| I noticed a long time ago the importance of randomness.
I realized before the iPod, that my music would be more interesting if I randomly selected what to listen to. I wrote some software that ran on an Atari computer which helped me pick an album and a side to play. This was when there were no CDs, YouTube, or Apple store. All of a sudden my music collection became more interesting. I would buy an album and listen to it for a week. Then stick it on a shelf never to be listened to again. Adding randomness to this decision was better than my own selection. Today I use random selection on a daily basis to help select what to work on. Do you spend time trying to figure out what to work on? What if there are a lot of tasks with about equal importance. How do you select what to do? I use randomness as it doesn't matter what I do as long as I don't get into analysis paralysis. I waste very little time trying to figure what to work on these days. Sometimes I can think that God selected my task also which is weird because I'm an atheist. So when something random is selected I can still select how much time to spend on it. Another way Random is Beautiful is to help with creativity. If you're stuck on an idea then open a book to a random page and select a word at random to assist with coming up with new ideas. I have a spreadsheet that uses this concept also. I make lists of words or titles and randomly combine together. This creates some ideas that are unique and interesting. I even used randomness to pick which key principle to work on. Of course if you have important deadlines make sure you work on those tasks first. So look for ways to use randomness in your life you'll be glad you did. In summary, I've used randomness for the following: |