about your best friend as a kid, but you have
| rehearsed the story of something you did and that story can
| be used as an example for 20 different questions. While
| telling that story you don't really need to think about it
| so instead you get that entire time to figure out the
| conclusion where you tie the story back to the question.
|
| Being interviewed is a skill. You can practice it.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| I've always been this way. It turns out that it makes for
| incredibly boring conversation, because all I can say is "oh
| wow that's cool" but have nothing else to offer lol. It's
| also terrible in interviews.
|
| If it were intentional, I could see it being admirable. But I
| do wish I could think a bit more on the spot in some
| situations.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Note: Some of us spend way to much time "playing chess" with
| problems, particularly people, and many times, the quick
| responses I have are because of that. It doesn't mean I'm set
| in my ways or making irrational choices, but like someone
| studying a chess position, sometimes all you're waiting for is
| the next move.
|
| But, externally, no one's gonna see this shit so it's just
| something one has to get comfortable knowing about themselves
| but not other people. We often advise people a "lowest common
| denominator" type of logic because philosophically, it's
| impossible to know what the actual fuck.
| gryn wrote:
| yes, I think you both agree with each other. good thinking is
| an inherently slow process.
|
| the way to get fast is to do some caching, if you already
| explored the domain and stored the answers for it you can
| just remember the information.
|
| the problem is when the caching is done wrong. you explored
| only a subset but thought you explored everything.
|
| the other kind of fast thinking is when you go bullshiter
| route and act like an LLM you fast interpolate between known
| data-points without system2 validation and give plausible
| looking answers with full confidence, you'd be amazed by how
| many people get fooled by this.
| buggythebug wrote:
| "Avoid 'quick decision' situations"
|
| That's a great way to hear god laugh. Jokes aside - if the
| quick decision can be "walked back" or is not detrimental if
| you decide wrong then it doesn't matter and you should probably
| decide quickly to get through the "maze of life"
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| "deliberate" is an excellent point. I often have gaps in my
| conversation trying to think of just the right word(s) to
| describe "thing". I dislike filler umms and aahs so I just wait
| until the right word comes - deliberately. Thoughtfully.
|
| And when it's come out how I want it to, it's understandable to
| the third parties. Deliberate equates to clear and
| intelligible.
| globalnode wrote:
| quite helpful advice, i like the term "deliberate". i am
| actually starting to see my relative slow thinking as a sort of
| super power. i can chew things over and think hard about
| something before coming to an opinion. its not always the best
| opinion but at least i know ive given it a good shot
| neuralRiot wrote:
| People usually think we're slow, but I believe is exactly the
| opposite, when in a meeting or in a group discussion I almost
| always know what others will say, and how everything will go
| on including outcomes and failures, but since it's obvious
| for me, I think it is for everyone so never say anything
| unless directly asked.
|
| In response to OP, to me the exercise that helped me the most
| is to put myself into situations where a quick decision is
| needed but in case of a mistake the consequences are not that
| bad, just like in drama theatre you get better at
| improvisation by not having a script to follow.
| ImageXav wrote:
| This is all great advice. One thing I would add to this is to
| deliberately steer your team to avoid making big decisions on
| calls or in meetings. Instead, make it so that your team
| prioritises asynchronous communication methods to discuss the
| lay of the land, and only make decisions after everyone has had
| time to contribute to the discussion.
|
| I've found that creating a shared document or flowchart can
| work wonders if key team members engage and build upon it. And
| once everyone has said their share you can then have a meeting
| to discuss how to progress. I've found this method to work well
| as you can take your time to reply to suggestions and comments
| and research them better. It also removes and element of
| emotionality from the decision making: everyone can see the
| suggestions and counter points, but the conversation is often
| less defensive and more considered as people have time to
| second guess themselves. So by the time you hold the meeting
| the benefits and drawbacks of the contending options in meeting
| your goals are clearer.
| reddiky wrote:
| > _Finally, do your best to avoid situations where a "quick
| decision" is needed; this is good advice even for "quick
| thinkers". Fast decisions are often poor ones - the
| counterpoint to that is dragging something out over many weeks
| or across many meetings - but putting yourself in a situation
| where the unknowns become knowns or the scope of the landscape
| and weight of the decision can be properly assessed is
| important. What's better is that you will likely be able to
| have a better paper trail for this._
|
| If you have to make a 'quick decision', one of the pieces of
| advice I've heard is to try to make the smallest possible good
| decision that will move the ball forward. Often getting started
| is enough to provide more information needed to make a better
| long term decision, but making the best possible, smallest
| decision will rarely get you into trouble.
| gopher2000 wrote:
| It's a fair point but I'd caution that making the "smallest
| possible good decision" really needs emphasis on _good_ and
| not _smallest_ or this results in just delaying. And there 's
| a ton of people that cause delays. Especially in the
| corporate world.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| I think delaying is the point. You delay the
| "immediateness" so you can form a nuanced opinion without
| urgency.
|
| I know we can't always change the world we live in, but we
| can at least acknowledge it. In the corporate world people
| really like to pretend there is a fire, when few things are
| truly urgent. If you can keep the sky from falling down
| with a quick and small scoped decision, you free up time to
| make big and long term decisions slowly.
| saltcured wrote:
| This seems like it is tapping into the same risk management
| strategy as in Agile methods? Essentially allowing for more
| frequent course correction. I assume "small" here blurs
| together cost and latency .
|
| The tradeoff of this kind of incremental planning and
| execution is that it becomes more reactive and myopic. You
| can end up stuck at a local maxima or worse, just executing a
| random walk.
|
| I think a large part of becoming "quick" in an effective way
| is to improve your triage skills. This is a meta-decision
| process where you quickly estimate the time-dependent risks
| and priorities.
| alentred wrote:
| All great advice. Avoiding the situations that require the
| "quick thinking" is not always possible, but this advice holds
| in a general case as well.
|
| More that anything else I agree with a) taking the time, and b)
| keeping an option to avoid the answer altogether.
|
| I don't know if I qualify as a "slow" or "fast" thinker - I
| actually think that no one qualifies as either and it all
| depends on your experience in the topic at hand - but I have my
| share of situations where I cannot get my thoughts together.
| With --age-- experience I taught myself to feel comfortable
| with taking my time (reasonable amount, though) or just saying
| "let me think of it and come back to you later" (if I feel the
| pause can become unreasonably long). Most people I am
| surrounded with understand and accept it well.
| takinola wrote:
| As someone that falls on the "deliberate" thinking side of the
| spectrum, I found that it helps to ask questions in the moment
| rather than proffer ideas. When presented new information, I
| try to understand the following:
|
| 1. How can I tell if this information is true ie what else
| would need to be true if this is correct?
|
| 2. If this is true, what are the implications of this new data
| ie what has changed in our plans?
|
| 3. Given these implications, what do I need to do different?
|
| I find that questions around these help me (and the rest of the
| audience) better understand the issue very quickly and help me
| get up to speed quickly.
| nprateem wrote:
| > most of that sharpness comes from either having a few pre-
| known responses to ideas or anxiously revising situations in my
| head ahead of time
|
| That's not that cause for me. I just grasp things quickly.
|
| > Avoid using the word "slow", use "deliberate" instead.
