Knowing When to Take a Step Back
Hello Again! I have another story for you. I’ll return to some more technical blogs soon. I’ve nearly got a job now...
A couple of weeks ago I acquired a car; a Skoda Yeti. 50% of the cars I have ever owned have been handed down from my Dad. I’m not really into cars. I am into technology, gadgets and music. Project “In Car Music Experience" was underway long before I had even driven the car. It turns out that muscle memory applies equally to our brains and I instinctively found myself defining solutions in the same way that I would at work (as illustrated in this diagram by Henrik Kniberg).
My initial analysis indicated that it would cost £300 to have bluetooth installed (by Skoda) and about £200 to install (myself, using parts from eBay and help from YouTube) some MDI connections. Here are my solutions (I have articulated all of this in retrospect, my OCD tendencies aren’t quite that severe yet):
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#
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Solution
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1
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Tune the radio and find six decent CDs (£0)
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2
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Obtain a 3.5mm audio cable and use my iPhone (£5)
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3
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Obtain (and fill with music) an SD card (£20)
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4
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Install an MDI connection (£200)
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5
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Have bluetooth installed (£300)
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Now the first two solutions are pretty trivial but they sufficed for a few days. The third solution was really my MVP, there is a decent touchscreen interface in the car and there is no need to plug and unplug things every time I get in and out the car.
Fast forward a few weeks and the last two solutions are still on my backlog (I’d recommend OmniFocus but the tool is far less important than the discipline around it’s use). I’m happy with my current experience and there’s a decent chance that I’ll change cars before these solutions are picked up.
The stereo system in the car is only capable of playing MP3s (opposed to AAC etc). I have more than enough MP3s to fill the SD card (the capacity of which is also limited by the stereo system) but they are intermingled with non-MP3 files on my computer. In solving this problem, I trod a path that I’m sure many people can relate to...
I turned to Google in an attempt to find a terminal command that would copy all of the MP3 files and folder hierarchy under a specified directory. I ventured well beyond the first page of search results but still couldn’t find anything that fitted my exact requirements. I was convinced it was possible but it was just out of reach, given my limited knowledge of terminal commands.
At this point, I figured I had three options:
1. Manually copy the files.
2. Keep searching for (and trying) terminal commands that might do what I want.
3. Take a step back. Fill the required gaps in my knowledge such that I can work out how to solve the problem myself.
I can’t claim to have immediately and without hesitation taken a step back but I did get there eventually.
In my view, good companies encourage employees (and empower managers to encourage employees) to take a step back. It’s my experience that the best people have a far greater tendency to do so.
...
If you’re interested, the command was:
find . -iname \*.mp3 -exec rsync -R {} /Users/Gary/Music/iTunesMP3/ \;