A day without learning

Normally, I take the view it's all about learning. If a colleague asks "what would happen if?" my response is "let's find out".

Recently, a day before a client demonstration, we had an idea for an app, and realised we could probably build it in a day. Sleeves were rolled up, the spike investigation was completed, and we started building. Suddenly, I became intolerant of tangents and digressions. With an eye on the clock, I just announced that such fripperies could wait for another day.

And we built our app. 11am to 4:30pm, fully functional all the way down to the icon. I was delighted.

On reflection, I realised that we had learned something important: that we could build that, "soup to nuts", in a day. Counter-intuitive conclusion: you can learn by banning learning.