|
| That sounds inclusive but isn't what Kahneman meant. Slow
| thinking is when you leave it to your subconscious, so the only
| deliberate thing would be to give it time and put your
| conscious mind elsewhere. So in that way the two terms wouldn't
| be interchangeable in a 'Thinking fast and slow' sense.
| jebarker wrote:
| > Finally, do your best to avoid situations where a "quick
| decision" is needed
|
| I find this easier said than done. I dislike most meetings
| because I don't think quickly enough to keep up and contribute
| to the discussion. That often means that others will make
| decisions that I could have contributed usefully to before I've
| had the chance to think deliberately about the question.
| jonshariat wrote:
| To add to this, in a work setting, you can request that the
| deck being presenting is sent in advance to give time for
| people who think like this time to think and make the real time
| meeting much more productive.
| Shugarl wrote:
| > First, "slow-thinking" is really just a different way of
| expressing your thinking and you should begin by leaning into
| it rather than leaning away. Take time, allow yourself to pause
| to collect your thoughts. People often interpret quietness (not
| filler) as intelligence and maturity (because usually it is).
| Alternatively not answering is also valid.
|
| From experience, it doesn't work, especially in a group
| setting. People usually end up trying to guess what you want to
| say, or add on to what they said, or move on, or something. But
| they very rarely just wait patiently for me to think things
| through.
| nostrademons wrote:
| > Second, as a person who is generally regarded as quick-witted
| and sharp, most of that sharpness comes from either having a
| few pre-known responses to ideas or anxiously revising
| situations in my head ahead of time. This is, generally, a bad
| thing because it means I have made decisions on how I will
| respond to things without all of the information (as some will
| come over during conversation).
|
| I'd challenge that. I think that being both quick and sharp
| comes from having an accurate mental model of _what kind of
| information is important for the decision_. When new
| information comes in, you don 't discount it, but you have an
| intuitive feel for how much it should affect your priors.
|
| For example, say that your team works on a minor page of a
| major tech product, say something that only gets 0.1% of
| traffic. Your TL reports back that a change they made to an ads
| widget on the page drops conversions by 20%. The change was
| done in service of a visual design consistency effort across
| the company. Normally a drop in conversions by 20% would be an
| immediate no-go, but knowing that the page only gets 0.1% of
| traffic, you can run the math and figure this is a 0.02%
| decrease in revenue, almost imperceptible.
|
| Now imagine that the news was that 3 other key products in the
| company are dropping the visual consistency effort. The right
| move here is probably to cancel the project, because if you go
| ahead with it but others don't, you actually make the
| consistency _worse_. You can 't know that without knowing the
| context and reasoning behind the initial decision. Normally,
| when an unrelated product cancels a project, it doesn't matter
| to you.
| jddj wrote:
| Try to be well slept
| spacecadet wrote:
| There is nothing special or impressive about quick wittedness. I
| have at times had moments of whit that has led to achievements,
| but when reflecting on the outcomes, the whit alone was nothing
| compared to everything else that unfolded after. To me, people
| who are quick to throw out "whit", are:
|
| - Not paying attention and thinking about what THEY can say next
| - Are not listening/respecting the room. - Typically not asking
| the "right questions" and pushing shit forward to be "cool"...
|
| I would avoid over indexing here and instead aim for skills like,
| Active Listening, Making Space (for thinking too), Cooperative
| Collaboration. When I deploy these over whit, my products and
| teams succeed more often.
|
| The last crunchy thing I'll say here- which I say here all the
| time. This is a symptom of our modern world/social media. Don't
| fall prey. We see people all around us throwing out ideas,
| projecting success... It's all BS. Amplified by the platforms.
| rerdavies wrote:
| One of the great secrets of jazz improvisation is to learn how
| not to self-edit. When improvising, you don't have the time to
| think about what whether you're doing is good or not. You just
| have to play. In context, over the fretboard, while playing live
| music, self-editing doesn't bring much extra value.
|
| Could that be at the root of your problem? Don't labor over
| whether what you say is right or not. Just put it out there, and
| you will be right almost all the time. Everyone understands that
| quick-thinking produces less accurate results. Be less worried
| about being wrong. You can always have a slow think afterwards
| and change your mind.
| dustingetz wrote:
| preparation, rehearsal, role play,
|
| delay tactics: take sip of water, ask a clarifying question
|
| frame inversion: go on offense, reflect the attention to them-
| study the dialogue in super hero movies between the hero and
| villain
| gadders wrote:
| I think try and come up with coping skills/phrases to say.
|
| "You know what - my first answer is rarely my best one. Can I
| mull it over and get back to you by [end of day/tomorrow
| morning/next Monday]?"
|
| This is for questions in meetings. Actual arguments might be
| harder.
| kypro wrote:
| I'm not sure I'm a slow thinker, but I often over think which
| causes me to delay output. I also struggle with word recall which
| compounds my issues with real-time communication. This is
| something I tried to seek some advice on the other day without
| much luck, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39512837
|
| Regardless of whether I'm a slow thinker or not though, we have
| the exact same problem in that my ability to answer questions on
| the spot is probably comparable to someone with an IQ in the
| 80-90 range, while my actual IQ is likely somewhere around 130.
|
| The only thing that I can realistically do is just reject to
| answer certain questions on the spot. Normally I'll say something
| like, "I'm sorry, I'd need to think about that a bit and get back
| to you", but obviously whether or not this is appropriate will
| depend on the context - you can't say this in an interview, for
| example.
|
| I'm also autistic and something I've learnt in life is that when
| you have such divergent abilities really have no option but to
| play to your strengths. There are always things you can do to
| improve where your ability is lacking, but realistically you're
| not going to be able to completely alter the way your mind works.
| The better strategy is just to appreciate the ways you excel and
| try your best to use your strengths to add value to the
| situations you find yourself in.
|
| So for me I think my ability to go away and reflect on problems
| is excellent, so if this is an option for me that's what I'll try
| to do. So maybe your strength just isn't in real-time debates?
| Maybe you're better at making your arguments via blog posts, or
| if this is at work perhaps you're good at going away, thinking
| about something and then writing up a proposal with your
| reasoning.
|
| The other way this effects me which I'll briefly comment on is my
| ability to joke and have small talk. Because I'm not very witty
| and I'm autistic I can naturally come off as a bit cold and
| detached in conversations. I deal with this by trying to
| overcompensate for my natural coldness by smiling and showing
| appreciation for people so they know I'm not cold because I don't
| like them, I'm just a bit socially awkward. I don't know if you
| have the same problem, but this helps me a ton at work. I think
| people who lack social wit often fall into trap of thinking that
| they can't be likeable people, but really the reason they're not
| likeable is because they make people feel uncomfortable around
| them. In my experience people kinda like awkward people when
| they're friendly and positive to be around. There's lots of
| examples of lovable awkward characters in popular media that
| might come to mind and be good models to try to replicate in your
| own interactions.
| mrblampo wrote:
| Try not to worry about what others think of you, and definitely
| don't think about IQ. Judgment is so much more important than
| speed. Why are you concerned with speedy thinking?
