Interesting thoughts from Range by David Epstein

I finished reading ‘The Range’ by David Epstein recently.

He reasons why generalists triumph in a specialized world, why early specialization is dangerous, why cross-overs are important, and why mental meandering and wide-roaming exploration lead to breakthroughs.

Here is a list of some of his thoughts that I really like:

- Forgoing a head start to develop personal and professional range is worth it

- Th world needs people who start broad and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives while they progress

- In a world where machines will be able to perform repetitive tasks better than humans, we need humans focusing on the big-picture strategy; our greatest strength is the exact opposite of narrow specialization

- Keep multiple “career streams” open while pursuing a primary specialty; take knowledge from one pursuit and creatively apply it to another as modern work demands knowledge transfer

- No tool is omnicompetent

- The real essence of creativity is to be able to apply the knowledge to a situation one hasn’t seen before

- For learning that is both durable and flexible, fast and easy way of doing something is precisely the problem; excessive hint-giving to a student bolsters immediate performance but undermines progress in the long run; struggling to generate an answer on your own, even a wrong one, enhances subsequent learning

- Space between practice sessions — distributed practice or interleaving — creates the hardness that enhances learning

- Learning deeply means learning slowly

- Focusing narrowly on many fine details specific to a problem at hand feels like the exact right thing to do, when it is often exactly wrong

- Successfully problem solvers are more able to determine the deep structure of a problem before they proceed to match a strategy to it; a problem well put is half solved

- If we treated careers more like dating, nobody would settle down so quickly

- Switchers are winners

- Our work preferences and our life preferences do not stay the same, because we do not stay the same

- We are works in progress claiming to be finished

- We learn who we are only by living, and not before; first act and then think; discover by doing, trying new activities, building new networks, finding new role models

- Be a flirt with your possible selves; find experiments that can be undertaken quickly; “test-and-learn” not “plan-and-implement”

- I know who I am when I see what I do

- A person don’t know what he can do unless he tries; trying things is the answer to find your talent

- Big innovation most often happens when an outsider who may be far away from the surface of the problem reframes the problem in a way that unlocks the solution

- The world is both broad and deep. We need birds and frogs working together to explore it

- Be like a fox — roam freely, listen carefully, and consume omnivorously

- Thinkers who tolerate ambiguity make the best forecasts