sleep | Human-Centered Change and Innovation

What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

When you don’t know what to do, what do you do? This is a difficult question.

Here are some thoughts that may help you figure out what to do when you really don’t know.

Don’t confuse activity with progress.

Gather your two best friends, go off-site, and define the system as it is.

Don’t ask everyone what they think because the Collective’s thoughts will be diffuse, bland, and tired.

Get outside.

Draw a picture of how things work today.

Get a good meal.

Make a graph of goodness over time. If it’s still increasing, do more of what you did last time. If it’s flat, do something else.

Get some exercise.

Don’t judge yourself negatively. This is difficult work.

Get some sleep.

Help someone with their problem. The distraction will keep you out of the way as your mind works on it for you.

Spend time with friends.

Try a new idea at the smallest scale. It will likely lead to a better one. Repeat.

Use your best judgment.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Simple Process Innovation - School Bus Style I was speaking with a friend recently about school, and the topic of tired teenagers came up. He said he mentioned to a member of the school board that they should start high school later so that the teenagers could sleep in. The school board member replied sorry, we can’t do that because we need the school buses to bring the elementary school kids to school at that time. Apparently this is how it works now in most places around the United States:

School buses go and pick up the high school kids and bring them to school
School buses go and pick up the middle school kids and bring them to school
School buses go and pick up the elementary school kids and bring them to school

Which got both of thinking. Why not change this around to fit the children’s natural rhythms? After all, a lot of parents put their younger children to bed early, which means they wake up early anyways, and teenagers tend to naturally go to bed late and as a result of having to get up early to get to school, end up tired all of the time (making it harder to learn). So, why not flip the school run order around using the same school bus resources?

School buses go and pick up the elementary school kids and bring them to school
School buses go and pick up the middle school kids and bring them to school
School buses go and pick up the high school kids and bring them to school

Elementary schools could swap out their before school and after school care for longer after school care, the high school kids could start and finish later, and all of the kids would be in school during times when they have better natural energy.

Maybe I’m oversimplifying things, or maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but as far as I can tell it would be worth trying this simple fix.