| 2d8a875f-39a2-4 wrote:
| There are a lot of other good answers here. My 2c:
|
| People will use all kinds of tactics to get their way. Putting
| you under time pressure, bombarding you with a stream of precise
| facts and figures, making you feel slow and stupid and out of
| sync; these are all just ploys used by a hostile counterparty to
| influence your decision making.
|
| You need to learn to recognize these tactics for what they are
| and develop counter measures.
|
| Some "honorable" counter measures might be: demand to be sent the
| details in writing and promise a decision in a reasonable amount
| of time. Buy time by repeating back what they just said to you
| "to make sure you understand". Ask a lot of clarifying questions.
| Make your decision conditional ("I'll buy in if you can provide
| me with data set X that supports your direction"). etc.
|
| For less honorable counter measures just think of "bad meeting"
| tropes. Appeal to authority ("we can't make a decision without
| person Y here, or without committee Z signing off"). Bike
| shedding. Circular reasoning. etc. You really shouldn't make a
| habit of any of these, but sometimes when you're ambushed by a
| bad faith actor you're gonna need to fight dirty.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| My favorite counter measure is to say I have to drop and run to
| a different meeting. Please send me an email with the relevant
| points and state what you want.
| elif wrote:
| Tell my wife the retort I should have come up with 10 minutes
| earlier, and remind myself that good decisions that truly matter
| are still just as good the next day.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Observing other people I interact with often and learn their
| motivational flows and behavioral patterns. People telegraph a
| lot once you take the time to study them.
|
| I also cultivate a measure of unpredictability in myself to slow
| other people down by defying their assumptions.
| Xcelerate wrote:
| As other commenters have mentioned, I've noticed that people
| generally tend to fall into one of two groups: those who think
| out loud and those who process internally. (And I don't know if
| it's a coincidence or not, but almost all of the managers I have
| had in my career have been the former.)
|
| I tend to think internally, and while I usually have a clear
| vision in my head of how a system works, if I try to translate
| that mental model on-the-fly into an explanation for others, it
| typically comes out as an incoherent jumble of loosely related
| phrases.
|
| To that extent, I much prefer written communication. It gives me
| time to convert the thoughts in my head into English, and I
| typically iterate on what I've written down quite a few times
| until I'm satisfied with it (including Hacker News comments for
| example).
|
| The one exception to being a "slow thinker" is if the discussion
| involves a topic I know very well and someone says something that
| is incorrect or inconsistent. While I can't necessarily
| articulate my own ideas immediately on the spot, I do seem to be
| able to quickly identify and explain flaws in deductive reasoning
| or come up with examples that highlight inconsistencies.
|
| I'm not sure I necessarily like that my brain defaults to looking
| for flaws in arguments rather than reasons to support them, but
| my own internal process of generating ideas consists of a cycle
| of proposing an idea to myself followed by immediately trying to
| find ways to shoot it down (such that whatever ideas survive this
| mental gauntlet are decent ones I guess). But I think this
| approach had the unfortunate side effect of optimizing the "quick
| thinking" part of my brain into that of an inconsistency-detector
| rather than a rapid brainstorming mechanism.
| frumiousirc wrote:
| > I tend to think internally, and while I usually have a clear
| vision in my head of how a system works, if I try to translate
| that mental model on-the-fly into an explanation for others, it
| typically comes out as an incoherent jumble of loosely related
| phrases.
|
| Just a thank you for describing what is my own self perception.
| I thought I was a broken weirdo. Well, maybe I still am, but at
| least I'm not alone!
| gopher2000 wrote:
| > if I try to translate that mental model on-the-fly into an
| explanation for others, it typically comes out as an incoherent
| jumble of loosely related phrases
|
| In software engineering, I've found that this is very common.
| And if I look at what successful senior engineers have in
| common, it's that they've mastered a way to present complex
| technical information in a way that's easily understood. It's a
| super power.
| rglover wrote:
| No joke: talk to yourself in private. About everything. I
| routinely talk myself through technical problems, new ideas, etc.
| I spend most of my working time alone and doing this has not only
| improved my work significantly, it's made communicating face-to-
| face much smoother.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| By thinking slow.
| koliber wrote:
| You can improve your quickness with experience in a particular
| area.
|
| I am not very good at chess. If I need to make a decision on a
| move, I will think slowly and deeply. In the end, I often make a
| move because I feel I used up too much time, and not because I
| think it is a good move.
|
| There are some domains where I am very experienced. When I listen
| to someone's question, many possible solutions come to mind. As
| the person continues to explain the situation, some of the
| solutions are eliminated as they don't apply. When the person
| finished speaking, I have either a possible solution for their
| problem (assuming they provided adequate context) or some
| followup questions. In either case, I am able to offer a quick
| response or followup question, and may come across as quick-
| witted.
|
| I don't think I am quick witted. I am able to listen and process
| at the same time. I have a considerable library in my head on
| some subject, and can navigate it while someone is speaking.
|
| This varies from subject to subject, and largely depends on the
| complexity of the question or decision. The more I know about
| something, and the simpler the situation, the quicker comes a
| response. To someone who has less experience, this may seem like
| a quick wit.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| you can reduce the need to be in those situations
|
| when it comes to human interactions, you don't really need to
| respond. most of that is pride or lack of options.
|
| for example, in interpersonal relationships, its a learned trait
| to not respond reactively
|
| in another example if you're overemployed, you don't need to
| quickly fight for relevance in your job from decisions that could
| theoretically seem like threats to your division or employment to
| just you, because you already secretly have another job
| 01100011 wrote:
| As I've gotten older I've noticed things that used to just come
| to me(simple things, like compound boolean statements) now
| require thought. In addition,I take a lot longer to ingest new
| info and reason about it.
|
| To work around this, I rely more on social skills, a positive
| attitude, pre-canned responses, and deferral of judgement on
| technical approaches until I've had time to consider them.
| (Fortunately my social brain hasn't aged as poorly as my nerd
| brain)
| Tieje wrote:
| Speaking from the heart and being well-versed on popular topics.
| Most people read headlines, not the actual news nor the history
| of what led up to these events. I tell them what I know based off
| my experiences or sources. I state facts from studies I've read
| or heard of. "In my experience..." or "I've read that X is Y."
|
| As for arguments, make them try to convince you. Make them come
| to you. This is power. It's easier win an argument from a
| defensive stance. Picking apart their attacks is easier than you
| convincing them. They either see the error in their ways or you
| will see errors in your own and tell them you'll think about it.
| For this to work, you will need an open mind.
|
| Also, if you have time, prepare as much as you can.
|
| People that try to dominate in an argument instead of keeping a
| pro-social, open-mind only desire to boost their ego, not to
| truly learn. Avoid these people. Relieve yourself of the
| insecurity they wreak upon you.
| azangru wrote:
| > how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?
|
| Through poor work/life balance. Working overtime to solve tasks
| that I can't solve during the regular hours.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| i learned how to write well and don't let it bother me that
| people think i'm dumb
| hliyan wrote:
| I just say, "You make an interesting point. Let me think about it
| and get back to you / This requires thought." And then I do.
