we can’t see what we aren’t looking for, and don’t notice what we don’t notice. - Shane Parrish

I would get to work and rather than write the report, which was clearly the most important thing for me to do, I’d check my email. If there was anything in my inbox that required even a modicum of attention, I’d tell myself I needed to do that before starting on the report. And, of course, by the time I was done with that first email, more had come in that needed attention. It didn’t take much to convince myself I needed to do that before I started. Only near the end of the workday would I finally sit down to write the report, mentally exhausted. When you step back and think about it for a second, I was giving one of the most important things I wanted to do the worst of myself. Email, which I dread on the best of days, was getting my most energetic and creative self. Many of us do this with our partners too. By the time everything we need to do over the course of a long day is finished, we’re exhausted. And this is the time we give to our spouse, the most important person in our lives!

The Five Whys is a method rooted in the behavior of children. Children instinctively think in first principles. Just like us, they want to understand what’s happening in the world. To do so, they intuitively break through the fog with a game some parents have come to dread, but which is exceptionally useful for identifying first principles: repeatedly asking “why?

if you find yourself biting your tongue in group situations, if you find yourself or your team resisting change or continuing to do something in one way simply because that’s how you’ve always done it in the past — be on your guard! The inertia default is likely at work.