My definition for the data utilization
is the act of making practical and effective use of things known, or
information or both of them, that are assumed as facts. This
definition is not perfect, but is close enough for what I am
thinking. Anyone who has better words for the name of the mental
model or it´s definition, is welcome to give better ones. The
purpose is to describe the whole chain from acquiring information to
last piece of the chain, which is the action. The problem with the data
utilization is that most of the people cannot use the whole chain
effectively or cannot get enough useful information.
Information
This word may not
be the best one to use, but what I mean about information is all the
messages, gossip, impulses and facts we receive from our environment
or from some other medium. You live in the information age. You have better possibilities to acquire useful information than any time
before. The problem is you get more
information our brains can handle and the quality of the most of it
is really poor. At least, ninety per cent of the information you receive has a poor quality. And at least ninety per cent of the high
quality information is never used, because of distractions or a lack
of understanding about which information has the highest quality. I
am probably very optimistic about these figures, because I read at
least one non-fiction book every week and take notes from them. And
until now, I have never taken notes that are even close to the amount
of five per cent of any book. I have no doubts, that this blog will
be the same for the readers. It is not a sad fact, it is a law of
information.
Most of the
information received is never consciously noticed, even though, your brains is actually processing it. What happens is that your brains
make a decisions all the time whether something is useful to you or
not. All the decisions consume energy. All the unnecessary decisions
should be avoided by arranging our environment in a way in which the
amount of unnecessary decisions are minimized. And you can focus on
only things that are important to you. This gets more important all
the time.
Understanding (Knowledge)
One can use the
word knowledge, instead of understanding. The former word is more
complicated to me and I prefer the latter. Understanding can be
theoretical or practical. You can get understanding from content and
experiences. For example, you can find understanding about how gravity
is influencing your smartphone by reading physics books or by
dropping the smartphone from your hand. You will never be excellent unless you have some theoretical understanding about what you are
doing. You will never be excellent in anything without knowing the
factual principles about it. You will probably never be excellent in
anything untilyoue have collected enough practical understanding
through your experiences. The combination of the theoretical and
practical understanding will give the best results.
The problem with
the amount of understanding is not the excess of it like with the
information. In contrast, there is not enough understanding in the
world. Understanding is getting harder, because the amount of
information we are exposed to has sky-rocketed. At the same time, the
processing of the information has diminished. It is easier to find a
solution for a problem by searching it with Google than actually
thinking about it. To get better results in life, there is a need to
actually understand the solution you are given, because most of the
solutions you find are not based on facts. Instead, they are based on
beliefs and misunderstandings. The single biggest mistake in
understanding great results is believing you can explain them with a
single factor. This is a reason why it is important to understand a latticework of mental models.
Action
Action can be
defined as ”process of doing something”. This definition is good
enough for me. This is the last piece of the chain, but not the least
important. This is the part where I have the biggest problems. You can
have the best quality information and a complete understanding about
it, but still fail. It is very probable that you fail when you are not
able to repeat the high quality actions consistently. You cannot have
high quality actions by only learning theory. High quality actions
need repetitions whether the action is a decision or a movement of
the body part.
When you talk about
movements and decisions, you are talking about a precisely timed
electric signal traveling through a chain of neurons, which is a
circuit of nerve fibers. Neurons are connected with each other by
synapses. A simple action like kicking football goes through a
circuit of hundreds of thousands of synapses and nerve fibers. The
same circuit gets stronger when we repeat an action.The more
repetition we have, the less aware we are about using the circuit.
The more wrong repetitions we have, the harder it comes to unlearn or
change the action. We will go further into details in the next mental
model, skills.
You should divide
actions into conscious and unconscious actions. I have seen many
different evaluations about their proportions in each person´s life.
Depending on the source, unconscious actions are working from 40 per
cent to 95 per cent of the time. Reality depends on a person and
truth lies somewhere in between those numbers. Conscious actions are
important in improving unconscious actions. It is harder to improve
unless you are thinking what you are doing. Well learnt practical actions are
automated and do not require consciousness. This is actually a
requirement for expertise in them. It saves energy, which is
necessary.
Habits are
probably the most important unconscious actions. Developing the high
quality habits are the best way to get better success in your life.
Bad habits may destroy all the good ones and do the damage you cannot
outdone without changing them. Consciousness is a hindrance in
practical actions. It can be very useful in decision-making. At least
when there are many things to consider and enough time to make a
decision.
All the parts need to have a high
quality
The quality of the
chain is equal to its weakest link. Unless you cannot focus on a high
quality understanding of the high quality information, you have no
chance to act wisely. To do the right things, in the right order, in
the right time is hard. Lets think about a simple looking action like
passing a ball in soccer. This is a very simplified version of the
chain. This is about one way of passing the ball.
First, player
needs high quality information. The pass has at least ten parts. And
player needs someone who is able to show all the different parts and
the whole action to a player. All the information about the different
parts and the whole action should have high quality. Then, the player
needs to understand how all these parts function together and what
are the consequences when some parts are not performed as they should
be. Player should also understand, for example, what is the optimal
power to perform the passing action in different situations in the
game or where to direct the pass. Then comes the passing action,
which should be repeated all the time in the right way to improve the
skill.
-TT
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