| BoringBoron wrote:
| In addition to other great (and not so great) advice here,
| consider testing for ADHD, if you haven't already. I finally got
| tested and diagnosed pretty late in life, and started taking
| Adderall. It helps somewhat. In my brain, the noise made it
| difficult to focus on conversations, even 1x1, and part of that
| noise was constantly gaming out potential responses in real time.
| Now I am still slow, but have an easier time holding on to the
| conversation thread, and so pulling out an appropriate response
| from my memory. I still overprepare for every conversation, and
| try to have organized notes when I can. My patient wife got used
| to me saying that I need time to think through something. I then
| make a spreadsheet of potential conversation branches and
| decision options, and we end up having a much more productive
| conversation.
| jawns wrote:
| As an engineering manager, I recognize that some people are
| comfortable talking through things extemporaneously in a 1:1 or a
| group setting, while others prefer chewing on the problem a bit
| and crafting their ideas at their own pace.
|
| That's why I try to make space for both ends of the spectrum. One
| of the practices I've had great success with is a weekly update
| note, where my direct reports have the opportunity to write out
| their thoughts about how the week has gone and to raise any
| concerns. There have been too many times to count when a "slow
| thinker" has identified a problem via that channel that they
| didn't raise in our conversations, because they felt more
| comfortable being able to choose their words carefully in an
| async manner. If I hadn't made space for that kind of
| communication, I would have lost out on really smart ideas.
| 11101010001100 wrote:
| I haven't done much. I credit this type of thinking to academic
| success (MIT) and achieving near financial independence.
| BerislavLopac wrote:
| Being a slow thinker myself, this has been quite an enlightening
| thread; and a special thank-you to those who alerted me on Derek
| Sivers, his work seems highly relevant.
|
| But this whole topic raises an important question: is there any
| way to check whether someone is a slow thinker, e.g. when
| interviewing people for work? It would be great if one could
| easily determine if someone doesn't have the required knowledge
| or is simply slow to formulate the answers.
| mr90210 wrote:
| Less sugar.
|
| Thank me later.
| samorozco wrote:
| Here is what I will say as a person with a similar situation.
| We're not dumb, there is just something in our way. Whether that
| be anxiety to look dumb or something else. My best advice is
| don't try to be quick, take your time, formulate a thought and
| own it. That will make you feel less bad about this perceived
| negative trait.
| stcroixx wrote:
| I don't do anything to compensate because I don't view it as a
| deficiency. If anything, I'm often asking/telling people to slow
| down. Spewing a bunch of half baked word vomit isn't impressive
| to me. I've done fine in life, I'm satisfied with the outcome of
| my approach.
| zekenie wrote:
| long pauses can be rhetorically powerful. i think showing people
| you're thinking-and telling them--is also great. you can always
| say "i need time to process what you said" and write it down
| kerkeslager wrote:
| I just fundamentally believe that most human traits aren't good
| or bad, they're situationally appropriate. Healthy integration of
| your traits means recognizing when your traits are appropriate
| and putting yourself into those situations, and recognizing when
| your traits are _not_ appropriate, and leaning on the people in
| your life who have the traits that _are_ appropriate for that
| situation.
|
| In your case, if you're a slow, methodical thinker, you need to
| have a few people at hand who are quick thinkers and can make
| snap decisions and assessments when it's appropriate to do so.
|
| I'm a quick, intuitive thinker, and I need people in my life who
| can slow me down and think through how my intuitions might be
| wrong.
|
| Neither of these is better than the other. Both are needed. Love
| yourself. :)
| vitalurk wrote:
| I'm a slow thinker who's quick witted. Odd question bud.
| tqwhite wrote:
| I ask a lot of questions and make the other people talk while I
| figure out what I am saying. This has the additional benefit of
| giving me more input. I simply refuse to participate in rapid
| back and forth. (In my dreams! But it does work sometimes.)
| zoomablemind wrote:
| So called slow-thinking may not be an all around trait, but
| rather specific mode in some contexts.
|
| Do you generally experience slow physiological and neural
| reactions? In other words is it a 'hardware' limitation?
|
| My guess, in your case it may be more about specific contexts.
| Some topics/domains may not be your forte, so to speak, yet you
| could be familiar with them enough to get engaged.
|
| So a reasonable choice could be not to engage into debates,
| instead take a role of a talk show host which encourages guests
| to talk and tell. It's a win-win case, the other side shines, you
| learn about the person and the topic.
|
| Eventually you'd know which topics are "yours". It's not possible
| to know everything, yet it's very much possible to listen to
| anything (unless it's a preschooler asking for ice-cream non-
| stop).
|
| Also, exercising your memory may be of great help in life in
| general. Fast recall saves you more time for processing the
| information.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-
| wittedness?
|
| 1) It may be that you aren't a slow thinker but a bad translator.
|
| 2) I prepare 70% of a conversation in my head (I may never use
| it).
|
| 3) My first drafts are awful. Second and third can be worse. The
| 30% is the bit I'm less likely to ruin on delivery.
|
| 4) I used early social media to learn to trim multiple paragraphs
| down to sentence. I'm still learning it.
|
| 5) I'm a slow learn. This took years.
| lucideer wrote:
| Re-iterating what others have commented: quick-wittedness isn't
| "thinking fast" in the same way as you think slow, it's a
| different variety of thinking that comes with practice.
|
| I've always been a slow thinker, & always discounted quick-
| wittedness as a skill others had innately. Recently I've found
| myself being a bit more quick-witted & what's remarkable it's not
| something I "think" about (at least actively). It's something
| that comes out from a different place (subconscious?) & does so
| more & more with practice. E.g. take referential connections: I
| used to be amazed that people could connect things in
| conversation _so quickly_ because my mind simply doesn 't connect
| things that quickly - but I think it's more like the pre-
| connected reference bubbles up from deep in your subconscious
| pre-made; you don't think about the referential route.
| narag wrote:
| I don't think I'm a "slow thinker" but I definitely don't like
| rushing arguments or struggling with fast-talking sophists.
|
| What do I do? I shut up and listen.
|
| When the other person says something wrong, I shake my head. If
| it's obviously wrong, I say no with the tip finger. If it's
| insultingly wrong, I use the middle finger :)
|
| Usually the other person CAN NOT STOP talking. That's good. If
| I'm pressed to talk I simply say "that's a whole lot of bullshit"
| and refuse to answer bad faith arguments.
|
| Meanwhile I have enough time to think a thorough response.
| Questions like "are you really saying that..." are the best
| counters.
| MobileVet wrote:
| Thank you so much for asking such a vulnerable question in a
| place where people venerate 'smart' and 'fast' people. In truth,
| we all have strengths and weaknesses and being at peace with that
| reality allows us the freedom to address issues vs struggling in
| denial. Learning to 'play the cards you are dealt' without shame
| or guilt is a super power, imho.
|
| We all have our anecdotes about someone that is 'quick on their
| feet' or 'slow to speak' etc but it wasn't until my daughter was
| diagnosed with memory and processing issues that it hit home how
| deeply this can affect people.
|
| While doing a battery of tests, it was determined her
| 'intelligence' was in the 99th percentile, but her processing
| speed and working memory were in the 25th and 19th percentiles.
| That represents almost 5 standard deviations between what she
| understands and how easily she can process it!
