A carbon frame for the bicycle for your mind
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We can measure how efficiently every living thing moves. What we mean by efficiency is the amount of energy it takes to move a set distance. For instance, how much energy does it take your pet cat to walk one kilometer? Or your dog? Turns out that flying creatures use the least energy per distance. Your pets must bow to the queen of efficient locomotion: The Condor.
But what about us human? Surely Haile Gebrselassie, Eliud Kipchoge or Paula Radcliffe should be in the running? Do not pardon the pun, it was intended as always. In fact, no, even the most efficient of our kind pale in comparison to the most efficient in the animal kingdom. Human beings rank about a third of the way down on the list of movers and shakers.
What is that you say? If god or nature wanted us to spend less energy moving around, they would have given us wings? They gave us something even better, a mind that can invent things. Enter the humble bicycle. A human being pedaling around shoots to the top of the list. With one mighty leap of the mind we have managed to jump the queue.
But moving around physically is so last century. In the modern age its all about mental agility. We want to go from inventing the bicycle to inventing self-driving cars and reusable rocket ships. For that we needed another kind of bicycle. A bicycle for the mind.
This is how Steve Jobs famously described the personal computer. We can move faster, further and more efficiently than ever before by using a bike. In the same way we can collaborate better, invent more complex things and accelerate human development exponentially faster when we lean on computing power.
I have a friend who has recently gotten into mountain biking. He proudly showed me his carbon fiber bike last weekend. I lifted it off the ground and was astonished at how light it was. Anyone still competing using an old-fashioned metal frame must really enjoy losing. Here is the thing though, if you don’t invest in the right digital tools you are that person on the heavy metal bike at the back of the pack.
Do you have the right PC for your job? Is it powerful enough or frustratingly slow? Do you have the right tools installed? I use Text Expander daily to autocomplete things like my ID number and email address and more. I use SnagIt to do screen captures like a Condor. I use the Grammarly plugin to help me improve my writing. I use an external portrait-oriented monitor to make reading PDFs and Word documents a pleasure. The list goes on and on. Some of these tools I use now without even thinking.
But they all have something in common. They help me move through my work day faster, better and more efficiently. They are the carbon fiber components of the bicycle for my mind. Think about it. I bet you there is still a lot of room for improvement when it comes to how you make use of your digital tools.