Recently I had participated in the Designathon 2016, the first of its series, organised by Design Singapore with 3 of my best friends.

The result was unenviable, as my team was knocked out in the first round.

A combination of over-ambition, poor team management, lack of adequate resources as well as misunderstanding of the purpose of the contest – led to a very tiring and frustrating 36 hours. The final work wasn’t particularly poor; nor is it good. The judges obviously graded us as “out of point”. I fully embrace and understand the consideration. I would have done it differently if I had another shot at it; but thats beside the point.

The rigors and limit pushing endeavour had unveiled my limitations, psychology, mental fortitude, productivity and especially, my weaknesses. Weaknesses, which are a plenty. The lack of exercise and experience in working as a team and leading a team (“democracy” is not always a good idea); my fixation over the “BIG PICTURE” or grandiose solutions, technical knowledge limitation, dulling edge of design efficiency as well as something thats beyond the competition: the very fact that I had been sitting in the relative comfort zone for too long – I hadn’t been pushing myself to my limits enough.

The acute lack of technical abilities in electrical/engineering is startlingly disadvantageous in this competition. But even if I had them but stuck with the same idea; the exact same outcome would be the same.

Thus its important to look at how I look at “solutions” per se.

The design principle that I had always identified with and advocated is the concept of eco-system; inter-dependency; inter-connectedness of various elements in order to make the singular, more viable that it would have been as a single design/product/entity. This inherently always led to grandiose visions that is extremely difficult to achieve from the outset as well as the inability to create the baby steps required to get there – or at least making even baby steps seems awfully slow and daunting.

Thus the reform of the mind must start from keeping the big vision as vague as possible; while realising extremely doable and achievable first steps – first steps that are in itself, commercially viable and sustainable. Thus with every little small steps, the momentum can eventually bring the design to its full iteration. Just like Facebook, it started off way simpler – perhaps in Mark’s mind, there is already the entire conceptual model which he wanted to achieve – but he took it along his stride, bidded his time, and slowly build toward this ultimate sociological machine that is now known and used in virtually every country.

So, it is imperative that this change must be made immediately. All the side projects has to be done in “hackathon” style efficiency and timeline. Thus maximizing productivity while getting the sustenance work done. This baby stepping will also likely to make things more digestible and eventually bring me to where I wanted to go.

This issue also ties in to my comfort zone problem – as I had been stirring in my own conundrum for way too long. I might be constantly busy; I might be creating value all along the way; but the return on investment is poor. To go beyond is as inertia-ting like how I had procrastinated on my slimming/dieting/fitness programs. Its time to get uncomfortable. Is time to become more courageous and more brave to push myself beyond the comfort zone into excellence.

Comfort zone dulls the edge. Thats why the weakness in the design prototyping went badly. The tools and procedures arent established. Evolution of the circumstances had totally stripped away what was previously created, into inadequacy. New tools, steps and approach need to be created in order to remain relevant and efficient. I also need go back to re-studying design – to refresh, reinvigorate and to learn new things. 3D/Product design should also be picked up.

All the weaknesses resulted in poor fortitude and confidence.

Change I need.