|
| Seeing how truly intelligent she is, but also appreciating the
| time it takes time for her to put the pieces together gives me
| more compassion and patience when I am working with people that
| process information differently than I do.
| agentultra wrote:
| Pre-computing responses.
|
| If I am to give a presentation or am invited to a meeting I
| prepare by taking the position of my interlocutor. I write down
| their arguments. Then I write down my responses.
|
| Then the day of the meeting I have prepared responses for what
| they're going to say.
|
| When I am caught with an argument I hadn't thought of I pause
| first. Then I repeat what they said in my own words. And then I
| use implication to work towards my position.
|
| It's a lot of rehearsal. Like martial arts. The purpose of
| practice is to relieve the mind when the time comes to act.
|
| I'm not afraid to take a moment to consider what is said before
| responding. Some people who are quick witted or like to talk
| before they think are disarmed by this. But it can be useful...
| just try to avoid over-using it or people may get impatient with
| you.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| In my experience, a dishonest debater will withhold
| information. That is you don't know a key fact which will sway
| the decision one way or the other. No amount of preparation can
| help you when you don't know all the facts.
| silent_cal wrote:
| Thinking quickly is overrated... and besides, doing it well only
| comes with lots of experience. I say just keep thinking slowly
| and deliberately for now
| alfonsodev wrote:
| It might help you to think about levels of abstraction rather
| than speed of thought.
|
| Learn to walk up and down an abstraction tree of your thoughts.
|
| Quick for me in this context looks like high level conversation
| without details, so learn to keep things high level, and think in
| three branches maximum of the first level of that tree.
|
| Also find common context, usually this is where I find
| conversations get lost, sometimes listening and gathering the
| other person context is way more important that stress yourself
| to be quick.
|
| And just be honest, people appreciate that too.
|
| So my "quick" thinking reply to you, are these three branches of
| a tree that could go wider and deeper but I would start the
| conversation like this.
|
| - Think about abstraction levels rather than speed, one level
| deep and three branches wide.
|
| - Listen to gather common context and fill your gaps.
|
| - Be honest
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| This question speaks to the biggest communications battle I have
| had for the past 20+ years in my career.
|
| I have a coworker that uses his quick talking ability to
| manipulate, accuse and scam his way through meetings and his
| daily work. He is management level (so am I) and it's impossible
| to have reasonable discussions for many reasons.
|
| My solution:
|
| I graciously communicate in a professional manner, work properly
| with this person as a normal work flow. I listen and give my
| feedback and this works really well to make the day go smoothly
| for both of us and anyone else in the area.
|
| After any encounters with this person, I think about what
| happened, I make some notes about the events (date stamp it as
| well) and then let it sit in my mind until the next day at a
| minimum.
|
| I have found that after doing this, I realized what really
| happened, (if I was tricked or manipulated or not) and then I do
| all of my responses in email.
|
| I do not even try to do it verbally. In fact I have told this
| person and upper management, that I am not comfortable talking
| about events _because_ I am do not have quick responses to ward
| off the manipulations (I don't call it this to upper management
| though).
|
| I state plainly that I do not want confrontation, and I just want
| to do my job, and I get too emotional and can sometimes
| communicate poorly verbally.
|
| This is a reasonable statement, and I no longer have to replay my
| conversations when things go wrong, because I do it all in
| writing.
|
| This has had the side benefit of causing this bully to back down,
| because he has relied on hiding behind clever wording and
| phrasing that I could not counter. And because I am being very
| open about my responses, he knows he would have to do the same if
| we wants to respond and his true motivations and intent would be
| revealed.
|
| So I am now simply happier at work. I hope this helps some.
| nottorp wrote:
| Funny enough, I started to type some suggestions then I deleted
| the answer. I might write one later :)
| dcchambers wrote:
| Let me think about it and get back to you ;)
| bradley13 wrote:
| Slow is not dumb. Thinking "on your feet" is different from
| having a high IQ.
|
| I have known people who were at best average in intelligence, but
| in their area of competence, worked well under time pressure.
| Among other things, they make great first a responders!
|
| There are also high IQ types who need time to ponder. They work
| poorly under pressure.
| swframe2 wrote:
| The Veritasium youtube channel has a few interesting videos
| related to this topic:
|
| This one is on IQ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkKPsLxgpuY
| Pay attention to the stats on how IQ correlates to success (near
| the end).
|
| This one is about becoming an expert:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eW6Eagr9XA
|
| This one is about someone who just worked harder than everyone
| else: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF8d72mA41M
| sharedfrog wrote:
| Thanks for linking that. Nakamura's story (3rd video) was
| really inspiring.
| mvkel wrote:
| I would not say fast is better than slow when it comes to
| thinking. It's not something to compensate for.
|
| It's like with breaking news. Do you want to be first, or
| correct? The two are usually at odds, and serve different
| purposes.
|
| The quickest wits do improv comedy, and what makes improv funny
| is the mistakes that turn into happy accidents, usually
| precipitated by speed.
|
| There is great strength, confidence, and accuracy that can come
| from deliberately slowing down. Your words have more meaning.
| asdefghyk wrote:
| I will tell you next week
| marcusverus wrote:
| It depends on the context, I guess. I can think of two scenarios
| where I've encountered this:
|
| First, I'm in a scenario where I'm bombarded with new information
| and asked to provide analysis, or I'm presented with a new
| problem and asked for a solution. When people ask questions about
| complex topics, they probably don't expect full, well organized
| answers immediately. Likely, they expect a conversation. Work the
| problem with them, just like you would alone, asking questions as
| necessary. Supplement your working memory by writing things down
| as you discuss them. People are happy to sit in silence for a
| minute while you work a problem or make notes, so don't be afraid
| of silence. This is simply how complex work is done.
|
| Second, sometimes you're asked a question where you have all the
| information to answer it, but you need a minute to gather your
| thoughts before answering. In such a case, one can be tempted to
| say "I'll get back to you". A better approach, if you're certain
| that you can answer the question with a little more time, is to
| simply talk through your analysis. Your boss asks "What would
| happen if we did X instead of Y". You need a minute, but he's
| sitting there, waiting! That's fine, just talk it out! Say, "Hmm.
| I hadn't considered that. My first thought is Z, but there are a
| few things to consider. First...". Make notes as you go, if
| you're still talking about thing A and thing B pops into your
| head, make a quick note to remind yourself to return to it.
|
| A great way to improve on this is to watch other people in
| meetings. Everyone gets put on the spot. You can learn a lot from
| seeing how other people handle it.
| _hk_1 wrote:
| So, here's what I've found works for me. Picture this: I'm in a
| meeting, and suddenly I'm put on the spot to make a decision. My
| mind goes blank, and I start feeling like I've lost half my IQ
| points. It's frustrating, to say the least.
|
| But then I realized something. Just like how martial artists
| rehearse their moves over and over again until it becomes second
| nature, I started rehearsing scenarios in my head. For instance,
| before a big presentation, I'd run through possible questions or
| objections I might face. It's like mentally preparing myself for
| battle, but without the black belt.
|
| By recognizing when I'm slipping into slow-thinking mode, I can
| catch myself before I spiral into panic mode. It's all about
| staying cool, calm, and collected, even when the pressure's on.
