Observations

Observations (What)

An observation is the detection of stimuli through the senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, or touch) by a person or animal.

Observations involve perceiving and noticing details in the environment without necessarily making any judgments or reaching any conclusions.

Rationale

Here are some reasons why being skilled with observations is worthwhile.

  1. Super useful for productivity and peace of mind.

  2. Super useful for growth which is the improvement of performance, products, processes, cultures, and so forth.

  3. Super useful for effective communication and listening.

  4. Super useful for primary research.

  5. Enjoyable to fully observe while being judgment and inference free. This is part of mindfulness. Mindfulness has multiple healthy benefits.

Concerns

  1. While everyone observes because it is a natural brain function, not everyone is good at it. In particular, observations that are free of judgment and inferences are learned and this skill is at the core of skilled observations.

  2. Learning to skillfully observe is just like learning the guitar. It takes purposeful practice sessions structured with embedded feedback and improvement. Not all people have the chance or desire to walk down this path.

Skillful Observation (How To)

Framework

Here is the framework.

  1. Turn off or tune down the brain’s tendency to judge and reach conclusions (make inferences).

  2. Pay attention to stimuli in the present moment.

  3. When the brain wanders to the past or present or makes judgments or inferences, begin again.

Tips

  1. Learn mindfulness. There are countless books, courses, and videos on this topic.

  2. Practice mindfulness.

  3. Be patient; being skilled at observation takes a long time to learn. Indeed we don’t arrive; it is a path we follow and become progressively better at this until near the end of life.

  4. Judgment involves rating someone or something along a subjective quality scale that spans from bad (low quality) to good (high quality). Avoid judgment most of the time because it hinders or blocks learning, growth, collaboration, communication and such. Judgment, however, does have a time and place.