# General Guidelines Advice from ourselves to ourselves for when we forget. ## Slow down to speed up You can't sustain a sprint through a marathon. Remember the tortoise. When in doubt, use [the Eisenhower box](http://jamesclear.com/eisenhower-box). ![](/files/-LCd1oNXgzF1G3EJ9HVW) ## Hold strong opinions lightly Respect, love, and nurture your own and others' opinions. Recognize that they are just that—opinions—and are thus vulnerable to fallacy. Nobody ever learned anything through radical stubbornness of opinion. That's the opposite of learning. Embrace not-knowing, and don't confuse confidence with certainty. Stay true to it, and seek to clarify its origin. If you give up on your tension, you will disengage from your work, and rob the company from the information embedded in it. Even as you stay true and firm with your tension, stay loose and flexible with the proposed solution. There are many ways to resolve a tension. ## Run experiments, not debates Inquiry and proof are valuable, healthy, and actionable. Unfounded arguments protect our egos(temporarily), but are utterly useless and unhealthy for learning and growth. If you find yourself in a circular debate, get on the same side to figure out what experiment needs to be run to resolve the disagreement. Stay true to questions not answers. ## Save yourself, not the world It's easy to feel like because we're in education we need to pretend to be purely selfless and altruistic. That "we're here to help". Bring your personal purpose, needs, and agenda to the table. It's more honest. > "If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." \~ Lilly Watson ## Be Bold * [Move fast and break things](http://startupquote.com/post/1624569753) * [Ask for forgiveness, not permission](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/06/15/its-better-to-beg-for-forgiveness-than-to-ask-for-permission/) * [Aim to make new mistakes every day](https://www.google.com/search?q=make+mistakes+quotes\&espv=2\&biw=1280\&bih=657\&tbm=isch\&tbo=u\&source=univ\&sa=X\&ved=0ahUKEwiKid--57jJAhVL5WMKHdwJDkkQsAQIGw) * [Don't be afraid to be ridiculous, or screw up (or be afraid, but do it anyway)](https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en) * [Just F@#\*ing Do It](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/11/19/what-makes-an-entrepreneur-four-lettersjfdi/) > "Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid " \~ Johann Goethe ### Identify Your 4 Percent The net of this best practice is this: The 80/20 rule (Pareto's principle) applies to your work (80% of the results come from 20% of the work). But, you can Pareto Pareto's principle, and that states that 64% of the benefit comes from just 4% of the work. The key idea here is that its important to identify your 4%. With a good analysis of what you think your 4% is, you can spend much more time on things that will produce results. This idea fundamentally is the idea of "LEVERAGE". If you do work, and it moves us sideways, you are trading dollars for effort. It has no leverage. If you are doing something, and can't tie it directly to the company's focus now, consider whether you should be doing it at all. ## Play harmonies, not solos Working with a team involves an implicit (and hopefully, explicit) commitment to each other as much as to the work at hand. Collaboration means that we prioritize collective synchrony over individual achievement. Don't abandon your team. > "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together" \~African Proverb ## Seek to clarify, not to control When reality is not aligned with how you wish it to be, clarify the dissonance for others instead of demanding that it be fixed. Our ideal reality is not always shared by others; to move together we must first agree on where and what the dissonances are. Autonomy only works if we choose to communicate over command. In a cooperative environment, we lead with clarity. > “Remember, always, that everything you know, and everything everyone knows, is only a model. Get your model out there where it can be viewed. Invite others to challenge your assumptions and add their own.” \~ Donella Meadows ## Serve with humility OMALAB will not single-handedly save the world. We are ultimately, not that important. Act accordingly. > "We can do no great things, only small things with great love" \~ Mother Teresa --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://omalab.gitbook.io/guide/guidelines.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.