|
| Breaking tasks down has been a lifesaver too. Instead of tackling
| a decision head-on, I break it into bite-sized chunks. It's like
| eating a massive burger one bite at a time. Much more manageable,
| right?
|
| Plus, I'm not afraid to lean on tools and resources. Whether it's
| jotting down notes or consulting with experts, these little
| helpers give me the confidence to tackle even the toughest
| decisions.
|
| And hey, slow thinking doesn't mean I'm not sharp. I'm all about
| continuous learning and improvement. Whether it's doing brain
| teasers or engaging in a lively debate, I'm constantly flexing
| those mental muscles.
|
| With a bit of rehearsal, mindfulness, and a trusty toolkit,
| you'll be navigating those fast-paced situations like a pro in no
| time.
| khazhoux wrote:
| > So, here's what I've found works for me. Picture this: I'm in
| a meeting, and suddenly I'm put on the spot to make a decision.
| My mind goes blank, and I start feeling like I've lost half my
| IQ points. It's frustrating, to say the least.
|
| > By recognizing when I'm slipping into slow-thinking mode, I
| can catch myself before I spiral into panic mode. It's all
| about staying cool, calm, and collected, even when the
| pressure's on.
|
| Are you sure your experience here is from "slow-thinking"? Your
| description sounds more like stage-fright. A few years ago I
| started experiencing this myself, in executive presentations.
| Very debilitating, when I know the material and feel confident
| beforehand, but when the spotlight turns to me, my mind goes
| blank and I struggle to think.
| manuelisimo wrote:
| I'll come back in a week with something clever to say
| zubairq wrote:
| I think I think slowly in some things and fast with others
| kouru225 wrote:
| I've slowly turned from a quick witted guy to a much slower guy.
| I don't think it's a problem actually. My previous quick-witted
| self was capable of being quick-witted because I made a shit ton
| of assumptions about the way the world works. Now I'm constantly
| rethinking and questioning things I wouldn'tve before, which of
| course makes me a less snappy thinker.
|
| The benefits are obvious to me: while I may have presented myself
| better in the past, I was prioritizing my presentation over being
| right, and eventually those snappy comments would come back to
| bite me. Now my life is much more exciting and varied. I find
| myself learning a lot more and being a lot more excited about the
| world.
| aorloff wrote:
| There are times in life when you have to make a quick decision
| and that is genuinely hard.
|
| For the times in life when someone wants a quick decision,
| instead learn a few canned and polished responses that give you a
| few minutes to decide how you want to answer.
|
| Just because someone wants a quick decision doesn't mean they
| deserve more than a quick response.
| ultra_nick wrote:
| Memorize fundamentals and frameworks:
|
| Logic, fallacies, philosophy, and science for arguments
|
| Fundamental algorithms and structures for code
|
| Common joke/meme formats and questions for social skills
| talkingtab wrote:
| Fast thinkers will always win in an environment where "knowing
| the answer" is the criteria for success. The result is that lots
| of stupid decisions get made. Really stupid decisions. There are
| corporations where knowing the answer is much more important than
| thinking and the correct answer.
|
| This whole thing of asking people technical questions in
| interviews is IMHO just stupid. In an interview if you want to
| know if someone is technically good, have them ask you questions
| and test your knowledge. Or give them a problem without an easy
| answer. Why and when would you prefer to use Rust vs JavaScript.
| Why don't people use 'C' anymore?
|
| My advice is: if you find yourself in a "who knows the answer"
| environment to run like crazy. Corporations use goofy signals. I
| worked long ago at significant DB company that used the number of
| hours you worked as a signal for how good you were. Work 9 hours
| = bad, Work 15 = good. Then they went out of business because it
| turns out that no one got anything done.
|
| I've been thinking about Cargo Cultism quite a bit. Agile used to
| be an effective way to do things. Now not so much. Did the
| technique change? No. What happened is that it because the "right
| answer". People are going through the motions for something they
| do not understand. Just silliness.
|
| Do a start up, consult, anything. If you can think well you have
| lots of options, but will have to work for them.
| renewiltord wrote:
| In circumstances where I've seemed this way it's just that I've
| been thinking about the problem quite a bit and so know the shape
| of it. In some sense, the quick response is more retrieval than
| computation.
|
| In times when I haven't appeared like this, I haven't thought
| about the problem much. L
| hamburglar wrote:
| One of the smartest and most respected people I know is someone
| who hardly says anything. He can sit in a meeting with 15 people,
| 5 of whom are highly opinionated architects blasting out
| opinions, and just listening for moments where he can actually
| add something. If the end of the discussion is getting near and
| nobody has made his observations and points, he speaks up.
| _Everyone_ stops and listens.
|
| This has made me more confident in my quiet style. It's very
| helpful to know in your gut that you are respected and don't need
| to hurry to be the first person to say something. You have
| nothing to prove. When you wait and only say something that truly
| advances the discussion, you become mysteriously wise.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| When I worked in tech, people who were quick thinkers
| overshadowed everyone else, and it became a kind of machismo. The
| problem was, just because they were quick thinking didn't mean
| they were _right_. Outside of tech, being a more methodical
| thinker is more accepted and common... the key I 've found is to
| use humor, grace, and humility and play the long game.
| Demonstrate _wisdom_ over just being quick and clever.
| hosh wrote:
| You don't always need to be the best in all circumstances if you
| work in a team. A good team (particularly one that gelled) is
| going to make use of everyone's temperament and skills.
|
| For example, in high-pressure situations, such as when the infra
| is falling down, you might not be the one coming up with
| immediate mitigations, but you may be starting a reasoned, calm
| root-cause analysis that is just as important, if not with the
| same urgency, as mitigations. If you are also methodical in your
| troubleshooting, you are providing an alternate path to finding
| the issue that is different from with a more intuitive approach.
|
| A colleague willing to let you take the time to hear you out
| helps out a lot.
| rfrey wrote:
| Sorry OP, for a bit of a diversion. I notice a lot of folks
| saying that "quick wit" or fast thinking or whatever, is just
| advance preparation (perhaps subconscious) or a memorized script,
| etc. It may be, but for those who think it always is, it
| definitely isn't.
|
| My son is/was quite bright - reading at 3, reading the Economist
| and understanding 20% of it at 5, teaching himself calculus at 7.
| He got _terrible_ grades in school maths, and his teachers
| thought he was lazy because he so obviously understood the
| material.
|
| With some cognitive testing at age 6, he was placed "somewhere
| over 2nd stdev" (they just stop after a bit) for most cognitive
| subjects... but when taking response time tests he would drop to
| 2nd percentile. Second percentile! You could ask him to to find
| the root of a simple quadratic, and he would think about it and
| get the answer, then ask him to name the first five even numbers,
| and he would take about the same amount of time. His processing
| speed was (and is) just slow. In school, many marks went towards
| "flash tests" and speed competitions in math. He couldn't get
| through the first half of the tests, he'd run out of time. He's
| in third year honours maths at uni now, favourite topic is
| abstract algebra. They give him more time on tests.
|
| My point is that this is real for some people, it's not just
| practice or technique or rehearsing.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Any chance he might have dyscalculia and/or ADHD? Though I
| guess he'd might have already been tested.
| bigfont wrote:
| Why bother? Given the breadth of diagnostic classes these
| days, there's a good chance you can find a practitioner[0]
| willing to make a diagnosis. That said, aside from getting
| funding for treatment or acceptance of accommodations,
| receiving a label of disordered often does not help, but does
| add harmful stigmatization. The OP's son seems normal,
| functioning, and isn't harming anyone. On the other hand, the
| diagnosing practitioner may need to be tested for
| Overpathologization Disorder[0].
|
| [0]: http://www.psychologysalon.com/2012/01/overpathologizati
| on-d...
| lemming wrote:
| Our daughter was diagnosed with dyscalculia, and the
| diagnosis was very helpful, both for us and for her. She
| was really struggling with maths and felt like she must
| just be stupid. The diagnosis helped her to understand that
| it's just a very concrete thing that she has that affects
| one aspect of her functioning, and doesn't mean that she's
| dumb, or lazy, or whatever other story she had ended up
| telling herself. We are homeschooling her, and it also
| helped us to understand what was going on for her, and to
| adapt how we teach her appropriately.
|
| > That said, aside from getting funding for treatment or
| acceptance of accommodations...
|
| Both of those can also be life-changing, but you make them
| sound like trivial details. They are not.
| bigfont wrote:
| It sounds like the diagnosis marked a point of positive
| transformation. Before the diagnosis, your daughter
| attributed her math challenges to global stupidity and
| laziness. After the diagnosis, she attributed it to a
| specific difficulty with math. That reframing does sound
| healthy and helpful. It also sounds like the diagnosis
| helped you accept the situation and adapt your teaching
| modality.
|
| Certainly, funding for treatment and acceptance of
| accommodation can make a life-changing difference. That
| in part motivates many caring and concerned practitioners
| to widen diagnostic criteria, so that more people can
| access benefits. I can see how I came across as
| trivializing those benefits. Quite the contrary, though,
| I meant to express that yes, diagnostic labels can bring
| positive results, and we need to weigh those against the
| negative results, especially when other options exist.
| jrflowers wrote:
| > Quite the contrary, though, I meant to express that
| yes, diagnostic labels can bring positive results
|
| This makes sense. By saying:
|
| >Why bother?
|
| You were describing how helpful a diagnosis can be.
| samtho wrote:
| > Why bother?
|
| Because knowing about the presence of a condition is better
| than not. Depending on the severity, untreated ADHD during
| the years of life where a child begins to establish good
| study habits, management of the condition, and other tools
| that work for them, can lead to issue down the road and
| into adulthood. We have the ability to address conditions
| like dyscalcula with little interventions to help the
| student be successful.
|
| Just because something is imperfect doesn't mean it should
| disregarded completely if the benefits (academic, social,
| and career success) outweigh the drawbacks of being
| untreated. The stigma argument is just FUD and letting that
| take over decision making for the well-being of a child is
| a bad path to go down.
|
| There are often, unknown to the parent, invisible scars
| that the child with a non-neurotypical condition will carry
| for the of their life after having found out about a
| condition they've had since birth and was not addressed
| during the most critical time of their life when early
| treatment could have greatly reduced the harm caused by
| this disorder.
| bigfont wrote:
| I agree that knowing about something, and accepting it,
| is better than the alternative. Does that mean we need to
| diagnose it as a disorder? For instance, I have an
| introverted personality, and I accept that, even though I
| didn't receive a diagnosis of introverted. On a more
| serious note, I have friends who I know and accept as
| gay, but I don't consider them disordered. The diagnostic
| and statistics manual used to include gay as a disorder;
| removing it as a disorder reduced the stigma, and I don't
| think it reduced the societal or self-acceptance of gay
| people. Quite the opposite. So like you I love self-
| knowledge; I only take issue with "diagnosis" as the way
| to gain it.
|
| You make a good point about the benefits of receiving
| treatment. I personally have received training in social
| skills, goal setting, relaxation exercises, and realistic
| thinking. I learned those skills to overcome specific
| challenges. I had some anxiety, like every normal person
| does, so I learned a skill for that. I had trouble
| dating, so I learned skills for that. I felt overwhelmed,
| so I learned goal setting for that. I thought I was
| stupid, so I learned realistic thinking to avoid
| overgeneralizing and labeling. Throughout that process, I
| brought my challenges to a psychologist, and the
| psychologist taught me skills. That approach offers a way
| to help people without diagnosis, by suggesting
| treatments for specific challenges.
|
| Can we keep the early treatment and drop the diagnosis?
| ryandrake wrote:
| I have no background in pedagogy, but I've never understood the
| point of timed, high pressure tests, especially for children.
| You really just want to know the child has mastered the
| material such that they can solve the problems correctly--why
| is it necessary for them to do them in under 30 seconds, or
| whatever the bar is? If one kid gets the test done in 20
| minutes and the other one takes 2 hours, but they both get the
| questions right, why does it matter?
| Arech wrote:
| even more than that - it's quite possible the one who did it
| too fast have just recalled most of it from his memory, but
| the other is likely to have found solution for himself from
| scratch, which is usually much more valuable. Even the
| perseverance to find the solution is something worthy by
| itself... (obviously, "mileage may vary", but still)
| boplicity wrote:
| > Why does it matter?
|
| Because accommodating every kid's needs is expensive, and
| society is not willing to pay for it.
| bloqs wrote:
| Economics, and because of the kids that exploit lax
| timeframes to try to beat the system or avoid doing anything
| sudosysgen wrote:
| There actually is a reason. It is to make sure that kids have
| mastery of fundamental skills that they will need in the
| future. If it takes you a long to subtract, for example, it
| will take you an impractically long to do long division, and
| eventually you will take so long with more complex concepts
| that you won't be able to learn effectively.
|
| Additionally, you also want a fair number of problems in any
| given test to reduce the variance in the grades, and you want
| the student to be able to finish a significant number
| exercises that can truly cover the breadth of the content to
| learn, hopefully with more than one approach as well. If a
| student takes 2h to solve a problem there is no way they will
| be able to complete enough of a problem set.
|
| Of course, there are outliers. But personally, especially
| given my shorter attention span, the ability to do math
| correctly and quickly was absolutely crucial, and I wouldn't
| have been able to pass otherwise.
| What2159 wrote:
| Because you can brute force multiplication by doing a LOT of
| addition. The test is to show that you know multiplication.
| zone411 wrote:
| The relationship between processing speed and IQ is not so
| simple.
|
| E.g. https://neurosciencenews.com/iq-decision-speed-23377/
| "Researchers discovered that people with higher IQs are quicker
| when solving simple tasks but slower when dealing with complex
| problems."
| agumonkey wrote:
| Quite interesting neurologically wise..
| rufius wrote:
| I empathize with this. I'm similar to your son - no amount of
| practice ever made me faster or "more prepared".
|
| I've learned to accept it and manage expectations with people.
|
| One thing I discovered about myself was for many things I have
| a "gut feel" that I trust unquestioningly. I might not be able
| to explain why something is wrong/right, but I know it is.
| Given a bit of time, I can explain it sufficiently and
| convincingly.
|
| I've never had the gift of quick answers with explanations. I'm
| okay with that.
| kbos87 wrote:
| I'd describe myself as a slow thinker. I'm hesitant to bring up
| politics, but I've been contemplating this in the context of the
| upcoming election.
|
| I have complete faith in Joe Biden's ability to make sound
| decisions through a slow and deliberate process. That's what the
| presidency requires.
|
| I don't hold much faith in his ability to compete on the campaign
| trail, because all people care about is fast thinking in
| conversation and debate, and he's quickly losing that ability.
|
| I see a pretty clear parallel to myself. I'm able to perform
| objectively well at work, but I'm not great in fast paced
| conversations, and unfortunately, interviews.
| electriclizard wrote:
| Be kind. Be humorous. Be gentle.
|
| "In this world ... you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.
| Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant."
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzOIhLJ1C-Y
| lefstathiou wrote:
| I'm one of those people, I take detailed notes (I have a very
| strong note taking and annotation system) and most importantly, I
| just spend more time thinking on the subject or problem than
| others probably would.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > what has worked in real life for you?
|
| Asking questions. It gives me more time to think and more
| information with which to come to a conclusion. I think a lot of
| what is sometimes called slowness is really analysis paralysis.
| Not caused by lack of thinking, any more than gridlock is caused
| by lack of cars. As you know, the person who makes confident,
| knee-jerk decisions looks highly competent, but usually isn't.
| Adachi91 wrote:
| Releasing the filters. Which can be disastrous in certain
| situations. I am a very slow thinker always slow on come backs
| and even slow in video games, anecdotally I was talking to a
| friend about this the other day how he is able to have `Natural
| Talent` the way his brain is wired to be quick on his feet in
| words and strategy.
|
| if I had to analyze the way my brain works in communication (I
| have been diagnosed Autistic) it would be something like:
| checking my surroundings => filter check => no good => return to
| start until appropriate outcome/reaction is most likely to occur.
| I could make a flow chart about it. However when it's raw input,
| say a reaction to something dangerous I let my brain do it's
| thing avoiding hazardous situations (Environments, Automobile
| wrecks, etc...)
| seti0Cha wrote:
| Also a slow thinker. I try to make everything asynchronous. In
| conversations, I let other people talk until my brain has had
| time to produce something worth communicating. If people ask my
| opinion before that, I say I'm still thinking about it or I ask
| questions to get more context and delay needing a decision.
| Sometimes I start by saying "let me restate what I think the
| issues are". Often by the time I've talked through the problem,
| the answer has become clear to me, or at the very least I know
| what more I need to figure out. I also actually tell people I'm a
| slow thinker and often say "I'll have to think on that and get
| back to you". Sometimes that's literally a minute or two later,
| which must seem strange to them, but that's how my brain works.
| The results are generally good enough that people think I'm smart
| regardless, so I try not to worry about it. Possibly there's some
| anxiety component to the whole thing because not worrying about
| having the answer in time itself makes it easier to reach an
| answer.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| I was/am a very slow thinker, and I've never met anyone with
| higher task switching costs, around 15 I learned how to be clever
| and quick witted.
|
| In high school I got really into drama and improv, to succeed at
| improv AT ALL I had to effectively have to be in an altered
| mental state. When I am being quick witted my brain is literally
| functioning differently, there is no truth, no data, no
| thoughtfulness, it's stream of conscious ejected straight from my
| brain.
|
| Mentally it's not unlike skiing a steep slope but the single
| internal directive isn't "oh shit, stay up" but "oh shit,
| entertain", it's not even an active thought per se, just an
| internal bent.
|
| Fortunately my inner dialog and thought life isn't racist, evil
| or cruel, as no filter is no filter.
|
| Before I learned that I had the capacity for this mental
| modality, I didn't even know it existed, I finally made the break
| through during "improv training" sessions and the "flight"
| response that caused me to stutter and choke just spontaneously
| disappeared, I'm not sure if everyone has the capacity.
|
| I usually engage in slow thinking, in highly social situations
| where I'm "On", it still feels like flying down a ski slope, fun,
| very mentally "on" and damn scary.
| CyberEldrich wrote:
| Quick-wittiness would be overrated. Better to hasten slowly and
| avoid lethal mistakes. Like using feet and meters to navigate a
| spacecraft.
|
| https://www.simscale.com/blog/nasa-mars-climate-orbiter-metr...
| bjnewman85 wrote:
| participating in asynchronous communication
| darepublic wrote:
| > Get in an actual argument
|
| Emotions can cloud the ability to think too
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| What you may be describing is the virtue of prudence [0]. For
| that, you need humility, and yes, practice.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prudence
| speedylight wrote:
| Your issue sounds more social anxiety rather than being a slow
| thinker. In any case, one way to combat it is to ask clarifying
| questions.
| Too wrote:
| Focus on listening. Pay attention. Don't zone out.
|
| That is not about being slow. By showing interest and actively
| participating, your brain should already get pre-warmed with your
| thoughts.
|
| In a group meeting, imagine that at any time, you should be ready
| to reply to the question: _"what do you think?"_ This requires
| actively listening and focus.
|
| If you are zoning out, ask yourself why you are really attending
| that meeting in the first place.
| vandahm wrote:
| One thing I learned -- I think it was from _The Pragmatic
| Programmer_ -- that helps me when I feel forced into making a
| quick decision is this three-part answer:
|
| 1. I don't know, 2. It depends, 3. I'll get back to you.
|
| If people don't accept that, I'll follow with some variation of
| "Do you want me to guess or do you want me to lie? Either way,
| I'd be feeding you bullshit, and you deserve better than that.
| Give me a little bit of time to collect my thoughts."
| powerset wrote:
| Stall for time: repeat what the other person said back to them,
| reframe the questions, state the obvious, use filler words, etc.
| Say stuff mindless enough that you can think about the real
| problem while talking.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| What worked for me after being shouted down by a PM's line of
| bullshit: Gather references, incorporate quotes and links into an
| email addressed to all participants, with title something like
| "Clarification of technical issues raised in yesterday's XYZ
| meeting". Mention no one by name.
| yungporko wrote:
| i'm trying to think of a single situation where quick-wittedness
| is ever actually important outside of cracking jokes and i'm
| coming up with nothing. i'm a slow thinker too but the amount it
| causes any issues for me is zero. if i need more time to think
| about something, i just say that and it's fine.
| jonshariat wrote:
| This post is going to get a ton of comments... tomorrow :)
|
| I'm also a slow thinker and here somethings that have helped me:
|
| 1. lean into your strengths. Like you said in your post where you
| asked for more time for him during tests. Real life is much more
| negotiable. Ask for time, Ask to think on this and get back, etc.
|
| 2. Like some of said, prep is helpful. Utilize your super power
| by taking a look at the material before. This can be intense like
| when I'm interviewing I really go crazy with prep but it can also
| be 5mins before the meeting, gathering your thoughts.
|
| 3. To get better at real time thinking, for me, is taking some
| lose notes during the meeting.
|
| 4. Sometimes you have to tune out the presenter. If all they are
| doing is reading out the slides, I've found ignoring the
| presenter, and digesting the content on my own is better. Then I
| come up with question to clarify my understanding, highlight a
| decision that needs made and my opinion, think about how this may
| effect other areas, etc.
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